Mailbag

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Mailbag

 > Date: Sun, 27 Nov 88 17:53:10 CST
 > From: "Joe Habermann" <haberman@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>
 > Subject: Origin of "The Kick Inside" (?)

 >      I apologize if this has been brought up before but does anyone know
 >the origin/motivation behind the song "The Kick Inside" ?  I seem
 >to recall this question brought before, but has long since been
 >purged from our spool.
 >     Thanx,
 >
 >-- Joe Habermann
 >   haberman@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu

     _The_Kick_Inside_ (the song) was inspired by an old English/Irish
ballad (there are more than a dozen versions with origins in many parts
of Europe) called _Lizzie_Wan_ or _Lizie_Wan_ or _Lucy_Wan_. The
traditional song is about a sister and her incestuous love for her
brother. It includes (in some versions) the line "When the sun
and the moon meet on yon hill". As far as IED can tell, however,
the subject and that specific line are the only connections between
Kate's song and the original ballad. There are no musical links
that his ears can identify.

 >  From: calexand%castor.usc.edu@oberon.usc.edu (Craig Alexander)
 > Subject: The Chocolate War
 > Summary: New Kate material or just old stuff???
 >     I am assuming that this is old material, since I've heard nothing
 > about it on the net.  Has anyone seen the movie??
 >     What songs has Kate licensed for the film???
 >     Just wondering..
 >
 >-- Craig Alexander

Eagle eye, Craig. IED has been meaning to see this movie since
reading the ad in last Sunday's L.A. Times, and especially since
reading the interview with the director in yesterday's edition.
Seems the movie was made for a rock-bottom total budget of
$700,000, and that Peter Gabriel personally agreed to lend
rights to two of his songs. So one can assume that the other
artists were contacted personally, as well--including Kate.
     IED will let everyone know which song(s) of Kate's is/are
in the film just as soon as he's had a chance to see it.

 > From: rpandey@mist.cs.orst.edu (Rajeev Pandey)
 > Subject: Need some info.....
 > Date: 28 Nov 88 11:48:42 GMT
 >
 >I read through the letters that Kate Bush had written over the years in
 >a recent posting, and had a couple of questions:
 >
 >  -- What kind of a collaboration did ABBA and KB have ?
 >

     The only report of any collaboration between Kate and Abba
came in 1979, when Kate went to Switzerland to film (tape) two
lip-synchs for a pair of projected Abba TV specials (the Abba
Easter Special and the Winter Snowtime Special) for UK TV. For
the first, she did a performance of _Wow_, which was later aired
on the Easter special. For the second, she did a performance of
_Wuthering_Heights_ barefoot in the Alpine snow. A photo was
printed in a U.K. music paper showing Kate on location. Unfortunately
that performance was never aired, but was replaced at the last moment
by a lip-synch of _December_Will_Be_Magic_Again_.
     There is no record of any actual contact between Kate and the
members of Abba, however. She simply appeared, solo, on their shows.

 > Subject: Heresy: Kate can't dance
 > From: Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim

     Well, you're entitled to your opinion, Tim, of course. IED thinks
you are missing out on a lot of very fine and meaningful work if you
dismiss all of Kate's videos so cavalierly, though. There is
considerable interest and subtlety even in the earliest of
Kate's lip-synch performances, and they add greatly to an
understanding of the music. IED has been re-watching some of
those very early performances, and has been surprised to find
that still more gestures and movements which he had failed to
see any real significance in actually turn out to be directly
related to the meaning of the song. Whether they are good or
bad "dancing" or "choreography" is more or less irrelevant,
IED would say. As for her tendency to use her face to express
emotions in an exaggerated manner, that's true. But think about
the songs in which she does this, and you'll find that the
exaggeration is itself a narrative component. And that exaggerated
expression is by no means common to all of Kate's videos. In _The_Dreaming_,
_Army_Dreamers_, _Sat_In_Your_Lap_, _Suspended_in_Gaffa_ and most of the
_HoL_ performances, Kate scarcely shows any expression in her face
at all. In the _TotP_ and _Wogan_ versions of _RUTH_, for
example, Kate doesn't make the slightest movement of her facial
muscles (except the mouth, to lip-synch) at all for most of the
performances. That's true even of some of the earliest videos: on the
_Eftelung_ tapes (spring '78) Kate does two songs (_Them_Heavy_People_
and _The_Kick_Inside_) with very restrained facial expression. The fact
Kate uses her face to express the meaning of the song being performed. If
she feels that the song calls for exaggeration of certain emotional
expressions, she exaggerates. If she feels it doesn't, she doesn't. But
there's no question that the decision in either case is a conscious one.

