P. J. Harvey

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

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There's so much you can do with laying words on a bed of music. You can completely change their meaning with the type of music or the way they're sung.

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I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

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I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been so involved in my job of writing songs that the more actively involved part became channeled into standing on the stage and saying things that way.

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My mother and father are very involved with music. It's completely part of their soul. They have an incredible record collection, all vinyl, of some of the best artists, in my eyes, that you can come across.

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I've always been very visceral in that I feel things very deeply.

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I tried to use words that were dealing with the emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that they felt about their country. It's to do with the world we live in. That world is a brutal one and full of war. It's also full of many wonderful things and love and hope.

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Quotes by P. J. Harvey