Songfacts®:

• This is a track from The Hope Six Demolition Project, a record inspired by Harvey's trips to Washington, DC, Kosovo and Afghanistan with photographer Seamus Murphy. This song is named after the heavily polluted waterway that runs through Washington D.C.
• Harvey's visits allowed her to observe life in the trenches. She told Uncut: "When I'm writing a song, I visualize the entire scene. I can see the colors, I can tell the time of day, I can sense the mood, I can see the light changing, the shadows moving, everything in that picture. Gathering information from secondary sources felt too far removed for what I was trying to write about. I wanted to smell the air, feel the soil and meet the people of the countries I was fascinated with."