Alternative superstar PJ Harvey begins her first North American tour in seven years tonight in Washington, DC. The return of Harvey, the only artist to ever win the British Mercury Prize twice (for 2000) Stories from the city, stories from the sea and 2011 Let England tremble), is a gift for all serious music fans.

As Harvey reminded all music connoisseurs last year with I die in the old yearinspired by her poetry collection, Orlamshe is still as adventurous and intellectual as she was when she first appeared on the scene in 1992 with Dry.

One of the bravest and most challenging artists in any genre of music of the last 30 years, Harvey continues to push the boundaries. On the eve of the tour, I spoke to Harvey about her return to music, how her poetry permeates her music, why she admires Björk, touring, and more.

Steve Baltin: How has your relationship with music changed in the seven years between albums?

PJ Harvey: I took a break from music for a while in 2017. I was touring for quite a long time, but I think I had also been in the same pattern for a very long time: write an album, record an album, go on tour. I was almost 50 at the time. I think at that point a lot of us naturally take a step back and look at our whole lives now. I think you make the decision, “Okay, do I just want to carry on as I’ve been? Or could I be doing something better with my life or something?” I had to take a step back to figure that out. That’s why I took some time off. For me personally, it was about figuring out if the joy that had originally made me want to express myself through music and words was still there and just kind of buried by time and slipping into a pattern of behavior, rather than spontaneously doing something out of absolute need and joy of it. I just thought, “No, I want to see if I really want to do this anymore.” Because if you don’t, you’re not going to do good work, and I didn’t want to go down a path where I was doing weaker and weaker work because my joy and passion wasn’t in the work anymore. So I had to take a step back, and that took a while, but it progressed, and I found that joy and love in music and expression through words and song again. At this stage of my life, I feel like I’ve come out of that hiatus and come out the other side knowing that this is what I want to do, what I love. I’ve come into it in a different way, maybe because I’m older and I’ve realized that maybe I’m entering the last third of my life and I want to maximize the benefit. I find a lot of hope in my audience when I can share a moment with these people that I may have never met before. To spend that moment with them in that room, sharing music and emotions, seems to me to be of great importance and actually a part of life itself, because I think when it comes down to it, the things that are of great value are actually quite simple. It’s like showing someone kindness, sharing a loving moment, or appreciating love in those little moments. It’s not big, grand things, but the smallest moments. That’s what I’ve learned to appreciate and I think that’s where I put my hope, in an individual way. I always want to have the hope that I can become a better person, a better friend, a better artist, or someone who touches people more and gives to them, like they do for me.

Baltin: What I love about poetry is that every word is so important. Every word serves a purpose.

Harvey: I have become more and more interested in poetry over the last 15 years. It started with Let England tremble. I knew it was very difficult to find the right words to write about the war and England’s relationship to wars, to find the right balance and not sound like you were preaching to people or like you were biased in any way. I wanted to have a completely unbiased view, almost a child’s view that I could just put out there for people to think about and make up their own minds on. I knew it was very difficult to get that right. So I started studying poetry and I read a lot of World War I poets, read a lot of contemporary poets as well and started taking poetry classes at that time because, as you just said, every word counted and was of great importance. Then it went on like that. After that I just became so fascinated with becoming a better poet and learning the craft that I continued my studies and I still do to this day. I study with a Scottish poet called Don Paterson who has been my mentor for about 15 years. I am still learning, but it continued through the following album, which also became my first book of poems, entitled The Han Basind. It was an album called The Hope Six demolition project. Then to the current work that we will be performing, but that is a volume of poetry in the Dorset dialect entitled OrlamAn album was released called I die in the old year. It’s become a pattern that I work by. I’ve always wanted to improve as a songwriter, but I fell in love with poetry. Now I’m just trying to improve in both. I think they’re very different disciplines. In poetry, as you said, every word counts. It can be very dense, you have to have everything to make the atmosphere, the emotion, the story work on the page. All you have is the page and the black ink and the shape that the ink creates on the page. But with songs, the words can be much slimmer, much more like a sketch, because the music fills in the rest, the music fills in the emotion, the music either undermines what you’re saying or enhances it or doubles its intensity. With songs, the music takes care of so much more, so the words can be much less dense.

Baltin: If there is a poem you wish you had written, what would it be and why?

Harvey: It’s so hard, isn’t it? Choosing one when you’re asked to. TS Eliot’s Four Quartetsi’ve returned to this book so many times in my life. i probably first read it as a teenager and didn’t understand it but knew it had a huge emotional impact on me but didn’t quite understand why. i’ve read it so many times throughout my life. i read it again now intensely and each time it touches me in a different way. that would be an example. if i were even remotely able to write a poem like that. not that i ever will but i’m only saying that because i’m listening to it right now and reading it out loud and listening to it and reading it to myself.

Baltin: Are there any older songs that you’re playing now on this tour that have a completely new meaning for you or that you appreciate differently now, just like you appreciate TS Eliot differently every time you read it?

Harvey: I still enjoy playing some of the earlier songs like ’50 Foot Queenie’ or ‘Dress’, but now it’s been 30 years since I wrote them. When I wrote them I was a young woman. I can approach them differently now and enjoy them in a different way. I can enjoy them as the strong songs that they were and are and yet not have to completely fall into the teenager who wrote them. That’s how I get to those songs. Then there are other songs that I can fully embody at this stage of my life that I’m at now and those are probably the newer songs. I mean, on this tour we’ve found that playing some of the songs like ‘Words That Maketh Murder’ and ‘The Glorious Land’ has taken them to a different level of understanding considering what’s happening in the world now when they were written. Songs and poems can take on different meanings depending on the current time you’re in.

Baltin: Are there songs by I die in the old year that you were surprised at how people reacted to it live?

Harvey: Yeah, actually a song like ‘Lwonesome Tonight’. I really wasn’t sure how that would be received because it’s such a fragile song, so delicate, and I didn’t know how it would come across. People seem to be transfixed when we play that, which surprised me. A song like ‘All Souls’, which we’re going to play on this tour, which on the album relies so much on the atmosphere created by the recording, but again seems to work in a kind of trance-like way live. We seem to be able to conjure up the same magic that we do on the record, so that was a welcome surprise too.

Baltin: Are there any artists you really admire for the work they did later in their career and because they still have that passion?

Harvey: What I probably admire most about other artists is their ability to keep moving forward. You mentioned Bob Dylan, but I think Rough and violent pathshis last album, was one of his best lyrically ever. The lyrics on this record were just amazing. Nothing brings me more joy than seeing an artist so far along in their career and wisdom and still coming up with something new. I always admire Björk for always pushing herself into new territory, you’re never quite sure what’s coming next. I love that about her too.