Razor Blades & the Maltese Falcon

[harvard!bu-cs!sam (Shelli Meyers)]

>Why is this?  Well, I think the main reason is Kate Bush's
>tendency to glide between notes, in a sort of wailing way.  This
>(especially if it's in a minor key) tends to be very reminiscent
>of "evil" songs, which tend to incorporate catlike sounds.  I
>suspect there are even more exact characteristics than that
>which her songs fit.  (An example, just looking at the lyric
>sheet here beside me... the lines that go "watched it weeping,
>but I made it stay" is one of the more obvious cases.  Parts of
>"Night of the Swallow" are like that too (although I like that
>song a lot, actually), e.g., "before you know I'll be over the
>water like a swallow").  I think it's mostly the wailing sound,
>though; wailing is generally a sound of anguish or torment.

Also, I think a "noise" Kate makes with her voice that might
send demonic chills up spineless people's backs (and chills of
pleasure up ours, right?) is a noise that Doug says sounds like
she's "gargling with razor blades".  For instance: GET OUTTA MY
...HOUSE...  or  I LOVE LIFE, I LOVE LIFE, I LOVE LIIIIIIIIFE...

You've just GOT to admit that the first time you heard these, you
said, "oh GEEEEZZZ, what was THAT?"  Debby Boone she's not.

****

>What "Mr.  Cairo" is saying in the song as the film reel breaks is "in
>the back of the Maltese falcon I have a concealed weapon"; the whole
>scene there in the song is reminiscent of but not from the movie.
>(To say more about the Maltese falcon would spoil a great movie.)

Yeah!  Awesome movie.  I think the allusion here is that there is
much more to the Maltese Falcon than what meets the eye...

   --Shelli