Customer Reviews

To Bring You My Love

5 star:		(65)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

`To bring you my love' was a CD I bought when it was first realised. The tune "Down by the water" was the reason and I found my self only listening to this song. Shelving the CD for 10 years and then deciding to give it another try.

"C'mon Billy" can make my heart wake up from a winter sleep. "I remember lovers play the corn was golden we lay in it for days". With a steel guitar and a sultry pained voice I felt every word. "Working for the man" took a bit of play till I felt good about it. Now it's a favourite.

I now have 4 PJ CD's. I've realized one thing from this woman, though happy, I'm sure, with her money and glory, she makes music because she loves to. By feeding her pleasure she has earned my glory. Mario

After splitting from her partners Rob Ellis and Steve Vaughn, Polly Jean Harvey spent two years making a CD which would recreate her image. She traded in her heavy combat boots and jeans and tank tops from the men's department for striking brightly-colored dresses. She grew her curly black hair down her back and painted her face with slashes of bright red lipstick and black eyeliner. Essentially, she transformed from a starkly militant asexual performer to a theatrical epitome of femininity. However, as the record proves, this transformation was completely on her terms.

1. To Bring You My Love--A kind of slow, heavy metal song. A real tension builder complete with an organ. Harvey really throws herself into this song with throaty vocals and dramatic lyrics. "And I'd travel over the dry earth and floods; Hell and Highwater to bring you my love. To bring you my love..."

2. Meet Ze Monsta--A song with growling and snarling guitars that crunch and stomp. This is kind of a fun song, probably one of the faster ones on the album. "Yeah, I'm read to meet ze monster tonight."

3. Working for the Man--This one is interesting. It's has a nice beat but it is so quiet that you can barely hear the lyrics. It's worth trying to find them on-line because they are interesting. The song could easily be about a nun or a prostitute. I've heard claims that it is actually about God. It is eerie though to hear Polly Harvey insisting acquiescently, "I'm just working... for the man," as one gets the impression that Harvey would never let herself be subdued thus.

4. C'mon Billy--This is probably the closest PJ Harvey has ever come to producing a folk/country song. It is very pretty and the premise is probably one of the less complex for a PJ Harvey song--a woman who has given birth to an illegitimate child pleads for her lover to return to see the child he deserted. Harvey sounds heartfelt and affectionately subservient as she begs, "Come home, is my plea, your home now is here with me."

5. Teclo--Probably one of the more interesting tracks on the album. It begins with what sounds like ice being shaken in a glass and then dark, eerie guitar chords kick in. I have no idea what this song is about, but it seems to involve darkness being redeemed by dignity. "I've learned to beg, I've learned to pray, send me his love... Let me rise, let me rise, let me ride on his grace for a while."

6. Long Snake Moan--My personal favorite. Probably the most intense song on the album. It begins with a sort of moan and then guitars just slam in and the song practically explodes. The song almost seems to be daring the listener to enter a personal hell. "You ought to hear my long snake moan." Special sound-effects include the noise of a whip cracking in the background. Who can resist Harvey asking of the listener: "Is my voodoo working?"

7. Down By the Water--My second favorite song and probably the most well-known. This song kind of ambles eerily along, mingling a sense of parental protection with lost innocence. Reportedly the refrain is taken from a Captain Beefheart song, "Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water/ Come back here and bring me my daughter.

8. I Think I'm A Mother--Another dark song with a tension-building guitar opening. The kind of song you could imagine playing on a dark and stormy night. Again, it's a little bit hard to understand what Harvey is saying. Ostensibly, the song seems to be about abortion, but in an interview, Harvey claims she was writing about herself.

9. Send His Love To Me--Another folksy song. Although it's lyrics describe being kept prisoner in a desert away from one's love, the song itself seems almost lighthearted in tone. Reminiscent of C'mon Billy, but good.

10. The Dancer--Frankly, I didn't like this one much. It's supposed to be Flamenco-tinged, but I couldn't tell. It is kind of in the same vein as C'mon Billy and Send His Love To Me, but I did not like it as much. The bird calls in the middle struck me as kind of weird and I didn't know what they were as first. Probably the worst track on the album, but still mediocre.

