long overdue mailbag (long!? it's praKTically interminable!)

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

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: long overdue mailbag (long!? it's praKTically interminable!)

     IED apologizes for his (for him) long silence in this forum.
His scribe Andrew Marvick was called away from the keyboard for a
week to serve as best man at an old (non-Kate fan) friend's wedding.
As a result, he is far behind on the job of replying to the piles
of eleKTronic correspondence that have developed during his absence.
He will try to get to everyone's Bushological inquiries asap.
     First, IED must say a word or two about the recent revival
of criticism of the work of Wilhelm Reich. There seems to be a
serious misunderstanding both of Reich's work and reputation and
of Kate's attitude toward that work and reputation. IED wants to
reassure Ed Suranyi--and all those silent Love-Hounds who might share
some of Ed's misgivings about Reich and KT--that the facts have not
been getting accurately reported in Love-Hounds.
     First, Martin Gardner's remarks about Reich, while accurate
enough, overlook the most salient aspect of Reich's work in the
context of Kate Bushology: namely, its _artistic_ qualities.
     All readers of this group will know already that Kate Bush looks at
the creativity of man as functions of man's artistic impulses--she sees
art as "pure emotion". Yet, amazingly, the emotional--the _poetic_--character
of Wilhelm Reich's work is practically _never_ considered in discussions of
Reichian theory! As a result, the discussions which ebb and flow in
Love-Hounds miss the true point. So do the supercilious views of such
debunkers of pseudo-science as Gardner--a man who, for all his intelligence,
scarcely ever manages to maintain a truly scientific dispassion for
the objects of his criticism. Witness his quite unnecessarily patronizing
and insulting likeness of Wilhelm Reich's name with a stereotypically
Germanic "quack" character he calls "Professor Ludwig van Hoofenmeister",
or his equally condescending and uncalled for remarks about Colin
Wilson, a writer of tremendous and unique artistic power. The arguments
against Reich which focus on an attack of his "scientific" theories
are all too easy to make--Reich's "science" is a cheap target of ridicule.
Yet such ridicule fails to address the fact that Reich's works continue to
draw a substantial readership throughout the world. And the ridicule fails
in this regard because the attraction--the beauty--of Reich's
fantastic world of pseudo-science cannot be understood, nor even recognized,
through an analysis of its feasibility (or lack of same) as science. It's
beyond dispute that Reich's later work has no truly _scientific_ validity,
and virtually no-one--Kate Bush included--would try to argue otherwise.
     That said, what draws someone like Kate Bush to the subject of
Reich? In Kate's case the question of Reich's work has never become
relevant to her particular interests. Since she was initially drawn only to
the memoir of Reich's _son_ Peter, and not to Wilhelm's theoretical
writings, whatever knowledge of Reichian theory which she may have taken
the trouble to gather is, de facto, incidental at best to her true
subject of interest.
     Second, contrary to Ed Suranyi's implication, Kate Bush has _never_
said that she believes in a single one of Reich's theories. On the
contrary, whenever she has been asked about the story of _Cloudbusting_,
her replies have been conspicuously noncommittal in their wording. It's
important to remember that Kate almost never rejects _anyone's_
ideas. (Btw, some of Doug Alan's notions enjoy the rare distinction of being
counted among that elite group of ideas, and are--if only for that reason--
worthy of all serious Kate Bushologists' continued study. See below.) Add
to this fact our knowledge that even before _Hounds_of_Love_ came out
Kate had become a personal friend of Peter Reich's, and it will be
easy to understand why she has not come out and said "Wilhelm Reich
was a nut"--even if she thinks in those terms, which she probably does not.
     IED's theory, based on years of consideration of Kate's opinions
and attitudes, is that Kate is pre-disposed to retain an _open_mind_
about Reich's work; not only because it would be disrespectful and
unfriendly to criticize or reject it, but also because she is always
trying to see strange human behaviour from the perpetrator's point of
view. She does this often very deliberately and consciously. Also, she
has several times made it clear that she sees no benefit in cynicism.
     Ed correctly (and with evident regret) reports that Kate has called
Reich a "highly respected psycho-analyst". But in describing Reich
that way Kate is _absolutely_correct_! The fact is that until the very
end of the 1930s Wilhelm Reich was a quite important figure within
the legitimate European psycho-analytic community. His early training
was under Freud himself, and he even drew commendation from Freud for
his brilliance. His first publications presented and explored a series
of challenging theories about the effect of psycho-sexual complexes on
large groups. These papers pointed to a theory about Marxist communism
and the value of psycho-analysis in socialist societies. Such loaded
