Mailbag; _Jig_of_Life_: complete lyrics

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

 To: Love-Hounds@EDDIE>MIT.EDU
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Mailbag; _Jig_of_Life_: complete lyrics

 >     Is it my imagination or does Kate sing:
 >
 >                     you keep me going
 >                     you keep the shit away
 >
 >in "Not This Time"?
 >    Or maybe my recording or ears are going bad. . .
 >
 > -- Douglas Weiman

     There was considerable discussion on this issue in Love-Hounds
a couple of years (that long already?) ago. IED, for one, agrees
with your interpretation. The word must be "shit". It makes perfect
sense, and there is no reasonable alternative.
     On the other hand, in _Kate_Bush_Complete_, the lyrics are
printed "And it keeps the ship away." IED thinks this is either an honest
mishearing by Cecil Bolton and/or Peter FitzGerald-Morris (it's not clear
which one edited the lyrics), or a deliberate Bowdlerization. Peter
has hinted that Kate (or members of her family, at least) had a chance
to review the book prior to publication, which introduces the possibility
--albeit a remote one--that there was a decision from the source to
sanitize it after the fact. Seems very unlikely. IED can't understand it.
     There is another similarly censored line in the annals of KT
lyric-sheets. In the printed lyrics of _Ran_Tan_Waltz_--in the Japanese
edition of the _Babooshka_ single--the line (a daring pun even for
Kate) "If she picks on a Dick that's too big for her pride" was
altered to "If she thinks the Gentleman's too big for a ride."

 >In case you're curious, the first time I ever heard Kate was when      she
 >was doing 'Wuthering Heights' on some late-night American TV show in the
 >mid-70's.  I thought it was Saturday Night Live, but a few weeks ago
 >someone (IED???? or |>oug????) insisted that KaTe had NEVER been on
 >SNL.
 >
 >-- Laura

     Neither IED nor Doug would have said that. Kate did appear
on _SNL_ late in 1979. Someone else recently insisted--wrongly--that
Kate did not sing _Them_Heavy_People_ on the show, but _Wuthering_
Heights_ instead. _WH_ was not performed; _THP_ was, along with
_The_Man_With_the_Child_in_His_Eyes_.

 >This interview, which talks in part about the making of parts of *The
 >Dreaming* could not possibly be from '80, unless John Shearlaw had a
 >time machine.  9/81 would be much more believable.

     You're right, of course, Doug. IED's careless error. However,
to be strictly accurate, a time machine need not have been required.
In September of 1980 Kate wrote _Sat_In_Your_Lap_, apparently
producing a demo (which was used as the basis for the single
version) at that time. It is not inconceivable that other _TD_
tracks were begun that early, too. IED agrees that the interview dates
from a year later than that, though.

 >C'mon Andy.  This is a silly argument.  There are three years
 >inbetween *The Dreaming* and *Hounds of Love*.  Clearly Kate had
 >plenty of time to revise her notions of what "commercial" is.  *The
 >Dreaming* was a dismall failure commercially compaired to Kate's other
 >albums.  This fact alone could do much to catalyze the process.

     IED didn't mean to deny such a possibility. Certainly her
sense of what sounds "commercial" _could_ have become more precise
in the interum. But consider: her Shearlaw statement certainly
indicates that her understanding of commercial sound was
very peculiar (and wrong) in 1981. Since by that time she had already
had four years of a hitmaking career in which to develop a
familiarity with the commercial sounds of pop radio, it doesn't
seem terribly likely that she would suddenly figure it all out
after _1983_--especially since we know that she has listened to
less and less of other pop musicians' work during the same period.
So while IED agrees that there is no real evidence for a firm
conclusion on this matter, he still maintains that, given her comment
in the Shearlaw interview, the argument that she was calculating
greater "commerciality" with _Hounds_of_Love_ loses credence--not
_all_ credence, but certainly some. And that's not silly at all.

 > It seems likely that Kate learned the hard way that you just can't
 > really be very "experimental" and "commercial" in the same song.
 >
 > -- |>oug

     Now _that's_ silly--and simply false. Of course you _can_ be "very
experimental and commercial at the same time"! Virtually all
of Kate's music is clear proof of that, inasmuch as most of her music is
as "experimental" as, or moreso than, any other popular music of
the past thirty years, while also being (for the most part) immensely
successful in the marketplace.
     The mistake that Doug seems to be making--not for the first time--
is in his preconceived sound-image of what "experimental" music "ought"
to sound like. In IED's opinion, the kind of music which is generally
considered "experimental" by critics and some members of Love-Hounds
is, by its very stylistic identification-tags, so to speak, not truly
experimental at all. The degree of polish, smoothness and accessibility
of surface which distinguishes one piece of music from another need not
in any way correspond with its degree of innovation (though admittedly
it often does). _Hounds_of_Love_ is an undeniable and absolute proof of
this fact.

 >>      As for _Ne_T'enfuis_pas_, happy hunting. Unfortunately,
 >> this song was the b-side of Kate's poorest-selling single ever:
 >
 >How about _Christmas_Will_Be_Magic_Again_ (is that the correct title?)?
 >It is after all the holiday season.  Any hope of finding something new
 >(new for me) from Kate to celebrate the season?

