Looking back; looking forward. Times past; times still to come. Those are the thoughts that occupy our minds as one year fades away and the tick-tocking clocks beckon another. Was ’23 a good year for you? Will ’24 be any better? Let’s ponder this with PJ Harvey as she sings the enigmatically titled track, I Inside the Old I Dying.

This is very nearly the title track from PJ’s latest album, I Inside the Old Year Dying. On her website, it is sub-titled, ‘December’. So I think we can safely say that its theme is ‘endings’. The words, though, are a little obscure. They read like an old, mostly forgotten language, or a strange local dialect. But there’s enough ordinary, everyday English to project vivid mental pictures into the mind’s eye. The world is sleeping; Winter is silently waiting for the first chirrup of Spring. And in the hush, the writer is remembering her childhood, when she would go singing in the forest and laughing among the leaves.

And, with that, I shall wish you all a Merry Christmas and a spanking good New Year.