issues naturally drew enemies, and it is these _political_
conflicts which resulted in Reich's ostracization from the psycho-
analytic mainstream, not his crackpottery, which only emerged later.
     By 1939, however, Reich's psychosis had begun to appear in his
work. There should never have been any difficulty in recognizing it as
psychotic--discussion of blue orgone rays, UFOs, rainmakers and emotional
plague are not subtle hints of mental instability! IED therefore finds
it extraordinary that all the fuss over Reich in recent Love-Hounds
discussions focuses on the non-argument over the "scientific validity"
(or lack of same) of Reich's _ideas_. In all these discussions, it is
equally extraordinary--and very revealing--that no-one has taken the
time to _read_ Reich's books! Surely with all the insistence on the
importance of the scientific method, the readers of Love-Hounds can
see that no accurate assessment of the value of Reich's work can
be made merely by reading the glib and facile reviews of people like
Martin Gardner.
     Well, IED has read some of Reich's work--two of the last collections
of papers--and he would like to say that it is _amazing_ stuff. Yes, it's
kookoo. Kate would surely call it "weird". Reich's writings constitute
some of the most unsettling, and at the same time the most hauntingly
poetic, fantastic literature that anyone could hope to find. The dis-
tinction of his work lies mainly in the scholarly form in which it is
couched: the sheer lunacy of his notions about orgone and its various
miraculous properties and functions takes on a kind of bizarre elegance
and power when it is exposed via his flawless academic _language_. And
although IED has no direct data to support this, he cannot but assume
that whatever attraction to Reich's own work Kate Bush might have (if
indeed she has any at all) _must_ stem from the surreality of this
collision of psychotic delusion with academic form.
     Kate has also, as Ed mentioned, described the cloudbuster as a
machine "that could make it rain". This statement, which she has
made three times that IED knows (all within a four-day period in
November 1985, never before or since), is however quite clearly intended
to describe the point of view of the _character__ in the song--i.e., Peter_
Reich, aged 9 or so. It would be completely inconsistent with every story-
synopsis Kate has ever given--of any of her songs--for her to explain _Cloud-
_busting_ from a point of view which was detached from that of the songs'
protagonists. Her explanation of _Cloudbusting_ is not inconsistent in
this respect. Kate stated that the cloudbuster could make it rain because
Peter _truly_believed_ that the cloudbuster could indeed make it rain.
It is the very "weirdness" of Peter's experience and point of view which
attracts her. But this by no means indicates that Kate herself "believes"
in the theories and inventions of Wilhelm Reich. On the contrary, if she
truly accepted Reich's delusory universe as part of the natural world, its
"weirdness" would be considerably reduced, and she would probably not
consider it a "fascinating" subject for a song.
     OK, enough of that. Let IED bore his readers on some
other Kate Bushological topics now.
     First, let IED commend and thank Dave Hsu for taking the time
to study the recent videos again and alert IED to a number of remarkable
details of which he had been unaware. IED did get out his CAV _Hair_of_
the_Hound_ laser-disk and check _Cloudbusting_, and yes, the page that
Sutherland crumples up, when inspected via a mirror, does indeed have
"_My_Last_Paper_" written on it: not simply a title, but a regretful
comment on Reich's part. Interesting to learn that in this moment Reich
is not thinking about his imminent separation from Peter (as IED had
assumed), but about the end of his intellectual career. Very sad.
IED now sees the yo-yos, too. Amazing eyes you have, Dave!
     IED would like to say to all those who attended Tracy's marvellous
party that sometime they should see the _Cloudbusting_ CAV laser video
on a Sony XBR monitor (or one of similar resolution), because not only is
the text of the Oregon newspaper article much easier to read on such
equipment, even the first two lines of the _smaller_ type under the first
paragraph is legible, as well.
     Dave, you suggest that the interior _Music_For_Pleasure_ shop scenes
seem to have been done in a separate, interior, set. Perhaps so, but IED
reminds Love-Hounds that the _Newsletter_ reported that the shop was so
realistic that several passersby "walked into the shop", thinking it was
a real music shop. So whatever _was_ there must have been pretty
thorough.
     Dave notes the presence of yet another _X4_ single-sleeve in the shop.
Have all Love-Hounds noticed, as well, the dijeridu on the right-hand
wall? Or the strumento da porco? The balalaika and two mandolins? The
trombone? Kate's own Celtic harp and her _Babooshka_ bass viol?
     Dave, IED must conclude that the papers which fly through the
cracked window in the Sonic Experiments room can only originate--from
the monster's mouth! There's no other possible source, unless...unless...
unless Kate made a...a...continuity error? Naaahhh...
     Thanks again for your observations, Dave. Fascinating stuff.

