MisK. (mostly mailbag)

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

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subject: MisK. (mostly mailbag)

     First, a notice to Sue of San Diego: Vickie wants you to call
her back! She says she really liked your phone calls, and wants you
to know that she has found a soul-mate for you in the S.D. area, so
would you please call her back soon?

 > Would anyone like to correct me?
 >
 >-- Julian

      Perhaps it didn't show up in Love-Hounds. IED doesn't
remember. But yes, Julian, IED did at one point foolishly agree
that he would state publicly that |>oug knew more about Kate Bush
than IED did or ever would if |>oug could produce page and line
number for his spurious attribution of the term "Nice to Swallow"
to Kate--whether IED could subsequently demolish the source's
credibility or not. So yes, here it is, folks:

     |>oug knows more about Kate Bush than IED knows or ever will.
     But |>oug sure doesn't _understand_ what he knows about Kate as
well as IED understands what _he_ knows about her...(You all knew
IED _had_ to have the last word, so who is IED to disappoint you?)

 >  I have seen a huge, 12'' square book called "Kate Bush"  which features
 >a year-by-year chronology of Kate's work (I didn't have the money at the
 >time, and when I went back the next day, with the appropriate amount,
 >which I begged my Dad to lend me, it was *gone*-- much gnawing and
 >gnashing of teeth ensued...).  This may be the Kate Bush Complete you
 >are referring to, but I don't know.  Whether it is or not, I really
 >appreciate the ISBN # and the Publishing address.

     No, it's not _Kate_Bush_Complete_. The book you're probably
referring to is called _Kate_Bush:_A_Visual_Documentarty_, and if
you must buy a Kate Bush "biography", that's probably the best
one to buy, though IED counted a total of more than 50 factual
errors in it. Still, one could certainly do much worse. For accuracy,
_Kate_Bush_Complete_ is still the best, but its factual information
about Kate's life is limited to the chronological outline in the
beginning of the book. And _A_Visual_Doc._ has lots of neat pictures.
     Many thanks to the UK Love-Hound who posted that brief
Capital Radio interview with Kate about _TSW_! IED found it fascinating,
and not a little worrying. Kate sounded a bit paranoid (the stuff
about being hanged) and depressed (the admission that she's been taking
off _six_months_ at a time to get away from her work, in recent years,
rather than simply a few weeks), and it was also sad to learn that
the main reason for the discrepancies between the text of Molly Bloom's
soliloquy and Kate's lyrics was that she was denied permission by
the holders of the copyright to use the original words. It would have
been the first time Kate had actually set a work of classic literature
to music--in the grand old nineteenth-century lieder tradition. Too
bad. But her alternative solutions are, of course, every bit as
satisfying.
     Speaking of the Molly Bloom soliloquy, thanks, Ed, for
posting it; as well as for all the updates on S.F.-area radio play
of _TSW_, etc. Much appreciated here.
     About _This_Woman's_Work_ being available in the UK: IED
believes that although the soundtrack album was never released
in England, the film itself _did_ get released there. Besides,
Kate should have known that any _real_ fan, whether in the U.S.,
England or Timbuktu, would already long since have acquired a
copy of that song. Still, IED must admit that its placement in the
context of the new album is utterly perfect, and in fact no other
track would have had quite the effect she sought. Besides, there are
_some_ differences between the two mixes.

 >dollar that after a decade of thinking about *whatever* she chose, you would
 >have nine different reasons why it was the most beautiful, rational decision
 >she could have possibly made.
 >   Face it, artists only rarely *intend* very subtle implications of their
 >work. There are lots of interesting theories about how these implications
 >arise anyway, but that's not the point here.
 >  Kate herself just said:
 > "I think really that art should become simpler rather than more complicated;
 >and in a lot of ways it worries me that I think this album is quite a
 >complex thing."
 >   We have here a person who is striving for simplicity in her work,maybe
 >though not always achieving it.