Overall, this album is extraordinary and quite a departure from DRY and RID OF ME. Many people consider this to be Harvey's finest work and it seemed to pave the way for her later albums, most especially my personal favorite, IS THIS DESIRE? Polly Jean Harvey proved that not only could she retain the name of her trio and bring it to new heights, but that she could metamorphose and change herself and her image, while still retaining her edgy, won't-go-quietly roots. Apparently, the strain of this album was too much for Harvey as she suffered a nervous breakdown after this album came out. Fortunately for us, she recovered and managed to use the depth of her pain as fodder for her next album. In the meanwhile, she seems to have found a renewed and permanent happiness.

i am a huge fan of " rid of me", so i was a bit suprised that i liked this cd. In fact, the only song on this cd that retains the raw power of PJ Harvey's earlier works, is the title track. That may be because this track displays her characteristically new barbed-wire voice more than any other track on this cd. While listening to this song, you can imagine a deranged psychotic woman, walking from the dust of the desert to the front of your tv screen, with saliva oozing down her mouth, and her eyes bloodshoot, and no, shes not on weed. Despite all the creepiness, this title track is catchy and captivating, thanks, in part to the organ and e-bow.
however, the fun does not end there. throughout all the tracks, harvey displays an excellent sense of imagery that was never diplayed in her earlier works. " I think im a mother" has to be one of the creeepiest tracks in memory.
Although to bring you my love may not be " rid of me", the beauty of the tracks makes this cd a winner in its own right.

I can't really say that I am still the big PJ Harvey fan that I once was a few years ago. Obviously my musical tastes changed in the past five years. Still if anyone can sing the blues in modern rock, it is PJ Harvey. PJ definitely does a much better job at it than say the White Stripes. PJ's music is more primitive and raw, "To Bring You My Love" definitely establishes that the woman can sing the blues. I must say that my favorite PJ Harvey cd still is "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea" but "To Bring You My Love" is still a solid blues-rock album from PJ Harvey. Although her music isn't necessarily autobiographical, PJ certainly sings with the utmost conviction. You can hear her angst and rage through "Meet Ze Monsta" and the title track. I first heard PJ Harvey when "Down By the Water" became a moderate hit for PJ back in 1995 when I was in college. It wasn't anything that I heard of back then. It was indeed a nice change from the sea of garbage that flooded the airwaves at the time. The first time I listened to "To Bring You My Love", I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I heard, especially the first couple of songs. I had to listen to the cd a few times for the music to sink into my head. Listening to it again makes me wish that alternative rock today was what it was back in the '90s like PJ Harvey, and not this horrid garbage like New Found Glory.

My favorite album from my favorite artist. I've been bewitched and bewildered by this woman and this record for a long time now, and hardly know where to begin. Given these circumstances, it calls for me to say something utterly profound I know, but I probably won't. Too much eloquence has already been spoken here, not to mention that I don't perform very well under such pressure. Nonetheless, I will feebly fumble for something insightful to say.

To those unfamiliar with this album, I want to tell you that this album is a little odd in that some people consider it more accessible than most of her other records, and yet others consider it her most difficult record.

Both would be correct.

'C'mon Billy', 'Send His Love to Me', are fairly accessible and there are a few other songs that, at least on a surface musical level, can be considered "catchy" too. Lyrically and vocally however, much of the album is dense and difficult. Not much is easily digested here, but still, it's awfully fun to attempt the chewing!

Even as you may wonder what this woman is carrying-on about, you can't help but be drawn in by her voodoo spell. Your mind reels, hoping to pin down meaning from this record as if you were grasping at a fish with bare hands. You will try in earnest, but this album won't allow you to grasp it completely. It reveals itselfs only on a temporary basis , as if lying still in your hands for a short while before slipping away again, disappearing back into deep, dark and murky recesses.

For those who like there music easily digestible, this may not be the best record for you. For those who like a little mystery, a little desperation, something that won't go down nice and easy.. this record may well speak to you.

I love the sound of PJs vocals on this record. Raspy, divine, sinister, pleading, disturbed, transcendent. It's as if God has sent his sweetest singing angel and Satan has summoned his most discordant demon to do battle in the form of one female body.

There is much more that I could say about this record, but I've already tossed out too many words as it is. Is this a perfect record? Not necessarily, but what it is is perfectly ambitious. It has intrigued me and compelled me for several years now.

I only wish I could go back to the first 30 or so times I played this album when it was so intoxicatingly fresh and consuming. But even the memory of that time and the very work itself sustain enough power for me to endorse it to you wholeheartedly.

I just hope that I and the other reviewers here haven't set you up for disappointment with all the sycophantic glee we've spewed.

Oh, so what. Get your hands on this record anyway. Even if there were to be any initial disappointment, eventually Polly Jean will win you over, sweeping you off your feet and plunging you into her sweetly salted desert swamp.

Having heard over 5000 albums in my life (due to my profession) i couldnt think of another album sung by a woman that tops this.
When it comes to passion and intensity this LP will take on the best of them (men included of course).
P.J Harvey hasn't before (or ever since) brought out her full furious potential. "To bring you my love" is a package of nitroglycerine disguised in music. Through and through.
Whether Polly is angrily warning her lover, or even better, threatening him, whether she gives him promises of volcanic love or whether she just sings to us her fear and sorrows the result is always the same here: spectacular.

What makes the whole equation even more intimidating is the music (which is where Polly has betrayed her own albums before). The music here is brilliant. Far from her punk-music influences she's fortunate to have a musical shift that ranges to the rock-alternative. Hearing this album more than 10 years after it still loses nothing from its beautiful musical charm.
Now, about how many albums could this be claimed with the hand on the heart?

As far as the songs are individually concerned what you get is nothing less than a barrage of masterful, incredibly powerful songs:
entering with "To bring you my love" (easily one of the top love songs I've ever heard) the album builds your appetite for more like that but you'll be surprised to find out that as the album progresses it only gets better.
The dark bass of "Meet ze Monsta" shifts the mood and prepares the listener for a moodier, angrier route which keeps building up for the next 5 songs culminating in the stunning ""Under the water" and "Send his love to me". In a more perverse use most of the songs here could be used as soundtrack to a film about a woman dangerously obsessed by the subject of her love.

Certain reviewers and music critics have compared Harvey's performance in this LP with Patti Smith or Courtney Love and others. That would be totally unfair. This is a performance unparallel. Period.

picture yourself in a smoke filled room clouded by musty imported inscence burning. your completly relaxed laying back almost out of it. dancing in the far corner is the person that youve always wanted dancing almost translike. you just lay there with no worries watching them dancing in the dark to the strangest but most seductive music youve ever heard that magnifies everything.

thats the best way that i can describe her music. thats how it feels.
if youve never heard pj before, this is definatly the album to begin with...

For several years I have been waiting for PJ to repeat what she did with this album. It simply has not happened. I have decided to stop waiting and just remain forever thankful for what she did with To Bring You My Love. This CD is absolutely brilliant; an impecable effort. All the songs here have their own identity. From the simplicty of the title track to the intensity of Long Snake Moan or the extreme coolness of C'Mon Billy. The funny thing is that despite this diversity, the album remains a tightly-presented conceptual work, with its underlying sadness, its rage and its suggestive, provocative and evocative mood. This CD marked an important part of my life and, not like other albums that affected me in a similar way, it has remained considerably modern, touching and surprising. If you have never heard this CD, just get it. It does not matter it is almost ten years old now. It is basically one of the best things you can get for fifteen bucks.

You hear this term Raw Emotion thrown around all the time, but in rock music anyway I don't think I've ever heard someone spatter raw emotion around on a disc with such an adept hand. Nothing Harvey has done before or since comes close to this album, and if you knew how much I loved all her other works, you would know what a profound statement it is that I am making. At one moment you can hear her agressive lust, in another you hear a dispirited sense of lonliness and in still another tortured angst. Each song is so incredibly focused. Polly Jean has always been a gifted song writer who lays it all out, but the intensity she displays here is shocking. On this album, she took this natural gift to a level only those who have spent heart-wrenching hours trying to produce a work of art can appreciate. I may be the wrong person to review any of her album because I have such a crush on her, but it's a quiet crush that borders on fear. As an artist myself, I know how rarely something like To Bring You My Love happens for an artist. I know that everyone of us ache for artistic piques like these, for they are moments in time that we fondly recall and loathe at the same time. These are moments when food matters very little, sleep is virtually ignored, and all of the other normal human activities are temporarily cast aside. As I stated, Polly Jean has made incredible pieces of work before and after this disc, but something like this usually comes along once in a lifetime for artists, and they spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture what they did in that all too finite and glorious moment. She has to hate this album as much as she loves it.

This is my alltime favorite CD. I have hundreds of CDs and am a truly eclectic music fan (Skronk, punk, brazilian, cuban, african, etc etc). But never, ever has one CD been so consistently played. Each song is a journey. Sometimes the weird things she does with her voice are annoying. On this CD the only track like that is Working for the Man.

This is a bluesy, rocking, even flamenco-ish mixture of great songs, remarkable singing and great playing. Buy it, listen to it, really feel this one LOUD when you're alone. Let the goosebumps rise!