 >But did anyone ever manufacture
 >a glow-in-the-dark radioactive yoyo? Beats me, but it sounds plausible.

     Not only plausible, but definitely true. In fact, IED used to own
a glow-in-the-dark yo-yo, made by (naturally) the Duncan Yo-Yo Company.
That would have been about 1964, more than ten years later than when
Peter must have buried his own model, but there's no reason to doubt its
existence at that time. As for its "radioactivity", there was a popular
belief that even the tiny amount of phosphorus used to create the
luminescence of those glow-in-the-dark toys of the '50s and '60s were
radioactive, and thus toxic to children. IED doesn't know what the
scientific verdict is on such materials, does anyone else? Anyway,
Peter's worries about the yo-yo being "dangerous" are absolutely on
the mark as far as the public understanding of that era went.

 >I really don't think that Ernie
 >spent his days thinking "hey, if he's on the water for _80_ days,
 >that's TWICE the hardship that Christ went through!  Great!"

     The above is in reference to the unending Love-Hounds argument
over what constitutes acceptable interpretations of Kate's lyrics.
IED would answer, apropos of the preceding supposition re Ernest
Hemingway, that if Hemingway _didn't_ think of those 500 biblical
references, then such exhaustive researches were clearly irrelevant
and pointless.

 >Is the "validity" of
 >this interpretation any less because the symbolism isn't necessarily
 >conscious?

     Your hypothetical situation allows for the _possibility_ that
such an interpretation might be "valid", yes. But it is based entirely
on the _extremely_ flimsy premise that _you_ can determine what the
artist's "unconscious" intentions were! IED's response is that we have
no business claiming that KT (or Hemingway) "unconsciously" meant
anything at all--much less that she (or he) happened to mean the
one thing _we_ think (for no _other_ good reason) she must have meant!
Even after tracing a patient's psyche over years of nearly daily, deep
analysis, a psycho-analyst would be _extremely_ hesitant to assume
what one of his/her patient's unconscious intentions were. So on what
basis can any of us mere mortals assume that The One True and Only God
has this or that unconscious intention when writing her lyrics? On
_no_ basis, is the answer. Show a little respect!

 >even without their mentioning them.  Does this mean that they are
 >WRONG, simply because I didn't put that there?  Or they WOULD be
 >wrong if I decided that I couldn't see that or didn't want it to
 >be there?   I don't think so.

     Look, for the fiftieth time, IED doesn't claim that such interpreta-
tions are necessarily "wrong". He doesn't _care_ whether they're wrong
or right. The point is, if Kate Bush tells us "No, that's wrong," then
whether it makes sense in and of itself becomes _irrelevant_. IED used
the term "invalid" as well, and that may have been a misuse of the word.
But what he meant was and is clear: IED will entertain any notion about
Kate's work that anyone wants to share with him, but if Kate Bush tells
me it's wrong, IED will _bloody_well_take_her_word_for_it_. And he sure
as hell won't go claiming that she must have meant it "unconsciously"!

 >the lyrics I have from the lyrics server, and (although I know there
 >are some mistakes in there) they said "worse."

     The official lyrics, as found on the original UK lyric sheet
from the LP, have "worse". So either Kate deliberately or mistakenly
mispronounced the word, or it originally preceded another word than
"move" (like "choice"). Perhaps IED will be able to provide more
information on this question within the next month, after receiving
additional data.

