Let England Shake Een album uit 2011 met songs over de Eerste Wereldoorlog.

Albert van der Kaap, Enschede, albert@vanderkaap.org      

P.J.Harvey

Let England Shake

In 2011 maakte PJ Harvey het album Let England Shake, met songs over de Eerste Wereldoorlog dat van het Britse muziekblad NME  een 10/10 kreeg. Journalist Mike Williams beschreef de kracht van het album als volgt:

“Francis Ford Coppola can lay claim to the war movie. Ernest Hemingway the war novel. Polly Jean Harvey, a 41-year-old from Dorset, has claimed the war album.”

De rode draad door Let England Shake is de oorlog die het einde van de Britse wereldhegemonie in luidde en meer in het bijzonder de slag bij Gallipoli. Een slag die in ons land nauwelijks bekend is, maar in bijvoorbeeld Australië nog jaarlijks op 25 april groots herdacht word, ANZAC-day.

In 1915 begon de Britse marine aan de Dardanellencampagne, een van de vele voorbeelden van de zinloosheid van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. De Slag bij Gallipoli resulteerde in een half miljoen doden, zonder een meter terreinwinst.

• Let England Shake
  
  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.

• All and everyone
  De Slag bij Gallipoli in All and Everyone, waarin ze beschrijft hoe in de volle zon de dood kwam voor een ieder die de strook strand op trok.
  
  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 words that maketh murder
  In The Words That Maketh Murder worden de persoonlijke ervaringen van een loopgraafsoldaat beschreven ("I’ve seen and done things I want to forget, I have seen soldiers fall like loafs of meat"). Diit alles zeer beeldend.
  
  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?

• Hanging in the wire
  Bij goede beluistering van de teksten zie je het niemandsland voor je. Losse ledematen in de bomen, het continu gegier van granaten over het modderige landschap. De doordraaiende soldaat. De soldaat hangend in het prikkeldraad in Niemandsland
  
  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

• On Battleship Hill
  
  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.

• The Colour of the Earth
  
  Louis was my dearest friend
  Fighting in the ANZAC trench
  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
  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 

Referenties

• nu.nl
• Lyrics

 

Copyright:  Albert van der Kaap, 2011