Kate-echism XIX.3.xxix

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu]

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: Kate-echism XIX.3.xxix

 >   Let's face it.  I love Kate as much as we all do, but at the end of
 >*The Ninth Wave*, Kate's character is dead.  She has turned the toes
 >up to the daisies, given an obolus to Charon, shuffled off this mortal
 >coil, dead   dead   dead  dead.

     This is absurd. What _evidence_--and IED means evidence that
doesn't just as easily or more easily support a quite different inter-
pretation--is there in _The_Ninth_Wave_ that the heroine actually dies?
On the contrary, everything that happens in the recording, as well
as everything that Kate has ever said about it, indicate that there is
a good chance that the heroine _survives_ her night in the water. IED
has already given several concrete examples that show this (though
for some reason he never received the Digest that included that posting).
     IED has said this time and again in the past, but Pete Berger's
remarks above require another reminder: It doesn't do any good merely
to _say_ "Dead dead dead dead dead". You have to present some _reasons_
for your position. IED concedes Julian's and Bob's point that it's almost
possible to make _some_ kind of case for the heroine's death in _Hello_
_Earth_ and subsequent "reincarnation" in _The_Morning_Fog_. But there
are many details in the song--as well as a host of explanatory comments
by Kate--which greatly strain the plausibility of such an interpretation.
And although it may be true that Kate hasn't actually explicitly stated:
"The character in _The_Ninth_Wave_ doesn't die," that in itself is
definitely not an argument for her being _dead_--certainly not at any
time during the explicit narrative. She never said _The_Big_
Sky_ wasn't about the history of the state of Montana. Does that
make Montana the secret "true" meaning of _The_Big_Sky_?

 >   Mind you,  she *IS* happy about it.    But in  this cruel world
 >that's not  too uncommon.   In fact, one  can almost look at her death
 >as  her *REWARD*   for going  through life.   This is,  at any  rate,
 >a  very Kate-like  idea, I think.

     Why? How is such a notion "Kate-like"? Where did you get the
idea that Kate's message is somehow an invitation to death? Again,
this is absurd.
     The question you should be asking yourselves is whether the
theory that the heroine dies is the _single_most_likely_ explanation
of all the facts, or whether, after all, there isn't another far
more straightforward explanation that doesn't require any awkward
twists of logic and convolutions of storyline in order to answer
all the questions. _The_Ninth_Wave_ is very complicated, IED is the
first to admit that. But that's why Kate repeatedly took the trouble to
explain what was happening in each song, and what the general theme
of the suite was. And _nowhere_ in _any_ of her comments did she
ever imply that the heroine _actually_ dies.
     Here is one of several descriptions of the story that Kate has
given (IED has deleted one paragraph that has to do with technical
aspects of the recording). It is typical of her comments about _The_
Ninth_Wave_. You will see how logical and linear Kate makes the story's
narrative out to be, and how she explains those events in
terms of the living, suffering, hallucinating character. She also
does--admittedly--remain unspecific about the final fate of the
heroine. But you will see that what she leaves open at the end concerns
the heroine's fate _following_ her survival of the night, _not_ at any
point _during_ the narrative. Kate leaves us in no doubt at all that
her protagonist, whatever the outcome of her dilemma, has not died
before the clock (literally) ticks away the last second of the
recording:

     "The side is about someone who is in the water alone for the night.
_And_Dream_of... is about them fighting sleep. They're very tired and
they've been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and
it's starting to get dark and it doesn't look like anyone's
coming and
they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the
water they could turn over and drown, so they're trying to keep awake; but
they can't help it, they eventually fall asleep--which takes us into the
second song.
     "The second song is called _Under_Ice_, and is the dream that the
person has. They're skating on ice; it's a frozen river
and it's very white
everywhere and they're all alone, there doesn't appear to be anyone else
there. As they skate along they look down at the ice and they can see
something moving underneath. As they skate along with the object that's
moving under the ice they come to a crack in the ice; and as it moves
under the crack, they see that it's themselves in the water drowning, and
at that moment they wake up into the next song, which is about friends
and memories who come to wake them up to stop them drowning.
    "As they wake up and surface, they are coming out of the whole feeling of
deep subconsciousness. One of the voices tells them there's someone
there to see them, and here in the water is a witchfinder. This is a
sort of nightmare they're having. This monster figure is basically
trying to drown them, trying to see if they're innocent or guilty. If
they drown then they're innocent. If they don't drown they're guilty,
they'll be drowned anyway. It's the trial of this girl who's in the
water; and all she wants to do is survive and keep her head above water.
    "The next song is about how she wants to go home. That's really the
thing she wants most, just to be in the cosy atmosphere of her belongings all
around her, and the security of those four walls and the firm ground, and
being with the one that she loves. She finds that she's there in spirit,
and there's her loved one sitting in a chair by the fire, but she hadn't
conceived the idea that she wouldn't actually be there in real terms.
She's not real. And although she can see her man, he can't see her--she
can't communicate with him in any way. It's more of a nightmare than
anything so far, because this is the closest she's been to any kind of
comfort, and yet it's the furthest away.
 "The next song is _Jig_of_Life_. This is about the future self who comes
to her rescue, basically. She says 'Look, I'm the next part of your life
and if I am going to survive and enjoy the things that I've enjoyed--
having my children, my happy home and my husband--then you've got to keep
it together, you've got to stay alive, you musn't drown or I will drown
with you.' It's the future begging her, pleading with her to let her,
the future lady, live.
    "The song after that is _Hello_Earth_, and this is the point where
she's so weak that she relives the experience of the storm that took
her in
the water, almost from a view: looking down on the earth up in the heavens,
watching the storm start to form--the storm that eventually took her and that
has put her in this situation.
    "This takes us into _The_Morning_Fog_. 'Morning fog' is the symbol of
light and hope. It's the end of the side, and if you ever have any
control over endings they should always, I feel, have some kind of light
in there."

