A collection of comments on HOL

[Doug Alan <nessus>]

> From: Steve Tynor

> The Ninth Wave is certainly the type of thing I was expecting after
> The Dreaming. Except for the last cut (The Morning Fog), it's
> excellent.  But, why is The Morning Fog included on this side? It's
> style/tone/mood is much more consistant with that of Side 1 (HoL).

Both musically and lyrically it is the happy ending to the traumatic
tale.  At the very end of "Hello Earth" Kate whispers in German, "Deep,
deep.  Somewhere in the darkness, give her your light".  "The Morning
Fog" is that light.

> I wish she'd swapped it with Mother Stands for Comfort.

But that has absolutely *nothing* to do with what's going on.  "The
Ninth Wave" is a concept piece.

> Also, after the emotionally draining Hello Earth, it's annoying to be
> bombarded with heavy drum beats.

I thought so too the first several times I listened to the album.  Now,
I think it's perfect.

> Side 1 (HoL) is a different story. I'm really dissappointed in this
> side.

So was I the first several times I listened to the album.  But like
everything Kate does, it grows on you with time.  Now I think it's just
great.  Listen to it some more.  I'm sure you'll see the light.

> Why the heavy drumbeat on RUTH, HoL, and Big Sky?

Why the heavy drumbeats on several of the songs on "The Dreaming"?
Heavy drumbeats can be great, and so can the lack of them....

> (and not even interesting ones. I really like what Peter Gabriel does
> with drum machines, african polyrhythms, etc.)

I think they are quite interesting.  I like PG's stuff a lot too, but
everyone doing 80's progressive rock is into African polyrhythms.  Maybe
it's time for something else.

> The stuff on this side is too d*&% repetative!

No it isn't.  It's no more repetitive than much of what Peter Gabriel
does.  I read this in an interview in Melody Maker several weeks before
I heard the album, and I was really worried:

	I like the hypnotic quality of nursery rhyme repetition.  A lot
	of traditional music has that as a basis -- that something
	tumbling, rolling, droning throughout the piece.  It's very
	primeval really.  Getting back to when we were creatures of the
	earth rather than cement.

I thought that Kate was going to come out with a Kraftwerk album or
something.  (Hey, I like Kraftwerk.... I just like Kate a lot
better....)  In any case, my fears are now at rest, because, yes, some of
the songs are as Kate describes above.... and they are great.

> Big Sky is especially annoying. No amount of neato backup vocals
> (which really *are* neat!) can cover up the fact that this is a
> boring, repetative, fairly unimaginative song.

Big Sky is especially wonderful!  It's the best of the commercial songs
on the album (which are the first three).  It builds up a wonderful
rhythm with what sounds like 10,000 people playing drums.  It's really
intense.

> Mother  Stands  for Comfort is quite good.

Agreed!

> Much closer to the spirit of The Ninth Wave. Del Parmer's bass playing
> is very interesting (reminds me of E. Weber's bass on Houdini from The
> Dreaming).

Maybe that's because it is Eberhard Weber?  I didn't need no album
credits to tell me that.  He has to be just about the best bass player
there is.

> Actually, a lot of Kate's music seems Beatles inspired.

Yeah, well John Lennon is her favorite person.  She's really into
"Sgt. Pepper's" and "Magical Mystery Tour".  (Which just happen to
be my two favorite Beatle albums too....)  There's also a big dose of
Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd in there too....

> From: Jeff Richardson

>> [Me:] And when you play it backwards it sings "And they said they
>> would not let me in"!

> I've tried this several times, and I can't hear the word "not".

I made a typo.  It sounds like "And they said they wouldn't let me in".

> This makes me think that they've recorded the two messages separately
> in normal, forward voices, then reversed one of them, then combined
> the two signals together.

