Synopsis

The video treats "Broken Homes" as a dark, stylized performance piece rather than a conventional narrative. Tricky and Polly Jean Harvey appear within a shadowy, fragmented visual world, with stark lighting and dislocated imagery reinforcing the song's sense of fear, isolation, and emotional damage. Harvey's intense presence contrasts with Tricky's withdrawn delivery, while the editing maintains a tense, claustrophobic mood. Instead of explaining a specific story, the clip reflects the song's bleak atmosphere and its recurring ideas of violence, instability, and fractured relationships.

Factoids & Trivia

• "Broken Homes" was released in 1998 as the lead single from Tricky's third album, *Angels with Dirty Faces*. The single was paired with "Money Greedy" and reached No. 25 on the UK Singles Chart.

• The track was recorded in New York in January 1998. The collaboration grew out of the friendship between Tricky and Harvey, who had also shared a label and toured in the same period.

• Tricky explained that he wrote the song from the perspective of a Black woman from a broken home, then deliberately gave the lead vocal to Harvey. The unusual perspective was part of what attracted him to the collaboration.

• Harvey's appearance in the video later helped make the clip accessible to collectors through *The Ruff Guide to Tricky*, a compilation DVD released in 2002.

• Although Harvey is the most prominent featured vocalist, the recording also includes vocals from Martina Topley-Bird, the Sisters-N-Brothers Choir, and additional background singers.

• The song's stark trip-hop production marked another meeting point between Tricky's experimental electronic style and Harvey's increasingly adventurous work around the period of *Is This Desire?*.