Kate-echism IX.6.ix

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

To Joe, Jonathan and Neil: Jeez, you guys, IED was only joking about
Sgt. Pepper vs. The Dreaming! IED is one of those jerks who bought the
SP CD on June 1st at 9 a.m. (But The Dreaming is still better!!!)

> Oh come on now!  Much as I adore Kate and much as I am convinced
> that The Dreaming is certainly one of the greatest albums of all
> time, I can not let that sort of remark go by unnoticed!

> -- Jon Drukman

See, Jon, you just haven't quite gotten fanaTiKal ENOUGH, that's all!
Accompany IED just a little ways further down Wickham Street --
into the land of Dementia Katiis Extremis -- and you'll find
that you're in total agreement with him on this point.

> In this context could not 'SP' be the 'big bang' which set off her
> KreaTion?

> -- Neil Calton

Unfortunately, Kate said in a recent interview that she hadn't really
become too aware of the Beatles' music until a few years ago. Of
course this doesn't preclude the possibility that Hounds of Love was
influenced by Sgt. Pepper, but it's unlikely that the link between the
Beatles' records and Kate's earlier creations is very close.

      [	I don't know how much Kate was affected by The Beatles prior
	to *The Dreaming*, but I KNOW she was very strongly influenced
	by John Lennon.  I have a radio show that was done inbetween
	*Never for Ever* and *The Dreaming* where Kate is sort of the
	guest DJ.  In this show she says that Lennon's "Number Nine
	Dream" is her favourite song of all time and that she just
	loves the stuff he did with backwards vocals.  Kate was also
	very affected by the murder of Lennon.  Shortly after his
	murder, she became very depressed.  She installed a camera
	security system in her flat in London with a remote mechanism
	for opening the door and has an aversion to city living ever
	since.  There are several allusions to the effect that
	Lennon's murder had on her in the lyrics on *The Dreaming*.
	"Now when they ring, I get my machine to let them in," and "My
	door was never locked/ Until one day a trigger come --
	cocking," for example.  -- |>oug ]

Peter Lee is to be applauded and congratulated and thanked very warmly
for his excellent organization of the KompilaTion Tape Routing List.
Now maybe we'll get somewhere. Only thing to remember: two people were
added to the list after Peter's divisions were calculated. Can we find
places for Julian Cowley of Honolulu and Michael Knight of Bangor?

> Even though IED's interpretation of the original TKI cover is quite
> elegant, I always thought it was taken from the line in "Kite":
>   "There's a hole in the sky with a big eyeball calling me--
>   'Come up and be a kite'..."

After turning beet-red and feeling intensely foolish following a study
of MarK T. Ganzer's point (above), IED realized that Although of
course MarK is absolutely right, IED's association of the cover art
with "The Man With the Child in His Eyes" is not actually WRONG,
either. In other words, Kate's cover can be applied to both songs,
although its relevance to "Kite" is admittedly far more explicit. (And
if you buy that IED has some prime Irregular acreage in Wickham Street
to sell you.)

Thanks to Dave Hsu for the info on Delius. About Kate's interest in
Delius: The Ken Russell movie (not available in this country on video
as far as IED has ever been able to determine) has a scene in it which
-- and this follows a pattern common to many of Kate's songs -- is
very obviously the direct inspiration for at least part of the song.
(As with "Cloudbusting", "Wuthering Heights", "The Infant Kiss",
"Houdini" and "Be Kind to My Mistakes", once the specific sources are
identified the song reveals itself as disarmingly simple,
straight-forward story-telling.)  The scene (which is all IED has ever
seen of the movie) shows the young Fenby meeting Delius for the first
time, and being thrown into confusion by the composer's extremely
eccentric method of dictating his musical ideas. ("Taaah-ta-taaah!
Taaah-ta-taaah!") This moment is reproduced with uncanny accuracy in
Kate's recording. Furthermore, in Kate's video of the song the figure
of Delius himself is clearly modeled on that played by the actor of
the role in Russell's movie. Both the film clip and the video were
broadcast on Russell Harty's UK talk-show in 1980, during an episode
devoted to the subject of Delius. Kate was a guest along with Eric
Fenby and the cellist Julian Lloyd Webber (who had just released a
record of Delius's cello concerto, supposedly). Fenby said, after
seeing Kate's video, that Delius "always hated copyers, and that he
would have taken it as a very gracious tribute."  One final point: In
addition to the "Song of Summer" there are a number of other closely
related pieces of music by Delius, of which the one most closely
associable with Kate's recording and video is the piece called "Summer
Night on the River". In Kate's video, Delius sits by a typically
British "reedy river" in his wheel-chair, wrapped in blankets, his
face represented by a golden sun-disk (the same that is used by the
post- or pre-apocalyptic "annointers" in the "Breathing" video), while
a white swan (Kate dressed in an all-white version of the bat-costume
seen on the back cover of the Never for Ever album and on the cover of
the French "Breathing" single) glides back and forth on the water at
Delius's feet. As for direct musical connections, IED has never
discovered any, although the high, pure background chorus in Kate's
song (the lyrics of which have never been authoritatively determined)
sounds a good deal like some choral passages from some of Delius's
larger tone-poems.

Ranjit: OK about the music. IED agrees about the curry, too -- that's
a line from an old Holmes film, supposed to show how silly Watson
(Nigel Bruce) is...

Neil, thanks for the Go West reviews. Sounds very good.  IED didn't
buy the import that showed up in Aron's last week -- thought it might
come out domestically and he could save a few bucks. AARRGGHH.

OK, Dave, what's the riddle? IED never was any good at 'rithmatic.
And what's the relation to "Blade Runner"?

Thanks for the information, Michael Chmilar. IED will kill for a good
copy of that show. Alternatively, he will trade for it.

-- Andrew