PJ Harvey has released a demo recording of “Eugene Alone,” a song she co-wrote with Ben Power for the new play London Tide. Stream it below.
Written from the perspective of character Eugene Wrayburn (played by Jamael Westman), the song’s lyrics express guilt for being involved in a love triangle: “Can I find a way to move on/ From the memory of her dress?”
“Whenever I approached writing a song for a character I would discuss with Ben and [director Ian Rickson] what the character is going through at that time, and what emotion needed to be expressed through the music,” Harvey shared in a statement on her official website,
The artist continued, “We would talk about what had happened immediately before, what was going to happen next, time of day or night… As the play evolved we began to see how we could make the songs work hard for us in a way that meant that Ben could edit text from the body of the play as the song had expressed much of it.”
London Tide opened today at the National Theatre in London and is based on Charles Dickens’ final completed novel, Our Mutual Friend. It runs through late June, and you can get tickets here.
This summer, Harvey will play several European festivals — including Primavera Sound, Roskilde Festival, and Rock Werchter — ahead of a North American tour in support of her latest album, I Inside the Old Year Dying. Grab your seats here.