PJ Harvey releases new song ‘Voyager’ inspired by NASA

PJ Harvey is sending a message from deep space. The British singer-songwriter has released a comprehensive new song, ‘Voyager’, inspired by NASA’s legendary Voyager probe, which was launched in 1977 and continues to travel almost 50 years later.

Conceived during the sessions for Harvey’s next album, details of which are yet to be announced, ‘Voyager’ was given new life when physicist Professor Brian Cox invited Harvey to contribute the song to his live Emergence stage show in the UK later this year. The song was later recorded with a full orchestra at Miraval Studios in Provence, France.

Lyrically, the song also references the late astronomer Carl Sagan. His 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot, was inspired by images of Earth taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 from the edge of the solar system. In it, Sagan described the planet as a “clump of dust floating in the sun’s rays.”

Harvey said in a statement: “I was excited about the challenge of creating a song in the ‘voice’ of Voyager 2. I’ve long been fascinated by spaceships and their journeys, and asked myself, ‘If I could do that, what would it say to us?’ This was an inspired route to develop this song.”

“This song had already begun to emerge as part of the ongoing work for my new album, so when Professor Brian Cox invited me to write a piece for his new show, I sent him a voice memo of the song to see if it would resonate,” she continued. “It immediately reminded him of the Voyager spacecraft and the sound of its signal being sent back to Earth. Using these ideas as a starting point, he developed the song and discussed the orchestral accompaniment with Dario Marianelli.

“I’m very happy with the final result. It’s great that the orchestral score brings such breadth to my music. I really enjoyed researching the history and journey of Voyager 1 and 2. I loved being able to quote the great Carl Sagan and his famous description of our fragile and beautiful “pale blue dot” in the song. ”

Harvey’s latest studio album, 2023’s I Inside the Old Year Dying, will be his 10th full-length to date. This is the band’s first release on independent label Partisan Records after 30 years with Island Records, and follows their 2016 Grammy-nominated Hope Six Demolition Project.

The record also earned her a Mercury Prize nomination, furthering her long history with the award. The Dorset musician has been nominated overall several times for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2001) and Let England Shake (2011), winning twice. She remains the only artist to win this award on two separate occasions.