Nightmare Fuel / PJ Harvey

Dry

• "Plants and Rags" is a haunting song with some very creepy violin work in it.

Rid of Me

• "Legs", a song that can be interpreted as a woman making her lover an amputee before he tries to leave her.
  • "I might as well be dead, but I could kill you instead"
• "Rub 'Til It Bleeds" seems to be masturbation taken to the extreme.
• Try listening to "Man-Size Sextet" late at night in the dark. Sweet dreams.
• "Rid of Me" starts off creepy and quiet with some rather disturbing lyrics, and then slowly gets louder and then "DON'T YOU WISH YOU....NEVER....NEVER MET HER DON'T YOU!!!!!"
  • "LICK MY LEGS, I'M ON FIRE"

To Bring You My Love

• "Down By the Water". No one's quite sure what this song is about. Murder, rape, child abuse, infanticide, sexual abuse, jealousy, shame, incest, some horrible combination of any of those: the theories are out there, but what everyone can agree on is that this is one of the darkest songs to ever be released as a radio single.
  • "Little fish, big fish, swimming in the water, come back here and give me my daughter...".
• Hearing Polly Jean belt out the titular lyrics of "Long Snake Moan".

  • Hell, just the intro...
    *a few seconds of silence*
    Polly Jean: M-hmmm...?
    *wall of pounding guitars*

• "Working For the Man" is also exceptionally creepy, particularly because PJ's voice is recorded in such a way that it sounds like she's whispering in your ear. The lyrics could be interpreted as being from the perspective of a kerb-crawling Serial Killer picking up prostitutes to murder, who believes he is doing the work of God.

Dance Hall At Louse Point

• "Taut" from Dance Hall at Louse Point is similarly vague and terrifying. There's clearly something horrific going on, but the lyrics barely rise above a frantic whisper except for Harvey wailing "Jesus save me!"

Is This Desire?

• "Catherine" is perhaps one of the creepiest songs Harvey has recorded and that is saying a lot. Her voice in the entire song never rises above a whisper as she murmurs a prayer for the death and damnation of the titular women.
• While not an overtly creepy song, some of the theories surrounding "A Perfect Day Elise" give cause to mention it here. Just what exactly goes on in Room 509?
  • This song was inspired by the J. D. Salinger story "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which is the first of Salinger's stories about a member of the Glass family, Seymour. In the story, Seymour is on vacation with his wife in Florida. While his wife stays in the hotel room and talks on the phone to her mother about his strange behavior, Seymour is having a day at the beach. Afterwards, he comes into the hotel room where his wife is sleeping and shoots himself.
• "Electric Light" certainly qualifies. The entire song consists of a low, rumbling organ repeating the same riff over and over while a quiet drum machine can be heard in the background. Harvey's voice is extremely creepy, mumbling and whispering about how beautiful some girl looks under electric light, saying that it "tears her heart out" to see. It's never explicitly stated who this girl is or what happens to her, but that just makes it all the more unsettling.

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

• "Horses in My Dreams" is to be avoided if horses already creep you out.
• "We Float" also know as nightmare fuel in a song.

White Chalk

• The entire album. Some standout songs include "The Piano", "Grow Grow Grow", and "When Under Ether".
  • A lot of the theories surrounding "When Under Ether" are pretty interesting. Many people interpret it to be about abortion, although PJ denies this. It could also be about being in a drug-induced haze.
  • "To Talk to You" is also pretty depressing, as it's a song about PJ mourning the loss of her grandmother. At one point in the song, she even states she wishes she could be with her under the earth.

A Woman A Man Walked By

• "Pig Will Not"
• Everything about the title track. A Beefheart-esque snarl about a comic grotesque hermaphrodite “mummy’s boy” with “chicken liver balls”, delivered with an almost pantomimic relish. PJ sounds unhinged as she sings through gritted teeth about wanting to explore the "damp alleyways" of his soul. The first half of the song ends with her commanding him to "stick it up his fucking ass" before fading into a jarringly jaunty folk instrumental.

Let England Shake

• Most of the tracks on Let England Shake, often combined with being Tearjerkers and with a sizeable dose of War Is Hell. Highlights include severed limbs strewn in trees, deformed children, fleeing civilians drowning in sewage and a soldier being haunted by the voice of a dying comrade crying out for help.
  Louis ran forward 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

The Hope Six Demolition Project

• Many of the lyrics on The Hope Six Demolition Project are inspired by PJ's firsthand accounts of human suffering and poverty as a direct result of war and politics during her travels to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Washington D.C. with photographer/filmmaker Seamus Murphy between 2011 and 2014. Songs recall children and civilians being abducted and massacred, child street labor, ethnic and political violence, and drone strikes carried out by the United States.

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