 >Second, I wish people would get their minds out of the gutter about Kate's
 >decision for her next album title. "Sensual" does not necessarily mean
 >"sexual"; actually there are a number of meanings but I think the one she
 >is aiming at here is more along the lines of "sensory". 'Awwww, but that
 >RUINS it!' Tough luck. Then again, if you comb through your dictionary,
 >sooner or later you'll find that another definition for "sensual" is
 >"deficient in moral, spiritual, or intellectual interests".... Hmmmmm!
 >Let the imagination flow! Think Kate is being romantic or cynical?
 >Or just literary?
 >
 >-- Uzer

     IED would remind Love-Hounds that Kate has already made her
understanding of the word "sensual" very clear. In an interview
conducted by Christopher Ward for Canadian TV in November 1985
Kate was very explicit. Ward asked, "Does your sexuality ever
enter into your work?". Kate's answer: "I find that very...confusing.
Because music is _sensual_. I think the essence of all art is
_sensuality_, rather than sexuality. That's what art is, it's
really pure feeling..."
     So Kate has a very interesting view about the distinction between
the sexual and the sensual, and this distinction seems to be an
artistic one.

 >Kate in all her infinite wisdom, gave the song that title. As I
 >understand, Babooshka means "grandmother". Any ideas???
 >
 >-- The Ant.

     IED seems to remember (but from what source he cannot say) that
Kate once said the name was inspired from some old children's story
she had read long before. This is not confirmed, however, and in fact
IED is not at all certain that he ever actually read this anywhere. It
could have been a dream. (See, as many of you will not be surprised
to learn, IED tends to have Kate Bushological dream experiences at
any and all times of the day and night. It's very distressing sometimes.)

 >...some not subtle at all.  I think the fact that Kate has refered to
 >"Night of the Swallow" as "Nice to Swallow" should speak for itself on
 >where Kate thinks your mind should be!

     Douglas has made this sickening claim at least once before in
this forum, and once again IED challenges Doug to provide proof that
Kate actually said this. IED doesn't believe it. Not that it isn't
possible that she _might_ conceivably say something like that. It's
just that one ought to have absolute proof that she _did_ say it before
one goes making assumptions about her sexual humour in any general
sense. IED will gladly apologize for doubting Doug about this citation
if and when Doug offers real tangible proof (page and line number)
that it is legitimate.

 >Then again, Kate spelled Orgonon wrong by mistake....

     IED is even more predisposed to mistrust Doug's citation
re "Nice to Swallow" in light of his false claim immediately above.
The fact is that John Carder Bush was once asked point blank about
this very "mis"-spelling. IED quotes his eminently Bushian reply: "It may
have been intentional..." Furthermore, Doug knows this, since IED
has posted the information at least once before. And it may very
well be a pun. If so, it's a pretty good one, and quite appropriate,
considering the nature of Reich's theories about the therapeutic
effects of orgasm on the psyche. A pun much like "your sun's coming
out," from the same song. And IED has earlier suggested at least
two other possible explanations for this spelling, in a Kate Bushological
paper ("Venturing into the Garden," in _The_Garden_, Appendix A, Wickham
Street Irregular Press, Los Angeles, 1985; also posted in L-Hs, now
no doubt somewhere in the oldest mountains of L-Hs archives). The curious
are encouraged to seek out this paper, which discloses a few of IED's
own modest notions concerning the possible larger meaning of Side One
of _Hounds_of_Love_ (a body of work too often slighted as "light-
weight" in comparison with _The_Ninth_Wave_).

 >Don't say I didn't tell you!  Over the years I've made bets with many
 >people that Kate Bush wouldn't tour by year X.  So far I've won them
 >all.  I think I've won about $1,000.  Unfortunately, I have yet to
 >receive a cent (I thought these were no lose bets!).  Where's my
 >(IED was never stupid enough to make such a bet,
 >however -- deep inside he has known the truth all along.)

     IED thanks Doug for giving him that much credit. Alas, it's
true: in his heart he has always known that Kate would probably not
tour for KBVI, and also that KBVI would probably not be a break-through
LP along the lines of _The_Dreaming_. By keeping his expectations low,
he allows himself the possibility of a pleasant surprise.

 >If Joe Dumbbrain thinks that God speaks to him through "Into the
 >Groove" and this has a profound effect on his life, then to him this
 >interpretation is incredibly relevant, even if it is completely
 >braindead.

