THE MOST UNDERCELEBRATED ROCK ‘N’ ROLL BANGER EVER RECORDED: P.J. HARVEY’S “YURI-G.”

 

“So lovesick I could die!” Play this loud. 

It’s hard to choose the proper modifier when it comes to P.J. Harvey’s singular banger, “Yuri-G.” We settled on “undercelebrated” but you, Dear Reader, could also say “underrecognized,” “underplayed,” or “under-moshed.” Many people know P.J. Harvey, of course, but don’t always associate her with a racketing punk treatment that can rattle your marbles. “Yuri-G” climbs and climbs until the lyrics drop out and the music approximates the wild roar of rocket flight. And that’s fitting, since the song memorializes the first human being—Yuri Gargarin—who traveled into outer space. I cannot speak for the late Soviet cosmonaut, but I myself would want to hear precisely this song if I were hurtling heavenward—or moonward.

And the moon—as both “Luna” the heavenly body and “Luna” the chariot-driving Roman goddess—also figures prominently in the proceedings. Harvey has “been looking up all night” until her neck stiffens and her head aches. She would seem to fuse the image of the moon and the goddess into one form that she envies for its mesmerizing cleanliness. In an effort to “draw” this figure “down on [her,]” the singer pokes needles—a mile deep—into a representation of this “Luna.” Some may read an element of sexuality into that spell-casting, and they wouldn’t be wrong, but it also represents a desire to be bathed in the purifying light of a fascinating celestial body. (Just who is the “doctor,” though, who nudged the singer into voodoo?)

In addition to guitar, Harvey is proficient on dozens of other instruments.

Despite Harvey’s flirtatious efforts to possess her Luna, she keeps returning to the iconic 1961 Gargarin space flight. She wishes she were him, blasting toward the moon; she thought she was him, bathed in a lunar glow. Harvey could have idolized American astronauts who later stepped foot on the moon’s surface but that represents a tangible interaction and may otherwise violate the purity of the fantasy, the yearning at hand. Indeed, she repeats “bring back my memory” just before the song concludes, a plea that might hearken back to a half-forgotten idyllic image from early childhood. By grafting some melancholy onto the song’s final statement, the singer emphasizes a loss. Not simply “innocence lost” but the complexity of her astronomical obsession.

“Yuri-G” should be considered for those enjoyable “hardest song” debates that crop up from time to time. It’s hard to prevent one’s head from banging when the song reaches its apogee. And P.J. Harvey’s relentless guitar playing underscores the riotous truths of some wistful correlations. She did not strum this number on a boutique zither, after all, in the starchy silence of a funereal art gallery. Instead, “Yuri-G” confronts the pangs of unattainability with its unique crunching logic. Harvey’s virtuosity impossibly extends to simultaneous expressions of soaring and tumbling. The song does not merely “reach for the moon” but launches us there aggressively in a way that bares the fragile honesty of our mortality—and we jump!

The lucky souls who experienced this mayhem live.

          Yuri-G
          P.J. Harvey

          Hey there, Luna
          I’d like’ta tell ya
          How sad am I
          So lovesick I could die

          Needin’ water
          My neck’s stiff
          My head hurts
          Been looking up
          All night!
          Been looking up
          (Mmm) she’s so bright
          She’s so white
          She’s so clean
          I’m telling you
          She’s everything
          I’d give it all
          My sorry eyes
          Give just everything
          She’s got me so mesmerized

          Yeah, I wish I was a Yuri-G
          It’s just the things that she does to me
          Yeah, wish I was Yuri-G
          Bring back my memory

          Told by the doctor
          To make a figure
          (Then) needles stick in her
          (And) she’ll be your Luna
          I stuck ‘em in real clean
          I stuck ‘em in a mile
          I drew her down on me
          I drew her with a smile
          I’d give it all you see
          I’d give my sorry eyes
          Give just everything
          She’s got me so mesmerized

          Yeah, I wish I was a Yuri-G
          It’s just the things that she does to me
          Yeah, thought I was Yuri-G
          Bring back my memory

          I stuck ‘em in real clean
          I stuck ‘em in a mile
          I drew her down on me
          I drew her with a smile
          I’d give it all you see
          I’d give my sorry eyes
          Give just everything
          She’s got me so mesmerized

          Yeah, I wish I was a Yuri-G
          It’s just the things that she does to me
          Yeah, thought I was Yuri-G
          Bring back my memory
          Yeah, I wish I was a Yuri-G
          I let her walk all over me
          Yeah, thought I was Yuri-G

          Bring back my memory
          Bring back my memory 
          Bring back my memory

 

Discography
PJ Harvey. “Yuri-G” Side B, track 3, from Rid of Me. Island ILPS 8002. United Kingdom (1993.) Personnel: PJ Harvey (guitar); Steve Vaughan (bass); Rob Ellis (drums). Compositional credit: Harvey.

The lyrics correspond to the 1993 recording. Never underestimate the B-side!