I think so too.  But it *definitely* wasn't done by adding the two
signals together.  It's *way* too good for that.  My guess is that they
did some sort of weird interpolation using Fourier transforms and stuff
like that that I don't understand.  I bet the Fairlight allows you to
interpolate signals like that so that you can mix two sounds together
and get a new sound that sounds like a cross between the two rather than
the sum of the two.

I even wrote a letter to Kate several months back asking if that's how
she did it, but I never got an answer.  Oh well.

> The vocals on "Watching You Without Me" sounded to me like they might be
> forward vocals sung in some foreign language and processed a little to sound
> backward.  That would explain why they still sound backward when played
> backwards.  Does anybody else think they might be in a foreign language?

I've played this backwards some more and I think I've deciphered some of
it.  Part of it sounds like "He was long... he was long... he was
longing...  <mumble><mumble><mumble>".  This makes perfect sense with
respect to the subject matter of the song.

>> [Me:] There is another two way message on HOL, though.  In "Watching
>> You Without Me", right after the part that sounds backwards, there is
>> singing that sounds like "really see" repeated several times.  But
>> when you play this backwards, it *still* sounds like "really see"!

> I think that's one of the ones that sounds to me like it's combined with a
> square-wave.  If it's the one I'm thinking of, it sounds like "listen to me"
> and "talk to me", but I'll have to check it out tonight.

No, it's shortly before that.  The chopped up speech is something
different.  There's chopped up speech in both "Watching" and "Waking".
In "Watching" it sounds something like "Help me baby, help me.  Don't do
this to me, baby.  Listen to me.  Talk to me.  Wake up, baby, wake up."
In "Waking" it sounds something like "Wake up, wake up baby.  Bless me
father, bless me father, for I have sinned.  UH!  Listen to me.  Listen
to me.  Help me, baby.  UH!  Talk to me."

> X-From: jerpc.PE.UUCP

>> [Steve Tynor:] The emotional impact of Kate's music is not derived
>> from considered study of the lyric sheet, but from emotional response
>> to the sonics of the performance.

> That's your opinion!  Personally I think the lyrics are
> extremely important.

I agree!!!

> [Now, if only she'd done that little scene with the fox a little
> better... :-) But that's on the other side, so I guess it is sort of a
> compromise in the interests of commercial success.]

I think the vocals for that scene are just right.  There's just the
right amount of something-or-other in her voice when she sings "His
little heart, it beats so fast".

Anybody have any idea of what "And I'll be two steps on the water"
means?  Is this another biblical allusion?

>> [Steve Tynor:] Big Sky is especially annoying. No amount of neato
>> backup vocals (which really *are* neat!) can cover up the fact that
>> this is a boring, repetative, fairly unimaginative song.

> Isn't that the whole point of the song?  I mean, it goes along
> well with the meaning of the lyrics...

No, because the music is great!  What do you think the meaning of the
song is?  I used to think it was about how you should have a positive
attitutude, but now I think it's Kate saying to her critics, "You never
even tried to understand what I'm doing.  You can't possibly understand
because what you care about in life is trivial and unimportant.  What I
am concerned with is what's really important and totally transcends the
capabilities of your pathetic, little, narrow minds, and you are just
missing the boat."  Of course, I don't think she'd ever put it in
*those* words!

>> 	And down the wave and in the flame was borne
>> 	A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet,
>> 	Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried "The King!
>> 	Here is an heir for Uther!"...

> This makes a lot of sense in the context of the KB album!  An
> image of rebirth (as vs. birth in the Tennyson poem).  This is
> very like Kate Bush, it seems to me, to leave off the key lines
> of the poem, so you have to go find them...

I agree absolutely!  100%!

I think that the strongest statement ever made about the relationship
betwen "The Ninth Wave" and the Tenneson poem, though, is that "The
Ninth Wave" was "inspired" by the poem -- not neccesarily based on it or
anything.

> Who is John Carter Bush, by the way?

One of Kate's two (older) brothers.  The other one is Paddy.

			"Noah, c'mon and build me an Ark"

			 Doug