Mailbag and MisK.

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

 To: Love-Hounds
 From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
 Subect: Mailbag and MisK.

     Terrific Digest this morning, people, thanks for keeping the great
ideas coming.
     Thanks to David Datta for the information about the follow-up
UK single. Did you read about this in _NME_, or _MM_, or something?
     Tower Records on Sunset Blvd. has moved _TSW_ (in-store sales, all
formats combined) up from #9 to #3 after two weeks.
     There are some differences between the UK and US editions of the
albums. On the LP, the quality of the paper used is much better all
around, and the photo is in a richer black-and-white and has a higher
degree of detail. The internal sleeve has no other photo (as in the U.S.)
but it is of white, stiff, semi-glossy paper with black ink. (By
contrast the U.S. version is on cheap black paper with white lettering.)
On the CD, the booklet is again much better produced in the UK version,
with the inside of the front cover a solid field of copper, and the
lyrics printed in black on white glossy paper. Also, the front surface
of the compact disk itself is black with copper lettering, and looks
great (the Columbia US version is typically boring and sloppily
designed). However, there is no actual artwork or writing on any of
the UK editions that isn't to be found in the US versions as well, so
IED supposes it's not imperative that US fans go out and buy UK
editions. The difference of track-placement (the laugh made part
of _Love_and_Anger_ on the UK CD, and part of _The_Fog_ on the US CD)
has already been noted. IED would say the UK CD sound is marginally better.
     Thanks to Arthur Davis for re-posting the address of Dirt Cheap!
     IED can't detect any similarity between the rhythm of _Never_Be_
_Mine_ and _Delius_, Derek. _Delius_ uses a very early and pretty
primitive rhythm box for its beat. _Never_Be_Mine_'s rhythm is much
more varied and complex. Can you be more specific?
     E. Donley Olson (Eo) may be exaggerating when he says Kate
said she did all her choruses on Fairlight first. She only said she
composed the Trio Bulgarka choruses on Fairlight before working with
the women in person. IED agrees with you that the male chorus sounds
like a sustained Fairlight source, but it sounds like a Bush-family
chorus to IED, so he suspects that she recorded the voices live,
then used that sound as a sample for the recording.
     IED hastens to agree with you, Eo, about the "seKreT" message
at the end of _Deeper_Understanding_ (and, not surprisingly, to
_disagree_ with !>oug on this point): Kate sings "I hate to leave
you" several times, but the last time the word "leave" turns into
"lose" at the very end. !>oug's idea seems wrong to IED because
the "lose you" line begins with exactly the same "h" sound (in the
"hate") as the previous lines. The only difference comes in the "leave"
sound.
     S. Alun Erzust (sorry if IED misspelled it) asked why lyrics
are missing from the 12" of _Experiment_IV_. IED has no real answer
for you. He would only point out that at least some lyrics are
omitted from the twelve-inch mixes of _RUTH_, _Cloudbusting_,
_Hounds_of_Love_ and _The_Big_Sky_, too. It just seems to be Kate's
way of re-mixing 12"s. Perhaps she is deliberately trying to make
sure that people will always remember that the "serious", or "official"
version, is the one to rely on. She has said that she treats the
twelve-inches as relatively frivolous fun, and she doesn't spend
much time (relatively speaking, of course) making them.
     Ray Radlein, IED _loves_ the "Veronica" theory! That surely
is it! IED must do some research to discover who the Bushes could have
had in mind.
     Ray, you also ask:
 > About the "B-Side" thing that |>oug mentioned: Could she have been
 > referring to "Passing Through Air," perhaps? Wasn't it recorded at David
 > Gilmour's house?

     Yes, indeed it was--but in 1973, two whole years before the three
polished in-studio demos that Kate is referring to in the interview.
Of course it is possible that she simply confused the two sessions in
her mind, but IED finds this very difficult to believe. Kate's very
first experience with David Gilmour was a (probably unrecorded)
solo performance--an audition--which she did, probably at her home,
in 1972 or '73, when she was all of fourteen years old. Then, during
the summer of '73 (when she was either fourteen or fifteen) the team
of Bush and Gilmour met at his house with a couple of musician friends
of David's, and there they recorded at least ten, and perhaps more,
songs of Kate's. One of those recordings was _Passing_Through_Air_,
in the version we all know. Another was a song called _Maybe_, of which
Kate once played a brief excerpt during a radio programme. (Peter
FitzGerald-Morris has now made it very clear that this song, _Maybe_,
was indeed once known as _Davey_, _even_though_ it is quite unrelated
to the other song we usually refer to as _While_Davey_Dozed_.)
     Still later (sometime in 1975, by which time Kate was sixteen
or seventeen), Gilmour paid for an elaborate studio session with Kate
(complete with a full orchestra), during which three songs were
produced by Gilmour: _The_Saxophone_Song_, _The_Man_With_the_Child_
_in_His_Eyes_, and a _second_ version of _Maybe_. The third song
was _not_ _Passing_Through_Air_, in other words. It's interesting
that when Kate played the excerpt of _Maybe_ on UK radio, she chose
to play the earlier, presumably far less polished, recording, rather
than the 1975 version. But at the time she was very explicit about the
difference between the first and the second Gilmour sessions.
     Of course, it's possible that the various tiny bits of third-hand
information on which IED bases the preceding story are inaccurate,
despite their more or less reliable sources. In which case the whole
house of cards would collapse.

-- Andrew Marvick
   P.S.: Two more "seKreTs" in _Deeper_Understanding_: Have you
noticed the two _whispered_ "Hello!"s ? Keep an ear out for them.
And have you heard the "early birds"--i.e., not the birds at the
_end_ of the song, but their pre-figuration earlier in the track--?