PJ Harvey: 'The Words That Maketh Murder'

The music, at least initially, flirts with jauntiness - jangly guitars, rat-a-tat rhythms and even a few horns on the chorus. The lyrics, however, are as brutal and startling as an unexpected rejection from a long-term lover: "I've seen and done things I want to forget," Harvey sings on the opening line, "I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat."

This juxtaposition is bewitchingly effective from the start, but 'The Words That Maketh Murder' saves its weightiest punch for the final minute, when Harvey poses a presumably rhetorical question - "What if I take my problems to the United Nations?" - over a sinister slide guitar solo. The overall effect is so gripping, so chilling even, that it wouldn't be remiss to mention this song in the same breath as another great anti-war lament by a British female genius - namely, Kate Bush's 'Army Dreamers'.