     Well, OK, so it's relevant to Dumbbrain. If that's all you're
arguing, IED will not object. He will only point out that whether
donkeys' balls are a hot issue to Douglas or not is _irrelevant_ to
the true meaning of Kate Bush's song. The private organs of barnyard
animals may very well have had "a profound effect" on Doug's life, and
"to him this interpretation is incredibly relevant". So what? The
important fact to remember is that, whether relevant to Doug or not,
it is _irrelevant_ to an understanding of Kate Bush's work. And she
told Doug so herself.

 >     Furthermore, you contradict Kate's very own opinions on the matter,
 >which she has said many times.  One such time was to me:
 >
 >       "I think the interpretations that people have of your songs
 >        afterwards are nothing to do with me anyway.  I think it's up
 >        to them to get what they can out of the song."

     IED is naturally as aware of this statement of Kate's as you are,
Doug. In fact, it's clear he has considered it more carefully than you. For
what Kate said to you was that it's up to the listener to get what
they can out of the song. She did _not_ say that what they can get
out the song was _valid_ or _relevant_ to her own artistic intentions--
on the contrary, she is clearly implying that she won't _mind_
whether people develop their own ideas about the meanings of her songs
_even_ if they should be irrelevant to her own intended meaning.
     And since you have decided to start trying to find quotes from
Kate to support your bizarre views about the meanings of her songs, Doug,
IED will try to help you out by re-posting the excerpt you shared
above _in_its_original_context_. The _entire_ exchange between you
and Kate went as follows (this should be of interest to any Love-Hound
who has not yet had a chance to read Doug's uniquely fascinating chat
with Kate Bush):
      Doug: "A song of yours for which the symbolism in the lyrics
really fascinates me is _There_Goes_a_Tenner_ (from _The_Dreaming_).
You've said that it is just a simple song about
bank robbery, but the more I look at it, the more it seems
that nearly every line is really sort of an allusion to your
recording career at the time you were recording _The_
_Dreaming_. You wouldn't deny that this was intended, would
you?"
     Kate: "Yes, I would deny it."
     Doug: "You would?"
     Kate: "Yes. It's very much a song about bank robbery. I
wouldn't say it was a simple song about bank robbery, but it's about
the fear that people feel rather than the glorification of
bank robbers."
     Doug: "I dunno. It seems like...Well, to me it seems every line
sort of could parallel your recording career. I won't go
and explain it, but like one example is 'There goes a tenner.'
'Tenner' could be a ten-dollar <sic> bill--it could
also be a level of singing: you know, like soprano, alto,
tenor. And sort of every line is like that.  But you don't
agree?"
     Kate: "Well, no I don't because that's not...That was...
nothing that was in my head when I was writing it. But then I think
the interpretations that people have of your songs
afterwards are nothing to do with me anyway. I think it's
up to them to get what they can out of the song."
    Doug: "Okay. That seems reasonable. Maybe it was all
subconscious. It seems so perfect to me. I dunno."

     IED will leave it to each Love-Hound to make his/her own
conclusions about what Kate, with her usual exemplary tact and
politeness, was trying to tell you, Doug, with that answer.
(IED has already made clear earlier in this posting just what he thinks
about remarks such as your last one above on the subject of Kate's
"subconscious".) But to help readers unfamiliar with this extraordinary
interview, IED has taken the trouble to re-post _four_more_ excerpts
from it, all of which run along lines similar to the exchange above:

 1.)  Doug: "I read an interview where the interviewer asked you if
_Running_Up_That_Hill_ is about the contemplation of
suicide. And I thought that was pretty amusing, because it
seemed to me clearly not to about any such thing at all. On
the other hand, strangely enough, that's just what
_Under_the_Ivy_ seems to be about to me. The tone of the song is
very, very sad.  And it seems to be about longing for the
lost innocence of youth--perhaps a follow-up to _In_Search_of_Peter_
_Pan_. A white rose is a strong image in the song. And it could be a
symbol for friendship or innocence, but it could also be a
symbol for death. You sing 'Away from the party', and it
seems like you might almost mean 'away from the problems and
triviality of modern day life'. You sing 'It wouldn't take
me long to tell you how to find it', and it seems like you
might almost be addressing Death itself. You mention a
secret, but never mention what it is. Could it be the taboo
we have of suicide? What are your feelings about this
interpretation, and what were your intentions with the
song?"
    Kate: "Well, I think...uh, it...perhaps you are reading much
more into it than was originally intended when I wrote it. It's
very much a song about someone who is sneaking away from a
party to meet someone elusively, secretly, and to possibly
make love with them, or just to communicate, but it's
secret, and it's something they used to do and that they
won't be able to do again. It's about a nostalgic,
revisited moment."

