The Wheel (song)
| "The Wheel" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
_(Front_Cover).png) | ||||
| Single by PJ Harvey | ||||
| from the album The Hope Six Demolition Project | ||||
| Released | 22 January 2016 | |||
| Format | ||||
| Genre | Garage punk[1] | |||
| Length | 5:37 | |||
| Label | ||||
| Songwriter(s) | PJ Harvey | |||
| PJ Harvey singles chronology | ||||
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"The Wheel" is a song by the English musician PJ Harvey. It is the tenth track and lead single from her ninth studio album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, and was released digitally on 22 January 2016 and physically on 4 March 2016 on Island Records.[2][3]
The song was premiered on Steve Lamacq's show on BBC Radio 6 Music on 21 January 2016, the day before its release.[4] Pitchfork would later list "The Wheel" on their ranking of the 100 best songs of 2016 at number 80.[5]
Background of the song and making of the music video
The music video for "The Wheel" was released on 1 February 2016 and was directed by Seamus Murphy. In a statement to Noisey, Harvey said:[6]
| “ | When I’m writing a song I visualize the entire scene. I can see the colors, I can tell the time of day, I can sense the mood, I can see the light changing, the shadows moving, everything in that picture. Gathering information from secondary sources felt too far removed for what I was trying to write about. I wanted to smell the air, feel the soil and meet the people of the countries I was fascinated with. | ” |
In his statement to Noisey, Murphy, a famous conflict zone photographer, described the inspiration for the song, video, and the project as a whole:[6]
| “ | The song 'The Wheel' has the journey to Kosovo at its center. [An invitation came to both of us early in the summer of 2011. We were asked to attend a screening of the complete 12 Short Films I had made for the 'Let England Shake' album, and to be part of a Q and A afterwards at the Dokufest in Prizren, southern Kosovo. Not something Polly would normally do, yet there was something inevitable about it all and it would get the project started. So we went.] Who is to say what else has influenced and informed its creation? The sight of a revolving fairground wheel in Fushe Kosove/Kosovo Polje near the capital Pristina is the concrete reference point for the title. I can tell you its date - 4th August 2011 - from the piece of footage I made as we walked up the street to our parked car near the train station. It was a passing observation of a commonplace image, one of many that day. While Polly took notes I might have been more interested in something else happening across the street and not bothered to shoot or even have seen it. That day we were gathering material in a blind, optimistic endeavor; characteristic of the way we tend to work together. We had no idea if any of it would ever be seen, heard or would make sense.
Was that sight alone the inspiration for the song? Without being told the stories of people who had suffered during the war, without visiting villages abandoned through ethnic cleansing and cycles of vengeance, without experiencing the different perceptions of people with shared histories, could the song have been written? I made a return trip to Kosovo in December 2015, armed this time with the knowledge of how the project had developed. In addition to Kosovo, there had been journeys to Afghanistan and Washington D.C. A book, "The Hollow of the Hand", had been published of Polly's poems and my photographs and a words/images/music launch on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall over two nights. A recording session turned art installation in Somerset House which I filmed. The album was mastered and on its way. Disparate elements finally coming together of a project that started with the premise of curiosity and interest. Making the film for 'The Wheel' involved a mix of footage from the first trip in 2011, rehearsals I shot of Polly in London and the most recent trip to Kosovo. The enormous refugee crisis in Europe had been news for months. I spent some time on the Greek and Macedonian borders, and in Serbia, before traveling into Kosovo. It was happening in and through territories associated with recent conflicts in Kosovo and the wider Balkans. The idea of cycles, wheels and repetition once again being all too apparent and necessary to make. We salute the life of Nesim Kryeziu (1938-2016) the wonderful man in the film performing a traditional dance with a glass of water on his head at a wedding in his village of Brezne in the Opoja region of Kosovo. |
” |
Track listing
All tracks written by PJ Harvey.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "The Wheel" | 5:37 |
References
- ↑ Roberts, Randall (2016-01-31). "PJ Harvey's 'The Wheel' continues her fiery social commentary; DJDS dig deep; Woo gently mesmerizes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2016-03-20.
- ↑ Leight, Elias (2015-01-22). "PJ Harvey Shares "The Wheel"". The FADER. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
- ↑ "PJ Harvey - The Wheel (Vinyl) at Discogs". Discogs. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
- ↑ Monroe, Jazz (2015-01-18). "PJ Harvey Previews New Single". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2016-03-18.
- ↑ "The 100 Best Songs of 2016". Pitchfork Media. December 12, 2016. Retrieved December 12, 2016.
- 1 2 Bennett, Kim Taylor (2016-02-01). "PREMIERE: Watch PJ Harvey's Seamus Murphy-Directed Video for "The Wheel" – NOISEY". Vice. Retrieved 2016-03-16.