Kate-echism VI.2.xvii

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu]

>Get real.  Expecting every year to produce a "Sgt. Pepper" is a sure
>way to become a surly old man clinging to his Klassik Rock and whining
>about how "they just don't make music like that anymore."
 
Well, how old do you think IED is, anyway? How do you know he ISN'T
a surly old man?
 
>(Except for Kate of course, but after her upcoming
>collaboration with Sonic Youth IED may give up on her too.)
 
Shocking humour. (These kids today...)
 
>Anyhow, what kind of mark has "The Dreaming" made in history?  Surely
>nothing in comparison with the overwhelming one made by
>any of the Beatles' later albums.
 
That's true. Perhaps it was unfair of IED to dismiss 1986 simply
because nothing as important as Sgt. Pepper appeared the whole year.
Skylarking, however, for all its points of undeniable
originality, is essentially an exercise within the very narrow
restrictions of a specific genre, and as such is forever fated to
be compared mainly with other -- earlier -- works of its kind. That
is just the kind of pigeon-hole that Kate's last two
albums have entirely avoided. They are without genre, outside of specific
reference-points, and high up in the ether with the small handful of
other genre-breaking records like Sgt. Pepper.
 
>1. I did say, "excepting the lyrics," but why insipid? They're pop songs.
 
What on earth does it matter what you call them? Pop songs or serious
poetry, they still should avoid insipidity! Unless of course your
sensibility is so dull that you don't care or can't tell the difference.
It really bothers IED that people can still say things like "It's just
a pop song!" or "It's only rock'n'roll!"
The existence of records like The Dreaming and Sgt. Pepper's LHCB
are proof positive that "pop songs" and "rock'n'roll" can transcend
their ignoble origins and attain a higher status. Every time someone
excuses a piece of stupid music on the mere grounds that "it's only
pop," he lowers the standard still further, or at the very least
perpetuates a myth that only encourages more idiotic "rock'n'rollers"
to make still more crappy, insipid pieces of junk. And all the while
The Dreaming is hovering over their heads in The Big Sky, if only
the fools would stop looking down at the ground, make an effort
and lift their sights higher.
 
>Forcing everything to fit one set of standards gives you nothing but
>ulcers.
 
IED isn't setting the standards, Kate Bush is. Now that they've
been set, it's up to the other artists to meet them on their own.
Besides, IED, though a very old man, still has a sound stomach --
but thanks for your concern.
 
>Remember what people said about "Never Mind the Bollocks" or
>"Rocket to Russia"?  "Gawd, how can you listen to this stuff when
>there's Great Art like Pink Floyd and Yes and ELP?"
 
IED didn't say that. Although he didn't hear Kate until a few months
later, he was still able to appreciate genuine power and sincerity in
NMBs when he heard it. And there's a huge distance separating Pink Floyd
from Yes and ELP, but none of them has made any Great Art, and IED
never said or implied that they had. (He thinks |>oug did, though...)
 
>2. If you describe the lyrics to "Skylarking" as "insipid", what would you
>say about "Lovely Rita Meter Maid"?  Or "A Little Help From My Friends"?
 
IED would have agreed that "When I'm Sixty-Four" has pretty insipid
sentiments in its lyrics, but the two examples you have given --
especially "A Little Help From My Friends" -- are definitely
not insipid! There's a distinct note of irony throughout
"Lovely Rita". The words to "A Little Help From My Friends"
were earth-shaking in 1967, and they still hold up. There's
a big difference between sincerity and banality.
 
>3. Just 'cause you put in the oven for a year don't mean it's gourmet.
>Kate writes good lyrics, but not that exceptionally good; David Byrne
>circa "Remain In Light" blows away any lyrics Kate has written.
 
We both agree that Kate writes good lyrics, so IED won't quibble
over whether they're good or exceptionally good. But David Byrne's
lyrics, even in the best T. Heads LP of all (Remain in Light), are
extremely self-conscious avant-garde plays on words and
collages of verbal "objets trouves". It comes across well in the
context of the music, but on its own, since it purports to be a kind
of contemporary poetry, it often falls with a resounding thud.
Kate's lyrics, on the other hand, are not poetry, nor has she ever
meant them to be taken as examples of Art, except insofar as they
strengthen the meaning of the music: a far cry from Byrne's arty lyrics.
Kate's only poetry published to date was written when she was still
in grammar school, and its whole organization, vocabulary, attitude
and rhythm is entirely unlike any of her song lyrics. Her lyrics
are conversational in style; they read like the confessional
speeches of the characters in the story which the song illustrates;
and the metric and (very occasional) rhyming form in which they appear
on the page are simply the result of the demands of the music. Where
Byrne's avant-garde word-"compositions" are highly self-conscious,
Kate's stories are as UN-self-conscious as lyrics can be: the
consciousness is the character's, merely assumed by Kate, and intended
to be understood not as poetic language of any sort, but as the
spontaneous confession of a character living his experience in the
musical "parallel world" of the story.
 
>If I
>put enormous amounts of effort and dozens of references into some song
>lyrics, that would be no guarantee of their greatness.
 
It certainly wouldn't.
 
>(IED's wilder ravings and thrashings
>give me knee-jerk counter-reactions)
 
IED would like to point out that his defenses of Kate are
rarely wild, but are nearly always carefully written
and argued with specific examples. The "counter-reactions",
however, are almost invariably just as you describe them.
 
>Anyhow, just to prove I do like Kate
>I will point out that I noticed today
>in the "We let the weirdness in" ending of "Leave It Open" a very faint
>backwards male voice hiding in the background.
>I think it will take some
>equipment and really good ears to figure out what it's saying.
 
Good luck, but IED doesn't believe you've heard it correctly.
There IS a real backwards track going simultaneously with the
"fake" backwards track (which is actually a backwards tape of Kate
singing "ni ssendriew eht tel eW", so that it ends up sounding like "We
let the weirdness in" FORWARDS again, but so weirdly that for a long time
many people thought it was actually something like "They said
they were buried here" played BACKWARDS, if you follow this...)
 
But the REAL backwards track to which you're referring is, as far as
IED has been able to ascertain, not vocal, but entirely instrumental.
Along with some other instrumental sounds,
there is what sounds a bit like a backwards tom-tom (which sounds, in
turn, a bit like a forwards tablah drum), and this is at about the
hertz-level of a male speaking voice. This is probably what you're
hearing, although IED would be elated to learn otherwise.
 
>By the way, a few years ago I heard on the radio a song referred to as
>"Dreamtime" which was basically like a combination of the a- and b-sides of
>the single of "The Dreaming".  Is there such a thing, or were they just
>edited together skilfully?
 
|>oug will have answered this already, but for the record there IS
an instrumental version of "The Dreaming". It's called "Dreamtime",
and it appears on the b-side of the seven-inch of "The Dreaming".
Most of the instrumental is identical to the LP mix, except for
the absence of Kate's lead vocal, and except in the last minute of
the track, where the mix is changed and extended, ending with a
very long (circularly breathed) dijeridu solo by Rolf Harris,
who ends the track with the comment: "...and stuff like that."
 
In answer to Bill's new permutation of "andrew marvick is ied",
IED would like to correct him: it's not
 
wicinski raved, armed
 
but
 
wicinski dread marv.
 
-- Giro (filling in for Raffles and Andrew, who have gone
off for a trip, leaving me to do all of IED's bloody typing)