 2.)  Doug: "_Burning_Bridge_, the other song on your _Cloudbusting_
single, seems to be a more desperate retelling to me of a much earlier
song of yours, _Passing_Through_Air_. Could you say something about
_Burning_Bridge_?"
     Kate: "Um...Again it was a song that was totally created for a
b-side, and I knew that it was going on the other side of _Cloud-
busting_. _Cloudbusting_ is not necessarily an
up-tempo song and I feel that flips of records should be
something that counterbalances the energy of the other side.
So, I wanted something that was relatively up-tempo, and
just a fun song. I don&csq.t think the lyrics are by any means
profound, but it was something that I felt was fun to do and..."
     Doug: "It's sort of...I don't know if it's incredibly
...I mean it's up-tempo, but it still has a sort of desperate sadness
to it, don't you think?"
     Kate: "Actually, I think it's incredibly positive and quite
trivial."

 3.)  Doug: "When I first heard the title of your new album _Hounds_of_
Love a long time before the album was actually released,
it seemed to me like a reference to fans. It sort of
conjured up the image of The Beatles constantly being
hounded by their adoring fans, who would attack them,
because each fan wanted a little piece of their idols. So the title
_Hounds_of_Love_ seems to hint at a love/hate
relationship with fans. The love/hate relationship also
seems to be symbolized on the picture sleeve to _Running_Up_That_Hill_,
where you are aiming a bow that could be Cupid's
bow, but is also a deadly weapon. Did you have these things
in mind?"
     Kate: "No. I'd like to say straight away it's absolutely
nothing to do with a love/hate relationship with fans and, in fact,
that, as far as I am concerned, is something that doesn't
exist. I have no resentment or dislike for any of the
people that like my music, at all. If anything, it's a
great honor for me that such nice people are attracted by
the music. And that song has nothing to do with fans--
it's about love--it's about someone who's afraid of being
captured by love, and it's seeing love as a pack of hounds
that's coming to get them. As something they're frightened
of--not willing to accept."
     Doug: "Well, I would sort of maintain that any love relationship
is a love/hate relationship, in that--"
     Kate: "Yes."
     Doug: "--there are always problems that come along with..."
     Kate: "I would totally agree, but it's got nothing to do with my
fans!"

 4.)  Doug: "I find the use of strong symbolism and metaphor and
allusions in your lyrics to be extremely interesting. For
example, in _Get_Out_of_My_House_, the woman who is singing
the song has been left by her lover and feels hurt, and
identifies herself with a house. This is a biblical
allusion.  When she says "I wash the panes", it is a triple
entendre, because she's saying she's washing the windows of
her body, which are the eyes. This means she's crying, and
by doing so, she's washing the hurt and pain away. Then she
says "No stranger's feet will enter me" saying that she
won't let anyone into her house, which is saying she won't
let anyone into her body, which is also reinforced by the
biblical use of "feet" as a euphemism for "private parts".
The layers of meaning here, are pretty incredible.
     "Then a man tries to enter her life again, but she's too
scared, and she tries to escape by flying away, but he turns
into the wind. She then turns into a mule, perhaps for its
stubborn ability to withstand the wind. And then he also
turns into a mule. Now it seems that they have a ground for
communication. Because mules are neuter, and they can
communicate on a platonic level rather than a sexual level.
     "Now a friend of mine believes that this last part is a
flaw in the song, because mules are not really neuter after
all. They are only sterile. Personally, I think it isn't a
flaw because the idea comes across loud and clear to me, and
somehow it seems that "I change into the amoeba: Ooze!
Ooze!" just wouldn't work so well. So the question is,
what do you think of this interpretation? And could you
respond to my friend's slight criticism?"
     Kate: "And what was your friend's criticism?"
     Doug: "He said that the ending is a flaw because mules are not
really neuter, they are only sterile."
     Kate: "What does he mean?"
     Doug: "Well, it seems to me--and to him--that the end of the
song is sort of a positive note because they've found a
grounds for communication. And sort of on a platonic level,
because mules might be seen as being platonic, because..."
     Kate: "Why?"
     Doug: "Oh...well...Mules are sterile...uh...A donkey and a horse...
you know...have a sexual relationship, and then they have
mules, and mules don't have children, but they really can have
sex. They just can't have children, but a lot of people actually
think that they just don't have sex. Which isn't really
true."
     Kate: "Right! Well, um...I think you...It's kind of weird
the level of interpretation that you are reading into things,
because...I mean, a mule--in our country--all it
represents is a stupid animal. They are considered stupid.
And that's the allusion that was being used in that case."

