Альбом PJ Harvey

The West's asleep. Let England shake,
weighted down with silent dead.
I fear our blood won't rise again.

England's dancing days are done.
Another day, Bobby, for you to come home
& tell me indifference won.

Smile, smile Bobby, with your lovely mouth.
Pack up your troubles, let's head out
to the fountain of death
& splash about, swim back and forth
& laugh out loud,

until the day is ending,
& the birds are silent in the branches,
& the insects are courting in the bushes,
& by the shores of lovely lakes
heavy stones are falling.

Goddamn' Europeans!
Take me back to beautiful England
& the grey, damp filthiness of ages,
fog rolling down behind the mountains,
& on the graveyards, and dead sea-captains.

Let me walk through the stinking alleys
to the music of drunken beatings,
past the Thames River, glistening like gold
hastily sold for nothing.

Let me watch night fall on the river,
the moon rise up and turn to silver,
the sky move,
the ocean shimmer,
the hedge shake,
the last living rose quiver.

How is our glorious country ploughed?
Not by iron ploughs
Our lands is ploughed by tanks and feet,
fee-eet maa-arrching
Oh, America
Oh, Eng-laa-aand
How is our glorious country sown?
Not with weed and corn
How is our glorious land bestowed?

What is the glorious fruit of our land?
Its fruit is deformed children.

I've seen and done things I want to forget;
I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat,
Blown and shot out beyond belief.
Arms and legs were in the trees.

I've seen and done things I want to forget;
coming from an unearthly place,
Longing to see a woman's face,
Instead of the words that gather pace,
The words that maketh murder.

These, these, these are the words-
The words that maketh murder.
These, these, these are the words-
The words that maketh murder.
These, these, these are the words-
Murder...

These, these, these are the words-
The words that maketh murder.

I've seen and done things I want to forget;
I've seen a corporal whose nerves were shot
Climbing behind the fierce, gone sun,
I've seen flies swarming everyone,
Soldiers fell like lumps of meat.

These are the words, the words are these.
death lingering, stunk,
Flies swarming everyone,
Over the whole summit peak,
Flesh quivering in the heat.
This was something else again.
I fear it cannot be explained.
The words that make, the words that make
Murder.

What if I take my problem to the United Nations?

Death was everywhere,
in the air
and in the sounds
coming off the mounds
of Bolton's Ridge.
Death's anchorage.
When you rolled a smoke
or told a joke,
it was in the laughter
and drinking water
it approached the beach
as strings of cutters,
dropped into the sea and lay around us.

Death was in the ancient fortress,
shelled by a million bullets
from gunners, waiting in the copses
with hearts that threatened to pop their boxes,
as we advanced into the sun
death was all and everyone.

Death hung in the smoke and clung
to 400 acres of useless beachfront.
A bank of red earth, dripping down death
now, and now, and now
in the air
and in the sounds
coming off the mounds
of Bolton's Ridge.
Death's anchorage.
Death was in the staring sun,
fixing its eyes on everyone.
It rattled the bones of the Light Horsemen
still lying out there in the open

as we, advancing in the sun
sing "Death to all and everyone."

The scent of Thyme carried on the wind,
stings your face into remembering
cruel nature has won again.

On Battleship Hill's caved in trenches,
a hateful feeling still lingers,
even now, 80 years later.
Cruel nature.
Cruel, cruel nature.

The land returns to how it has always been.
The scent of Thyme carried on the wind.
Jagged mountains, jutting out,
cracked like teeth in a rotten mouth.
On Battleship Hill I hear the wind,
Say "Cruel nature has won again."

I live and die through England
Through England
It leaves a sadness
Remedies never were within my reach
I cannot go on as I am
Withered vine reaching from the country
That I love
England
You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you, England, I cling
Undaunted, never failing for you
England

We got up early,
washed our faces,
walked the fields
and put up crosses.
Passed through
the damned mountains,
went hellwards,
and some of us returned,
and some of us did not.

In the fields and in the forests,
under the moon and under the sun
another summer has passed before us,
and not one man has,
not one woman has revealed
the secrets of this world.

So our young men hid
with guns, in the dirt
and in the dark places.

Bitter branches
spreading out.
There’s none more bitter
than the wood.

Into the wide world,
it grows,

twisting under
soldier’s feet,
standing in line
and the damp earth underneath.

Holding up their rifles
high,
holding their young wives
who wave goodbye.

Hold up the clear glass
to look and see
soldiers standing
and the roots twist underneath.

Their young wives with white hands
wave goodbye.
Their arms as bitter branches
spreading into the world.

Wave goodbye,
Wave goodbye…

Walker sees the mist rise
Over no man's land
He sees in front of him
A smashed up waste ground
There are no fields or trees
No blades of grass
Just unhurried ghosts are there
Hanging in the wire

Walker's in the wire
Limbs point upwards
There are no birds singing
The white cliffs of Dover
There are no trees to sing from
Walker cannot hear the wind
Far off symphony
To hear the guns beginning

Walker's in the mist
Rising over no man's land
In the battered waste ground
Hear the guns firing

People throwing dinars at the belly-dancers
In a sad circus by a trench of burning oil
People throw belongings; a lifetime's earnings
Amongst the scattered rubbish and suitcases on the sidewalk

Take palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that're crying for everything
(Let it burn! Let it burn, burn, burn...)

So I talked to an old man by the generator
He was standing on the gravel by the fetid river
He turned to me and answered, "Baby, see."
Said, "War is here in our apartment--let it sleep."

So I jumped in at the riverhead and tried to swim away
Through tons of sewage; they had written on their foreheads
Take palms and orange and tangerine trees
With eyes that're crying for everything

Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!
Let it burn, let it burn!

Louis was my dearest friend
Fighting in the ANZAC trench
Louis ran forth from the line
I never saw him again
Later in the dark
I thought I heard Louis' voice
Calling for his mother, then me
But I couldn't get to him
He's still up on that hill
20 years on that hill
Nothing more than a pile of bones
But I think of him still
If I was asked I'd tell
The colour of the earth that day
It was dull and browny red
The colour of blood, I'd say

I have heard the sound of your call
I have chosen your path
I joined your caravan
We called you the nightingale

I remember how excited we were
The best of life lay ahead for us
We marched on wrapped in your song
For you I gave my five-year-old son

I felt him behind me
I felt him helping me
Every one of us will go to paradise
He sang to the soldiers day and night
We called him the nightingale
Get ready, get ready, get ready

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