Polly Jean Harvey

British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey watched hours of war footage before writing the songs for her eighth album, Let England Shake. Here, she describes how she translated what she saw into a mournful elegy about the bitter brutality of combat.

In the past several months, singer Marianne Faithfull has released two CDs: a two-disc set of her hits, and Before the Poison, which includes tracks written by PJ Harvey.