A double helping of PJ Harvey this weekend as another video from the 12 filmed by Seamus Murphy are uncovered. This is Written on the Forehead which you can watch below as well as read what Seamus Murphy had to say about the film and song.
SEAMUS MURPHY — “When I first heard ‘Written on the Forehead’ and its opening in a Middle-Eastern war setting and ending with a reggae-riff, I thought of black and white photographs I had taken in hot, dusty conflict zones.
Mixing them with the scenes of quiet desperation of England and that parallel movement came later in post-production.
Call it random, maybe it is, but usually the pictures themselves suggest what works together, the music has a lot to say in the choice too and a sympathy between them develops. It ended up as a way to show how different are all our lives, Us and Them. And a reminder, that despite all our differences we are all still vulnerable with human emotions.
Shooting pictures makes you observe in a detached way, whether in the West Bank, Gaza, Mogadishu or Waterloo Station in London.
Afterwards you try to make sense of them. What they mean will be personal to everyone. The opening with PJ Harvey’s lyrics spoken in Arabic was shot in a pub on the Portobello Road.”