     Brian, don't make a mistake here: it wouldn't be correct to
assume that Kate's praise of "simplicity" in art implies that she
is not deliberately making her own art complex. All it means is
that she is is aware of--and perhaps equivocal about or even
unhappy that--her art deviates from such an ideal simplicity. It
would, IED believes, be a serious mistake to conclude that the subtleties
of Kate's recordings are in _any_ way fortuitous or unpremeditated, or
not fully known by Kate herself long before they are so slyly slipped
into the public arena. Kate's remark about simplicity being an ideal
to strive for in making art is mysterious and enigmatic, especially
since it is known for a fact that she has a great penchant for
complicating her own art--sometimes almost gratuitously, as with
the "secret messages" in _Leave_It_Open_ or _Watching_You_Without_Me_.
And being so apparently contradictory to the nature of her art, her
statement must have a rather _complex_, or subtle, meaning! It reminds
IED of other remarks Kate has made to the effect that people will
_understand_ her music from an _emotional_ point of view even if they
never quite understand its thematic or narrative meaning. Of course,
she has also said that it's extremely important that the listener
experience her music _while_reading_the_lyrics_, because that's such
an important part of the art. So take your pick--you have just plunged
into one of the great mysteries of Kate Bushology; but Kate's music
complex by accident? No way!

  Daniel S. Efran writes:
 >     Sorry if these have been answered already, but...
 > 1.  In Breathing, they say "We are all going to die
 >_without.....(something)_"
 >What's the end of that line?  They do it quite a few times.

     Actually, what you may be confusing is that line (which ends
with the word "without") and the countersong which Kate sings
at the end of the song: "Oh, life is---breathing!" (the last word
being sort-of whispered and sucked in). But the lines "What
are we going to do without" and "We are all going to die without"
are complete sentences/questions. Kate is using the word "without"
as the opposite of "within". Of course she's _also_ using it so that
it dovetails perfectly with the countersong's lines, which can be
heard as "finishing" the "without" line with the word "breathing".
Typically _complex_ Kate Bush...

 > 2.  Has Kate _ever_ been seen on a stage in the United States?

     As said already by two quicker Love-Hounds, only on _SNL_.
There was a rumor once that she had also gone to a bar and performed
impromptu while in America during the _SNL_ trip, but IED has never
seen any confirmation of that story.

 > 3.  Is there a poster of the Kick Inside cover?

     Didn't we just discuss this? Actually, there _was_ a poster
from EMI-America of the front cover of the U.S. ("country-western")
cover of the album. IED once saw it. It is extremely rare, however,
and IED suspects if you ever find one you will not be able to afford it.
IED has never seen or heard tell of a Canadian-cover poster; and there
was never a UK poster of the UK album cover, so far as IED is aware,
though there was a poster with the pink-leotard shot in the UK (this
was also used as the cover for the Japanese edition of the LP).

 >4.  Is Kate's Ninth Wave related to Sting's (Love is the) Seventh Wave?
 >If so, what's the reference to?  (I assume it's literary)

     Good question. The cycle of waves in literature is usually
referred to as being seven in number, rather than nine. In fact, IED
only knows of Tennyson's reference to nine waves. He is not a very
well read Love-Hound, however, so perhaps we should ask Julian.
     In any event, Kate chose the reference to Tennyson after
the recording was made, and in fact had not even heard of it until
_TNW_ had been completed. So don't try to read references to Tennyson
into the recording.

 > 5.  Is there anybody on here who hasn't bought Enya's Watermark album
 >yet?  If so, go buy it immediately.  Some of it's in English & some
 >isn't, but it's all incredibly good and quite in the league of the
 >Goddess.