     IED really doesn't think any further comments are needed on this
subject, so let's get on with the mailbag.
     Welcome, Joel, to Love-Hounds!

 > Well, for one, I wanted to hear Kate say "Fiiiiishy wiiiiishy".

     This is transparently disingenuous, Doug, since you couldn't have
had any idea that Kate would answer "Fiiiiishy wiiiiishy".

 >IMHO, he was justly arrested and sent to prison
 >for the same reason that purveyors of Laetrile, copper arthritis
 >bracelets, and electronic dieting devices are today, when they
 >can be caught:  Charging patients for worthless cures is a crime.  It
 >also leads to vast suffering by those who avoid orthodox medical
 >treatment which, in many early cases, could have helped.

     But Reich _never_ lured people with cancer away from legitimate
therapy in favour of his own! There was never any evidence presented
at his trial which even suggested such a thing. That accusation is
totally unsubstantiated.

     Apropos Kate's use of odd grammatical misconstructions, IED
would like to point out that these anomalies are quite clearly
deliberate artistic decisions on her part. In her interviews Kate's
use of "I" and "me" are _invariably_ correctly placed. Her grammar
is extremely good. Lines like "You and me knew life itself is
breathing" (from _Breathing_) and "Him and I in the room" (from
_Houdini_) could therefore only have been devised for artistic
reasons. One thing they definitely do is identify the narrative
context as informal, casual, conversational, rather than self-
consciously poetic or otherwise literary. And this is crucial to
the communication of Kate's aesthetic, which, in terms of lyrics,
at least, is in IED's opinion generally more narrative and anecdotal
than poetic. (Of course this creates a certain poetic atmosphere
itself, but that's not what IED means.) It would be a lot different
(and far more painful to IED) if Kate were to use "For you and I"--
a form of bad grammar which stems from unworthy pretence rather
than healthy casualness.

  > You <IED> wrote in Love-Hounds:
 >>      Also, another description of the new album has reached IED's
 >> ears: when a request was made to characterize _The_Sensual_World_
 >>using sides one and two of _Hounds_of_Love_ as a gauge, the answer
 >> was that it veers decidedly toward the side _one_ side. Whatever this
 >> means is up to each reader to decide for himself.
  >
  >  Uhhh, would it be possible to elucidate this just a bit for those of
  > us with (only) CD's of HoL, being as CDs do not have sides, and I
  > don't know whether the track order on the CD is the same as the
  > original LP, or what.

     The running order is the same on the CD as it is on the LP,
although the UK edition of the _cassette_ inserts the 12" extended
mix of _Running_Up_That_Hill_ at the end of Side One (following
_Cloudbusting_). _Cloudbusting_ is the last track on Side One. The
second side should be clear even on the CD, since it is identified by
its own title, _The_Ninth_Wave_ (quite unrelated to the title _Hounds
_of_Love_, which Kate has said refers only to the _first_ side
of the album, having been chosen as the album's title only for
expediency's sake).
     The point of the description which IED heard about the
new album (that it went more in the direction of Side One of
_HoL_ than of Side Two) was to indicate that it consisted a.)
of individual songs, not an extended song-cycle; and/or b.) of songs
which sound more "commercial" than those on _The_Dreaming_, or
on _The_Ninth_Wave_; and/or c.) of songs which carry less complicated
information than that found in the songs on _The_Ninth_Wave_.
     However, both the premise (that Side One of _HoL_  is more
"commercial" and less "complex" than Side Two) and the one-phrase
description of the new album itself (that it's more like _HoL_ than
_The_Ninth_Wave_) are very vague and surely debatable.

