"A Perfect Day Elise" is a song by English

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

musician PJ Harvey. Written solely by Harvey, the song was released as the lead single from her fourth studio album, '' Is This Desire?'' (1998), in September 1998 through Island Records. The song became Harvey's highest charting single in the

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, peaking at number 25. An accompanying music video for the song, directed by Harvey's frequent collaborator Maria Mochnacz, was released in 1998.

Background and reception

Similar to the other songs on ''Is This Desire?'', "A Perfect Day Elise" narrates individual portrait of a female protagonist, named "Elise" in the song. According to the authors of ''Disruptive Divas: Feminism, Identity and Popular Music'', Lori Burns and Melisse Lafrance, Harvey's vocals are recorded "with the effect of she is enclosed, while her voice is also layered with an octave doubling." On his review for ''Is This Desire?'', James Oldham of ''

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'' wrote that the song "will provide you with some idea of what's to come, but even its rumbling momentum and overloaded percussion is no preparation for the brutality of some of the material here." on his review for ''

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'', Robert Christgau described the song as "the uptempo single" off the album; nevertheless he also stated that the song "rocks to nowhere." Paul Verna of '' Billboard'' compared the song to other contemporary U2 tracks that were also produced by

Flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

Track listing

UK CD single (CID 718) # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:12 # "The Northwood" – 1:57 # "Sweeter Than Anything" – 3:11 UK CD single (CIDX 718) # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:12 # "The Bay" – 3:14 # "Instrumental #3" – 1:02 UK 7" # "A Perfect Day Elise" – 3:08 # "Sweeter Than Anything" – 3:11 # "Instrumental #3" – 1:03 US promo CD # "A Perfect Day Elise (Single Version)" – 3:03 # "A Perfect Day Elise (Research Hook)" – 0:10

Charts

References

External links

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PJ Harvey - "A Perfect Day Elise" official music video
{{DEFAULTSORT:Perfect Day Elise 1998 singles PJ Harvey songs Island Records singles Song recordings produced by Flood (producer) Songs written by PJ Harvey 1998 songs