Let England Shake

PJ HARVEY Released Her Remarkable Album ‘LET ENGLAND SHAKE’ Today 15 Years Ago

Posted on by JL

Significant longplayers from yesteryear

14 February 2026

The now 56-year-old, unique songstress PJ Harvey released her 8th LP
LET ENGLAND SHAKE on 14 February 2011, today 15 years ago. One of
my beloved PJ albums.

The record was written over a 2+1⁄2-year period, and recorded in five weeks
at a church in Dorset (UK) during April and May 2010. It peaked at #8 in the UK
and #32 in the US.

PJ: “I knew that I wanted the music to offset the weight of the words. That was very important.
I wanted the music to be full of energy and to be very uplifting and unifying, almost insightful
in its creation of energy.

It took me a long time to find out how to sing such words because to sing it in the wrong voice would have given it the wrong feeling– maybe too self-important and dogmatic. I wanted the songs to be much more ambiguous than that. This was the way that the language was best moved from lip to ear.”

Pitchfork said: “On Let England Shake, Harvey is not often upfront or forceful.
Her lyrics, though, are as disturbing as ever. Here, she paints vivid portraits of war,
and her sharp focus on the up-close, hand-to-hand devastation of World War I,
depicting “soldiers falling like lumps of meat, provides a fitting setting for today’s battlegrounds.”

KEY SINGLE

ALBUM


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Instagram – Linktree – All Albums

PJ HARVEY Lets England Shake Again Next January

Posted on by JL

5 December 2021

Polly Jean Harvey aka PJ HARVEY celebrated the 10th anniversary of her eighth,
gilt-edged album LET ENGLAND SHAKE last February. An uncommon one as
the massive devastation of World War I – the Great War – was the central theme
of this monumental longplayer. Not an obvious event to write songs about, let
alone a full album. Yet PJ did it and she did it pre-eminently confirming once
more again that she’s an artist par excellence. The critics went wild.

The Guardian (British newspaper) said: “It’s a curious idea, but it’s a masterstroke. Rock songwriters don’t write much about the first world war, but, perhaps understandably, when they do, they have a tendency to lay it on a bit thick… Harvey clearly understands that the horror doesn’t really need embellishing: her way sounds infinitely more shocking and affecting than all the machine-gun sound effects in the world… You’re left with a richly inventive album that’s unlike anything else in Harvey’s back catalogue. ‘Let England Shake’ sounds suspiciously like the work of a woman at her creative peak. ”

Demo of the title track

28 January 2022 sees the reissue of the vinyl of the LP, alongside
a collection of unreleased demos which will be available on CD, vinyl
and digital through UMC/ Island. Order info here

PJ: “I never felt that I had reached the place with my writing that I could talk about these things well, in a language that would work. I think if you’re going to talk about giant subject matter, you’ve got to do it well and I didn’t think I had the skill as a writer to do that, up until this point.”

Original full album here…

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PJ HARVEY: Facebook