     What are you asking about _December_Will_Be_Magic_Again_ (correct
title)? IED doesn't follow. The single didn't do too badly in the charts.
It reached number 29 in England. _There_Goes_A_Tenner_ did not chart at
all.

 >Kate in pilot's helmut and bomber jacket at the very end of the _Wow_
 >video (from the TWS version).

    That shot comes from the earlier video _Live_at_Hammersmith_Odeon_.
The song was _Oh_England_My_Lionheart_. Trivia question: Which
lens in Kate's bomber-goggles is broken?

 >"The night doesn't like it" from _Night_of_the_Swallow_ .
 >    (How *does* she do that?  Is that all her voice or was that
 >     electronically touched up? )

     It's not clear to IED exactly which sound you're alluding to.
In the line you quote Kate is mainly just singing her ass off (pardon
IED's French). There may have been other stuff done to the voice
there, however. IED couldn't say what. But Kate did once explain
that in order to get the rough yet remarkably rich
fortissimo vocal sounds in _Houdini_ ("We pulled you from the
water!" etc.)--which have very much the same timbre as in _Night_
of_the_Swallow_--Kate prepared by consuming a lot of milk and chocolate,
in order to "build up mucus in the throat". Now _that's_
hi-tech voice-processing for you.

 >"I am the convierge chez moi honey" from _Get_Out_Of_My_House_ .
 >    (What does this mean?  I like to know what I have stuck in there.)
 >
 >-- Richard Caldwell

     That's "concierge": the French title of a live-in building-attendant
or manager--an ancient profession in Europe, usually associated
with correspondingly ancient old women (though men can also be called
"concierges"). "Chez-moi" means "at my house", or "at my place." So the
line in Kate's song implies that the house's spirit (this is really
that of the house itself--as Kate once explained--which has developed
a kind of human consciousness over the years) is fiercely protecting its
solitude from the invading force (the male personality cooing "Let me
in!"): "I'm the manager in my own house, honey."

 >The track _Strati_Angelaki_ is included on this disc <_Balkana_>.
 >-- Neil

     There is a slightly different performance of _Strati_Angelaki_
(also by the Trio B.) on the first volume of _Les_Mysteres_des_Voix_
Bulgares_ (as well as a live performance from their performance on
TV last Sunday).
      Michael Taube asks for the complete lyrics of _Jig_of_Life_. What
follows is a newly revised and slightly altered transcription of the
lyrics. IED has arranged the lines with the double (and sometimes,
unfortunately, mutually exclusive) intention of indicating
(primarily) distinct characters and (secondarily) channel placement.
He has also tried to maximise the narrative logic of the words, without
forsaking the poetic presentation (capitals beginning each line). This,
too, is a sometimes impossible combination of aims. In both cases,
some personal interpretation is required. IED, for example,
has decided that the section beginning with "I put this moment...here"
is begun by the _young_ woman, more or less "testing" her "old"
incarnation's assertion, as it were. This may be disputed by others.
(IED puts the heroine, without quotation marks, at the far left; her
future self at the next indent; and the other voices farther right.)
As for the identity of the male voice saying "she said" in one
section, or that of the "sort of Irish"-accented male voice (actually
the voice of John Carder Bush, who wrote this part of the lyrics)--
IED has no idea. Finally, divisions between "verses", or sections--only
one of which is given in the official lyrics--were improvised by IED
based upon changes in the music.


                              _Jig_of_Life_


 Hello, old lady.
 I know your face well.
 I know it well.


 She says,
      "Ooh-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na!
       I'll be sitting in your mirror.
       Now is the place where the crossroads meet.
       Will you look into the future?


      "Never, never say goodbye
       To my part of your life.
       No, no, no, no, no!
       Oh, oh, oh,


     "Let me live!"
 She said.
     "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
 She said,
     "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
                         ("C'mon and let me live!")


     "This moment in time,"
                                                     (She said.)
      It doesn't belong to you,"
                                                     (She said,)
      It belongs to me,


     "And to your little boy and to your little girl,
      And the one hand clapping:
      Where on your palm is my little line,
      When you're written in mine
      As an old memory?
      Ooh, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-


     "Never, never say goodbye
      To my part of your life.
      Oh no, no, no, no, no!
      Never, never, never!
      Never, never let me go!"


She said,
     "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
                        ("C'mon and let me live!")
She said,
     "C'mon and let me live, girl!"
                        ("C'mon and let me live!")


 I put this moment..............................................here.
 I put this moment.........................here.
 I put this moment--


                          "Over here!
           "Over here!
            Can't you see where memories are kept bright?
            Tripping on the water like a laughing girl.
            Time in her eyes is spawning past light,
            One when the ocean and the woman unfurled,
            Holding _all_the_love_ that waits for you here.
            Catch us now for I _am_ your future.
            A kiss on the wind and we'll make the land.
            Come over here to where When lingers,
            Waiting in this empty world,
            Waiting for Then, when the lifespray cools.
            For Now _does_ ride in on the curl of the wave,
            And you _will_ dance with me in the sunlit pools.
            We are of the going water and the gone.
            We are of water in the holy land of water
            And all that's to come runs in
            With the thrust on the strand."

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-- Andrew Marvick