 >jessica-
 >Hi. It's Jeff at Berkeley.  Not wanting to nitpick at your German, or
 >anything, but "Irgendwo in der Tiefe..." (note correct spelling & caps)
 >means "Somewhere in the _DEPTH_ ...".

     The misspelling (though not the mistranslation) is IED's fault,
originally--a mistake which he acknowledged in Love-Hounds a while ago.
Apologies begged again.

 >     Could some kind soul puh-leez post the lyrics for Kate's version of
 >this song?  The final verse on my copy of the single is a little hard
 >to follow.  Also, isn't there a verse missing?
 >     Thx in adv.,
 >
 >-- Diane

     Yes, Diane, you're quite right. Here is IED's entry for the
song:

                 _The_Handsome_Cabin_Boy_

     <Note: This is a traditional seafaring song
from Irish sources. In her recording Kate Bush made no
significant alterations to the lyrics; but she did
omit two verses from the most "complete"
version I have been able to trace. These verses
have been restored in the transcription below, and
are placed between brackets.>

 'Tis of a pretty female
 As you may understand.
 Her mind being bent for rambling
 Unto some foreign land,
 She dressed herself in sailor's clothes,
 Or so it does appear,
 And she hired with a captain
 To serve him for a year.

 <The captain's wife she being on board,
 She seemed in great joy
 To think the captain had engaged
 Such a handsome cabin boy,
 That now and then she'd slip him a kiss,
 And she'd have liked to toy,
 But 'twas the captain found out the secret
 Of the handsome cabin boy.>

 Her cheeks they were like roses
 And her hair rolled in a curl.
 The sailors often smiled and said
 He looked just like a girl.
 But eating of the captain's biscuit
 Her colour did destroy,
 And the waist did swell of pretty Nell,
 The handsome cabin boy.

 'Twas in the bay of Biscay
 Our gallant ship did plow.
 One night among the sailors
 Was a fearful flurry and row.*
 They tumbled from their hammocks
 For their sleep it did destroy,
 And they sworn about the groaning
 Of the handsome cabin boy.

 "Oh doctor, dear, oh doctor,"
 The cabin boy did cry.
 "My time has come, I am undone,
 And I will surely die."
 The doctor come a-runnin'
 And a-smilin' at the fun.
 To think a sailor lad should have
 A daughter or a son.

 The sailors when they saw the joke
 They all did stand and stare.
 The child belonged to none of them,
 They solemnly did swear.
 The captain's wife, she says to him,
 "My dear, I wish you joy,
 For 'tis either you or me's betrayed
 The handsome cabin boy!"

 <Now sailors, take your tot of rum
 And drink success to trade,
 And likewise to the cabin boy
 That was neither man nor maid.
 Here's hoping the wars don't rise again
 Our sailors to destroy,
 And here's hoping for a jolly lot more
 Like the handsome cabin boy.>

     <*--"flurry and row": Kate seems to
hear this line as "flyin' row",
which she delivers in the vaguely Irish
accent which characterizes her delivery of
the entire song. Other similarly trivial
points of divergence may be found in her
reading.
     <Kate's omission of the two
bracketed verses may be explained by their comically
baudy overtones, which would have been difficult to reconcile
with her uniquely dark and serious interpretation of the story.>

 >One last comment while on the "Bush podium", I agree with the person who said
 >that the "Whole Story" video was better in the parts that Kate had a hand in.
 >I found takes like "WOW" and "Wuthering Heights" were totally incongruous(sp)
 >and embarrasing (ruined my perception of some good songs),while "Cloubusting"
 >and "Experiment IV" were very well done in a "story" format. (I only wish the
 >others were done in a psuedo-concert format).
 >
 >-- Bob T.

     IED has made apologies for Kate's early videos too many times
in the past. Everyone in this group ought by now to realize that
videos like _Wow_ and _Wuthering_Heights_ were done by a 19-year-old
girl; in 1978 when the word "video" scarcely existed; with less than one
day's worktime; under the direction of a notably underwhelming talent
named "Keef"; with crude technology; and with virtually no budget.
     Since that is all already understood, IED would just like
to add that "embarassing" or not, the actual movements which Kate
performs in the videos of both those songs are _extremely_ interesting
and _meaningful_, and IED would even go so far as to say that one
cannot understand Kate's songs' full meaning without a careful study
of their corresponding routines.
     By the way, most of Kate's videos _are_ in "pseudo-concert
format". In fact _Them_Heavy_People_ is literally a "pseudo-concert",
since it features a live re-recording of the song and a small live
audience, but was actually taped following the conclusion of the
Tour of Life. But for the most part Kate's solo dance/mime routines
of her early songs are pretty much the same as the versions which
she performed in concert. Anyway, if you want concert versions
of her early work, get _Live_at_Hammersmith_Odeon_. It's still
available.

-- Andrew Marvick