 > Well, the circumstances surrounding Reich's arrest, death and the
 >banning of his written works are pretty mysterious.  How many other
 >FDA/EPA violators actually went to jail?

     Yes, but remember that Reich's response to the case was very
eccentric. He refused to present any defense of any kind, even though
he probably could have made a reasonably good case for himself, given
the relative triviality of the charges. As for his death in jail, he
wasn't a healthy man even before his incarceration.

 > BTW, for those interested in seeing "the real" Cloudbuster--don't get
 > too excited.  It's a metal tube pointing up at the sky.  Stick with
 > the H.R. Giger version.

 > Oh! So Giger designed the prop in the video?  Where did you hear about
 > that (let me guess).

     Please, guess! Because as far as IED remembers, no reliable source
has ever attributed the design of the cloudbuster to Giger. On the
sleeve of the 12" the machine is credited to a Ken Hill. It does
look like a Giger design, but couldn't Hill simply have worked in
Giger's style? IED admits the possibility that he has forgotten some
reference to Giger by Kate in some interview or other.

 >   In the vinyl dept. of the same store was a 2-record set called
 >(I believe) _Moving_ which seemed to be a live album.  I've never
 >seen or heard of this before.  Think it was on red vinyl.  This
 >was $60!  Can anyone tell me what this is?
 >
 >-- Mark Anderson <manderso@ugly.cs.ubc.ca>

     IED believes that this is the same as the earlier _Wow!_ 2-LP
bootleg set, which consisted of one LP for the Hammersmith video's
audio-track and another LP for the _Kate_ Christmas TV special's
audio-track. It has a posh three-color sleeve design, but other
than that it's nothing to write home about. In IED's opinion $60.00
is about three times what it's worth, though one might conceiveably
value it at as much as $30.00. $60.00 is way too high.

 > "The Dreaming" rips off its beat from the
 >song "Sun Arise" by Rolf Harris, who is the author of "Tie Me Kangaroo
 >Down", by the way.  Rolf Harris even appears on the song

     Since Harris plays on Kate's track, "rips off" doesn't exactly
seem the right way to describe it, Doug. More like "adopts, with
changes". And it is by no means an identical rhythm. There is a
striking similarity, it's true, but there are also audible differences.
By contrast, the rhythm track of Dax's _Hammer_Head_ is, as Jon
Drukman said, simply a sped-up transfer of Kate's own recording, pure
and simple.

 > Un-Kate-related? Don't you all know that KaTe is God, and St. Gabriel
 > the prophet...

     Yes, IED knows this, anyway the part about Kate. Gabriel is
talented, perhaps, but prophet status is excessive, in IED's opinion.
(Of course, Kate says he's an angel, but she's a very charitable
person.)

 > Now who's Alan Stivell?

     Alan Stivell is a master of the Irish harp, and a singer of
Irish, English and (especially) Breton folk music. Kate has been
an admirer of Stivell's for at least nine years: she played one
of his recordings on UK radio when she guest-dj'd once in December
of 1980. Once again Kate planted a clue to her future artistic
development years before the fact.

 > where did you find this version of 'hounds
 > of love'??  i haven't heard this one--it's great!  all the
 > "run run run run run run run, honey, run from the hounds of
 > love"'s--where'd it come from???

     That's the so-called "Alternative Hounds" mix of _Hounds_of_Love_,
Tracy. It was on the 12" version only (never released in the U.S.).
It's amazing, too.
     It's IED's opinion that Kate sang most of that alternative vocal
spontaneously (ad lib) while listening to the original version through
headphones. He says this because he took out an evening and some
two-track equipment to graft the original album-track to the "Alternative
Hounds" mix once, taking care to add the extra two measures to the
LP mix which crop up toward the end of the 12" mix, and the result
was incredible--the two vocals (and their respective background
vocals) dovetail together absolutely beautifully: they sound
almost like a question-and-answer session. Also, the "Alternative
Hounds" vocal often harmonizes a third away from the original
vocal. Try it sometime, if you can take the time to synchronize the
two mixes. It's really neat.

-- Andy