Male vs. Female in _The Sensual World_

[rpk@goldhill.com]

The first time I heard the album, I found parts of it almost too
painful to listen to, at least lyrically, as I was in the throes of
defining a relationship to a woman who I felt very strongly about, and
it wasn't easy going.  Many of the songs of TSW tend to emphasise a
chasm between male and female, or rather male and female approaches to
relationships.  This theme is fairly explicit in ``Never Be Mine'' and
``Reaching Out.''  Kate found my bullseye for me.  TSW is a less
twitchy and restless album, more resigned to certain mysteries of
love; I think that, for a lot of men, we'd rather think that we know
it all and that we can act on our emotions the way we ``should,'' in
some rational manner when in fact sometimes we can't draw those
conclusions, we can't make certain emotional situations conform to a
models appropriate for the observed world.  Maybe that's the flip side
of the dichotomy of which the sensual world is one half.  Anyway, perhaps
male listeners aren't so keen on accepting how intractable (from a
rational/analytic view) the whole love mess can be.  They know it, but
they don't want to be told about it, even by a talented goddess
figure.

In contrast, ``Rocket's Tail'' and ``Deeper Understanding'' are more
like the old Kate, although the male adolescent (and I'm not using
those words in a perjorative way, mind you) and female tendencies are
more integrated than on _The Dreaming_.  None of Kate's work is so
thin that important components of her being aren't going to show
through.