Only one in four songs makes the cut for Mercury winner PJ
PJ Harvey throws out 75% of the songs she writes.
The 'Written on the Forehead' singer – who became the first artist to win the Mercury prize for the second time earlier this week, for her eighth album 'Let England Shake' - rejects a lot of the material she initially writes, to avoid repeating herself.
She told The Times newspaper: "I could too easily write the same record again and again, so if I realise a song is similar to something I've already done, I throw it out.
"It gets harder as I get older because I have to write a lot more material and end up throwing out 75% of it.
"It's hard to not do what comes naturally. But you have to challenge yourself."
PJ –full name Polly Jean Harvey – wrote 'Let England Shake' about war and conflict around the world and through history, and while she spent a great deal of time researching it and over two years writing the lyrics, she didn't rely on the internet.
She added: "I use the internet very, very rarely, and then only for some specific piece of research. It's too much information for me. I'd rather work with a limited amount of material and allow myself to explore that than be saturated with things that would dissipate my concentration."
'Let England Shake' is out now.
