Journalist describes unwitting tour for PJ Harvey song

The first track off British rocker PJ Harvey's new album delves into urban blight in Washington and it turns out she did her homework -- she took a tour with an unwitting reporter.

A journalist for The Washington Post wrote Friday that he gave the acclaimed artist a windshield tour in his "beat-up Mazda" after she requested to see the US capital's "darker side."

Paul Schwartzman said they were joined by a photographer who had contacted him through a mutual friend. Known for political profiles, Schwartzman acknowledged he had not heard of Harvey, described to him as a "musician/poet."

"As a middle-aged man with three kids, a dog and a sizable mortgage, I'm more than willing to acknowledge that I am not what anyone would consider hip," he wrote.

But he said he had covered Washington for more than a decade and was well acquainted with its rougher areas, away from the monuments, politicians and quickly gentrifying neighborhoods.

The result, he was surprised to discover, was "The Community of Hope," the first single on Harvey's latest album, "The Hope Six Demolition Project," which comes out on April 15.

Harvey on Friday released a video for the song -- whose title refers to a local charity -- that opens with footage of Schwartzman in the driver's seat.

The video depicts both impoverished areas of the city and more familiar sites such as the Washington Monument as Harvey offers her own tour musically -- set to her trademark guitar that draws from both punk and blues.

"Here's the highway to death and destruction / South Capitol is its name," she sings, referring to the main artery in the historic but low-income neighborhood of Anacostia.

"Does this look like a nice place? Here's the old mental institution," she sings.

The song culminates as Harvey -- and, in the video, an African-American church choir -- sings, "They're gonna put a Walmart here."

Schwartzman, who said that he told her on his tour that the chain was coming to the neighborhood, voiced mixed feelings about the concluding imagery.

"The video's joyousness, punctuated by the image of a congregant raising his arms, is palpable. But then comes the uncomfortable thought: Salvation as a big-box store is hollow, especially for neighborhoods of boundless needs," he wrote.

Harvey, who has said little about her upcoming album, won rave reviews starting in the 1990s for her experimental rock in which she plays virtually all of the instruments.

Her last album, 2011's politically charged "Let England Shake," won the Mercury Prize, the second time she has taken the prestigious British award.