 > Date: Mon, 28 Nov 88 13:08:35 PST
 > From: dhsu@Sun.COM (David Hsu)
 > Subject: spurious mail mail mail
 >
 >  Imagine my surprise at returning to work from the holiday and finding
 >twelve copies of the 23 November L-H digest (the 131k one) flooding my
 >machine and wreaking general havoc.
 >    BTW, Kate is God.
 >
 >-- dave

     IED apologizes again to one and all for posting such a long article,
and causing the Gh. in the M. to panic. FYI, that 131k posting was
_originally_230k. (You can see that it ended in mid-sentence.)
The remainder was just chopped off by the mailer-program or
whatever. Sorry about that, since the latter 2,000 lines
concluded Kate's total unabridged writings for the KBC
_Newsletter_. IED has no copy of that stuff in a screen-readable
format (only in laser-printer format), so interested parties
will just have to wait for Doug to make good on his promise
to re-post the original in smaller blocks in Love-Hounds--and we
all know how long _that_ could take.

 >From: Brian Scarlett <scarlett@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
 > Subject: KB Laser discs?
 > Date: 29 Nov 88 02:01:42 GMT

 >  Are there any KB laser discs floating around?? (import or domestic)
 >I remember talk of Hair of the Hound a long time ago but my memory is
 >pretty marginal :)
 >
 >-- B. Scarlett
 >   U. of Waterloo, Canada

     There have been four Kate Bush laser-disks so far. All are
available in NTSC format through Japanese import only. They are:

 _Kate_Bush_Live_at_the_Hammersmith_Odeon_ (ca. $60, in a new, digital
    sound remix).
 _Kate_Bush:_The_Single_File_ (ca. $60-90, contains twelve videos).
 _Kate_Bush:_Hair_of_the_Hound_ (ca. $60, contains the four _HoL_
    videos, in CAV format with digital sound. Incredible quality, but
    only twenty minutes long.)
 _Kate_Bush:_The_Whole_Story_ (ca. $100, contains thirteen videos
    including a new version of _Wow_--made up of clips from the
    _Hammersmith_Odeon_ disk--and all four of the videos from
    _Hair_of_the_Hound_. Four of the videos from _The_Single_File_
    are omitted, however.)

 > From: Geoff Clare <mcvax!root.co.uk!gwc@uunet.UU.NET>
 > Date: Tue, 29 Nov 88 15:08:33 GMT
 > Subject: Re: the KompleTe _newsletter_ writings of kate bush
 >
 >     In his ridiculously huge article IED comments:
 >
 > >In fact, Kate earned no fewer than 10 "O"-levels, which is an
 > >exceptionally good performance.
 >
 >I think IED's (lack of) knowledge of the British education system
 >may be letting him down here.  In the British Grammar schools of
 >Kate's school-days a significant proportion of pupils would pass 9
 >or 10 `O' levels.  It was common to take Maths or English (or both) a
 >year early, then the usual 8 `O' levels in the final year (including
 >an "Alternative" `O' level in the subject(s) already passed).  So Kate
 >may have 2 Maths and 2 English `O' levels and 6 in other subjects.
 >     Without knowing the grades Kate obtained it is impossible to judge
 >whether her results were indeed "exceptional" (IMHO 6 or more A
 >grades out of the 10 would merit this description) or just "reasonably
 >good" (a lot of C grades - the lowest "pass" grade).

     IED hastens to admit that he is completely ignorant (or was
before reading your much-appreciated posting, Geoff) about English
school exams. But let him explain what he meant. First, the information
that Kate "received 10 'O'-levels" comes from Kate herself, on a British
TV interview. Naturally, she did not volunteer this information, but was
more or less forced to tell how many by her interviewer, who was pretty nosy.
Kate would never brag.
     Secondly, IED assumed that the number "10" was a sign of
"exceptional" achievement for two reasons: first, the interviewer
(a Brit) went "Ooh!" and looked visibly impressed; and second,
Peter FitzGerald-Morris of _Homeground_ has also said that Kate's
"O"-level performance was extremely good.
     But IED doesn't doubt the accuracy of your report. Perhaps
the reason for this conflict of information is that Kate _left_school_
before ever taking her final year. In other words, she took all of her
"O"s a year before most people would have taken more than two--according
to your own report as IED understood it. Now, even if her grades on
those exams weren't particularly high, wouldn't such an early
completion of 10 "O"s be pretty exceptional?
     If not, IED would like to know, so he can emend his
statement in the chronology. And thanks again for all your info.
     As for IED's posting being "ridiculously huge", that's
probably true, but it's all relative. After all, Kate's
total output for the KBC _Newsletter_ (which took up most
of that posting) only comes to about fifty pages or so. That's
not even half of a paperback book--whereas IED's own writings for
Love-Hounds over the past three years would probably fill a whole shelf.
Now _that_'s "ridiculously huge"...

-- Andrew Marvick