     IED likes Enya very much, and has been enjoying her work since
she did the soundtrack to the film _The_Frog_Prince_ several years back.
But she is _NOT_ "quite in the league of the Goddess". That is absurd,
and patently false. Enya has essentially one rather narrow aural and
musical aesthetic idea, which she has varied and polished to surprisingly
fine effect, but she is a _far_ smaller artistic talent than Kate. And
that doesn't even introduce the fact that she doesn't even write her own
lyrics--for the most part they are the work of her producer's ex-wife.

 > 6.  Is Kate Bush the female Peter Gabriel or is Peter Gabriel the male
 >Kate Bush?

     Likewise, the comparison which people too often like to draw
between Kate and Gabriel is misleading and does a disservice to Kate.
As marvelous as Gabriel's work is, and as much as Kate's own may
owe to it, can there be little doubt that Gabriel's melodic gifts,
emotional range, vocal expressiveness, attention to detail, technical
standards, and essential originality are all vastly inferior to Kate's?
IED thinks not.

 >7. Either way, couldn't the two of them have come up with a better song
 >than Don't Give Up?  Two of the most imaginative (read: strange)
 >songwriters of the century collaborate to produce one of the least
 >interesting songs either one has ever written?  I don't get it.

     Don't blame Kate for that. It's Gabriel's work, completely.
He described not only how he originally wanted Dolly Parton to
do the female vocal part, but also how he reshaped Kate's vocal
performance bit by bit to make it as much how he wanted it as
possible. Kate's involvement in that song was no more than that
of any of the other session musicians, except in that any music
Kate makes she invests with greater emotion and art than anyone
else would or could.

 > 8.  Has anyone heard Kate's guest vox on the song Sister and Brother on
 >Midge Ure's album Answers to Nothing?  It's pretty cool.

     Here Kate had a more active role in the creation of the record. Unlike
with the Gabriel situation, with the Ure project Kate (presumably less willing
to follow Ure's directions than Gabriel's) agreed to contribute the female
vocal part providing that Ure would simply send her the masters, and let
her create her entire vocal at her own studio, without him even being
present. This (to his great credit) he agreed to do, and Kate sent
him the finished tape one week later. All this is from Ure himself,
who has long been a sincere admirer of Kate's work.

 >9.  Does anyone know of any other KT guest vox that are worth having?

  1. _Another_Day_, by Roy Harper, from a duet with Gabriel performed
on Kate's Xmas special, 1979;
  2. _Sing,_Children,_Sing_ from a charity single by Lesley Duncan;
  3. _You_(_The_Game_Part_II)_ by Roy Harper, from his _The_Unknown_
_Soldier_ LP;
  4. _The_Magician_, a solo-vocal cover she did of a song by Maurice
Jarre and Paul Webster, for the film _The_Magician_of_Lublin_;
  5. _No_Self_Control_ and _Games_Without_Frontiers_ from PGIII;
  6. _Them_Heavy_People_ from a single by forgotten EMI artist Ray Shell;
  7. _Flowers_, a track by Zaine Griff, from his LP _Figures_;
  8. _The_Seer_, from the Big Country LP of the same name;
  9. _The_King_is_Dead_, from Go West's LP _Dancing_on_the_Ceiling_;
 10. _Let_It_Be_ and _I_Don't_Remember_, done with Peter Gabriel and
Steve Harley during the Bill Duffield charity concert, May 1979;
 11. _Let_It_Be_ from the Zeebrucke Ferry Relief single, 1987;
 12. _Do_Bears_Sh...?_ from the UK Comic Relief shows, 1987;
 13. _Spirit_of_the_Forest_ from the Gentlemen Without Weapons 12", '89.

 >10.  Can anyone help me think of a tenth question?  I guess nine is
 >enough--one for each wave.

     Please, please, no more questions. You're driving IED into
an early grave.

 > To me, saying that the new KT album is more like the first
 >side of HoL than the second just means it doesn't have many songs about
 >dead or dying people.

     But death is a major theme of the songs on the first side of
the new album! So John Carder Bush must have meant something else...

-- Andrew Marvick