"The Wheel" | ||||
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Single by PJ Harvey | ||||
from the album The Hope Six Demolition Project | ||||
Released | 22 January 2016 | |||
Format | ||||
Genre | Garage punk | |||
Length | 5:37 | |||
Label | ||||
Songwriter(s) | PJ Harvey | |||
PJ Harvey singles chronology | ||||
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"The Wheel" is a song by the English musician PJ Harvey. It is the tenth track and lead single from her ninth studio album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, and was released digitally on 22 January 2016 and physically on 4 March 2016 on Island Records.
The song was premiered on Steve Lamacq's show on BBC Radio 6 Music on 21 January 2016, the day before its release.Pitchfork would later list "The Wheel" on their ranking of the 100 best songs of 2016 at number 80.
The music video for "The Wheel" was released on 1 February 2016 and was directed by Seamus Murphy. In a statement to Noisey, Harvey said:
In his statement to Noisey, Murphy, a famous conflict zone photographer, described the inspiration for the song, video, and the project as a whole:
Was that sight alone the inspiration for the song? Without being told the stories of people who had suffered during the war, without visiting villages abandoned through ethnic cleansing and cycles of vengeance, without experiencing the different perceptions of people with shared histories, could the song have been written?
I made a return trip to Kosovo in December 2015, armed this time with the knowledge of how the project had developed. In addition to Kosovo, there had been journeys to Afghanistan and Washington D.C. A book, "The Hollow of the Hand", had been published of Polly's poems and my photographs and a words/images/music launch on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall over two nights. A recording session turned art installation in Somerset House which I filmed. The album was mastered and on its way. Disparate elements finally coming together of a project that started with the premise of curiosity and interest.
Making the film for 'The Wheel' involved a mix of footage from the first trip in 2011, rehearsals I shot of Polly in London and the most recent trip to Kosovo. The enormous refugee crisis in Europe had been news for months. I spent some time on the Greek and Macedonian borders, and in Serbia, before traveling into Kosovo. It was happening in and through territories associated with recent conflicts in Kosovo and the wider Balkans. The idea of cycles, wheels and repetition once again being all too apparent and necessary to make.