A Quote by P. J. Harvey

I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music. — © P. J. Harvey
I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.
Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.
I try not to read reviews, but if it's a really important review or somebody sends it to me, I'll read it. It's really interesting when you read a review of yourself, you see this weird reflected image - it's like looking a funhouse mirror. Like, "It's sort of me, but is my neck really that elongated?" Sometimes it's vaguely embarrassing what people think of you. When I was in Italy doing this press-interview day, this guy asked me, "Are you a tortured soul?" It's embarrassing to have somebody think you're a tortured soul, or that you think of yourself as a tortured soul.
It's like soul music, isn't it all soul music? Otherwise what is it, non-soul music? I-have-no-soul music? Soulless music? People need to put a name on something to identify it, and I understand it.
I want to write for people that are trying to do some kind of quality music. What I mean by quality music is not so much the trend, what is hot right now. I don't write trendy, I write what feels good and something that feels good will never get old. Timeless music is what I try to shoot for.
Soul music is soul music. It can be wrapped up in a neo soul package; it can be called hip-hop soul. But soul is soul, and it's been around; it will never go away.
I was a soul singer first and I'd write love songs. I find with soul music it's really hard to write about anything else. But I was 15 at the time when I was doing that and, to be honest, I'd never experienced love, so the words were kind of meaningless. With hip-hop music, it allowed me to talk about political and social things but also to tell stories.
I do not write for a select minority, which means nothing to me, nor for that adulated platonic entity known as ‘The Masses’. Both abstractions, so dear to the demagogue, I disbelieve in. I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.
Somebody told me once it takes an Americana song five minutes to say what a country song says in three - so I try to write country songs. But really, all good music is just soul music.
Kim Coates is really funny. He's a blast. If you have to get beaten up and tortured, he's a good guy to get tortured by.
I am tortured too. I am tortured by belly fat and magazine covers about how to please everyone but myself. I am tortured by sheep who click on anything that will guarantee a ten-pound loss in one week. Sheep who will get on their knees if it means someone will like them more. I am tortured by my inability to want to hang out with desperate sheep. I am tortured by goddamned yearbooks full of bullshit. I met you when. I'll miss the times. I'll keep in touch. Best friends forever. Is this okay? Are you all right? Are you tortured too?
When someone is themselves through their music, it's soul music. James Taylor is soul music to me 'cause it's just him talking about him. It doesn't have anything to do with black or growing up in the church; it's where it comes from. It's just soul music.
No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.
I'm not a tortured soul.
To be a good actor... it is necessary to have a firmly tempered soul, to be surprised at nothing, to resume each minute the laborious task that has barely just been finished.
It's bluesy, rocky jazz. I call it soul music, but it's not James Brown soul music. It comes from my soul. It comes from a deeper place. Duffy has that similar old school soul sound to herself. If I opened for Duffy, that would make sense to me, in my head.
Im not this tortured soul or anything.
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