The pair had previously been musical collaborators for several years. As a teenager growing up in rural England, Harvey contributed saxophone, guitar and backing vocals to Parish’s band Automatic Dlamini before forming her own band in 1991. Parish later served as co-producer, guitarist, percussionist and keyboard player on Harvey’s 1995 album To Bring You My Love and was featured heavily on her 1998 album Is This Desire?.
On Dance Hall at Louse Point, Parish wrote and played the music, while Harvey sang vocals and wrote the lyrics. The album was viewed by many of Harvey's fans as a minor side project, perhaps due to the top billing accorded the more obscure Parish and her own accreditation as Polly Jean Harvey rather than the more widely recognised PJ Harvey name. Consequently, it sold more poorly than any of her solo releases, entering the UK charts at #46 and barely denting the U.S. Billboard charts at #178.
It yielded only one single, That Was My Veil, which spent a week at #75 in the UK charts. Harvey later admitted that she let Parish handle all promotional duties for the record because she was exhausted following a year of intense promotional activity for To Bring You My Love in 1995. Reportedly, bosses at Harvey’s Island Records label feared that the avant-garde venture was “commercial suicide”, despite it winning generally positive reviews. Entertainment Weekly opined, “This is 'deep' music in every sense; total immersion is recommended.” Musician reckoned “The results are as engaging as they are disturbing....full of strange moves and unusual textures.” Logo felt it was “thrillingly sinister”, while Q magazine praised its “polecat scat and brooding rural blues," adding that it felt "more a series of themes and word paintings.”
Speaking about the album to NME in 1998, Harvey explained "I just really wanted to learn different things, and a lot of learning comes from working with other people. I tend to place more importance on lyric writing than music, and I wanted to somehow bring the music to a similar level with that, but I didn’t feel confident in myself as a musician to do it. I know John can write demanding and intellectual music – much more than mine, which is very simple. So it was really just to test my lyric writing." In 2001, she told Chicago Sun-Times, "People don't even count that, yet that's the record I'm really proud of. It was an enormous turning point. Lyrically, it moved me into areas I'd never been to before. Faced with John's music, which is so different to my own, it just made me write lyrics in a very different way and structure songs in a different way."
Parish and Harvey did a brief UK club tour with the Mark Bruce Dance Company in early 1997, performing the album’s experimental songs with a group of interpretive ballet dancers onstage.
Twelve years later, the duo released A Woman A Man Walked By, also on Island. The album, which was recorded in Bristol and Dorset and mixed by Flood, was released on March 30, 2009 on Island. It consisted of 10 new songs, including an instrumental. All the music was written by Parish, who also played most of the instruments. The lyrics, once again, were by Harvey.
The first single from the album was "Black Hearted Love," which is described as having "anthemic grunge-pop guitars." The track debuted on the Zane Lowe Show on March 2.
The album was described by journalist John Harris, as "...mischievous, deadly serious, elegant and poetic, and possessed of a brutal power – it is doubtful that you will hear a record as brimming with creative brio and musical invention this year." In a track by track synopsis on their website, The Fly described the album as "a body of folk tales, funeral songs and trapped, tangled love songs... brilliant."
Heela
John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I was lost in love
I was lost inside
'Till he said to me
You've got a lovely smile
And I'm saved
Saved
And I'm saved
Heal me with his hands
Heal me with his heart
When he said to me
No no we never part
[PJ Harvey:]
Heal me with his hands
J. Parish:
Well, she feels though she had my paradise
PJ Harvey:
Heal with his heart
J. Parish:
She was a hula girl, she got her hair done nice
PJ Harvey:
When he said to me
J. Parish:
She said "I'll give it all I got to my heela man
PJ Harvey:
No no we never part
J. Parish:
He put his hands on me, showed me what I am
PJ Harvey & J. Parish:
And I'm saved
When I got that heela by my side
And I push him daylight, push him night
The song "Heela" by John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey talks about love and the healing power it has. PJ Harvey sings about being lost in love, until someone told her she had a lovely smile, which saved her. She also talks about being healed by someone's hands and heart. The phrase "heela" is repeated throughout the song, which is a term that seems to refer to the object of her affection or someone who is able to heal her with their love.
The verses sung by John Parish seem to provide more context about the relationship between PJ Harvey and the "heela" figure. He sings about how she feels like she's in paradise because of this person and how she's willing to give everything to them. He also mentions that the heela figure touched her in a way that made her understand herself better. The chorus then repeats about being saved and how the heela figure has the power to heal her with their hands and heart, and that they will never part.
Overall, "Heela" seems to be a song about the transformative power of love and how it can heal those who are lost or broken. The repetitive use of the word "heela" serves to emphasize how all-encompassing and intense this love is, and how it has the ability to completely change someone's life.
Line by Line Meaning
I was lost in love
PJ Harvey was completely overwhelmed by love
I was lost inside
PJ Harvey was also internally conflicted and didn't know what to do
Till he said to me
PJ Harvey's lover spoke up to her and changed her mood
You've got a lovely smile
He complimented her with the comment that she has a beautiful smile
And I'm saved
PJ Harvey was feeling so much better after her lover's kind words
Saved
She felt like she was rescued from her own negative emotions
And I'm saved
PJ Harvey realizes again how much better she is after he spoke to her
And I'm saved
Her feelings of rescue kept growing
Heal me with his hands
PJ Harvey believes that her lover can cure her of anything
Heal me with his heart
His love can heal PJ Harvey's heart
When he said to me
PJ Harvey is now describing the moment when her lover said something meaningful to her
No no we never part
They will never go their separate ways
He put his hands on me, showed me what I am
PJ Harvey's lover helped her by taking action and exposing something about herself
She was a hula girl, she got her hair done nice
John Parish describes PJ Harvey unconventionally, with a reference to a hula girl
Well, she feels though she had my paradise
John Parish feels that PJ Harvey had taken over his life
She said "I'll give it all I got to my heela man
PJ Harvey will dedicate everything she has to her lover
When I got that heela by my side
PJ Harvey is comforted by the presence of her lover
And I push him daylight, push him night
PJ Harvey will always support and be with her lover, both during the day and at night
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Reservoir Media Management, Inc.
Written by: POLLY JEAN HARVEY, JOHN PARISH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind