Orca & Abos & Magic oh my!

[katefans@world.std.com (Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City)]

>From: Dave Armstrong <8548222@wwu.EDU>
>Subject: More wild speculation

Dave Armstrong posts this:

>>>   [Lindsay Kemp] ...
>>>   mind.  He'd put you into emotional situations, some
>>>   of them pretty heavy.  Like he'd say, `Right, you're
>>>   all now going to become sailors drowning, and there
                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>   are waves curling up around you.'  And everyone would
>>>   just start screaming."

>>>                           - Kate
>>>                             March 1978
>>>                             Interview by Steve Clarke


   >>  "But it's interesting how most of these things originated
   >>   long ago, and maybe four or five years later they're
   >>   regurigated into an idea," she continues.  "Like _Cloudbusting_
   >>   [on the _Hounds_of_Love_ LP] - that was originally from a book
   >>   I read nine years before I wrote the song!  It struck me very
   >>   deeply, but it took a long time to be able to step back enough 
   >>   to write the song, because it was a very powerful experience 
   >>   for me."

                             - Kate
                               January 1990, Music Express Magazine
                               Interview by Mary Dickie



> It's late and I'm tired but this sounds very much like it could
> have been the genesis of _The_Ninth_Wave_.

It's always so much fun to go back to old interviews and see things
that point up to "future" songs. This is a partial transcription of
a TV interview Kate did with Paul Gambaccini (sp?) in * 1982 *.
The show is called "Pebble Mill at One"                 ^^^^

There's a (minor) reference to a future Ninth Wave-type song, but this
is interesting for other reasons too. Paul is talking first
about a radio show that he and Kate did together in which Kate chose
all the music played on the show. 

The song _The Dreaming_ had been released as a single and had bombed
horribly (#48 peak) but the album was just then being released. 

Before you start reading, stop and *think* about the sheer and utter
courage it took Kate to insist that _The Dreaming_ be the first single
from the album. If Tenner or Gaffa had been the first single the album
would have done much better (even though it did reach #3 in the UK).

                    -----------------------


Paul:
"When we did our radio program for Christmas, for Radio One, about your
favorite records, I'm sure that many people were surprised to hear how
few conventional pop tunes were in there. You had a lot of Irish folk
melodies, African songs, song with unusual instruments and I therefore
thought that when you really did take full control of your career there
would be a lot of various surprises for people which they may not find
actually commercial and I think that's what happened on the latest
single_The Dreaming_, isn't it?"

Kate:
"Yes absolutely. I mean, it's not really a commercial song at all and I
think that's rather lovely that you could see, from that program that
we did, perhaps the direction I was going in and, from my point of view,
that program was fantastic to get, you know, all those songs played."

Paul:
"I recall you had some whaling songs so I'm waiting for your number
about Orca."

Kate:
(laughs)"yeah, yeah, sea shanties, that'd be great!
But I think that's the problem too because the direction I'm going in
with my art is the way *I* want to go because, for me, it's a little
deeper, it's got more meaning. It's not so poppy I suppose, but of course,
maybe that won't be so widely accepted, especially in the singles chart,
where it seems that things do have to be obvious really to stand a good
chance of getting places."

Paul:
"I think a lot of the tracks on your new album are so intense and deep,
with a lot of various sources of input, that it's difficult to hear on
the radio, catchy the first time. For example, on The Dreaming you have
Rolf Harris with his digeridu and you had Percy Edwards doing the animal
voices and very complex lyrics and a change of voices on your part and
I think that probably was the problem."

Kate:
"Yes, I think it was a very complicated single in many ways. It was
demanding as much from the audience as anything that they would give 
the time to listen to it and try to understand it. So many people said
to me that by the fifth, sixth time that they'd heard the song that
they were actually starting to really like it and before then they
just hadn't understood it at all. So, yeah."


               ----------------------------------

The interview continues on about other things but this is all I really
wanted to post. Paul G. seems to be one of the few DJ types (besides
Roger Scott) that Kate actually had intelligent conversations with.
He's Canadian (maybe American) and I haven't heard anything about him in
years. Does anyone know what he's been up to?

So there you have it. Sea shanties no less! Who knows, maybe Paul gave
Kate the idea for TNW with his crack about Orca! :-)

    =============== beware: personal musings below! :-) ================

By the time the single TD was released I was a die-hard hard-core Katefan.
I lived in Leavenworth and made the 80 mile round-trip drive to Kansas City
*just* to get the single! I remember driving home with it on the passenger
seat and I kept patting it and picking it up to look at it and hold it and
laugh and the way my spine was tingling....oh my god. I kept giggling.
I just could not believe that I actually really honestly no foolin' really
and truly no kidding had a *NEW* Katesong! It's a wonder I didn't get a
speeding ticket. I've driven all over the country but that was the
longest drive I ever made in my LIFE!
When I got home I yelled to my sister-in-law (I'd been trying to get her
into Kate, maybe this new song would do it for her) "I HAVE KATE'S NEW
SINGLE!!!!COME LISTEN!!!" I raced upstairs to my room and fumbled to get
the single on the turntable. When that digeridu sound started I was
intrigued but within seconds I was wringing my hands in despair. As soon
as Kate started singing I looked at Cathy and she just shook her head
and walked out of the room. Oh Kate, ohmygod what have you done? I truly
thought she had gone off her rocker. I took it off and turned it over to
listen to Dreamtime. More of the same. I sat in silence for a while and
thought ok Kate, you're doing something I don't understand. What's the
key to this song? I listened again. Horrible! I listened again. Weird!
I listened again. Strange, but I like the way you sing "see the light
bounce off the rocks to the sand". I listened again. Unusual, but the
digeridu sounds are very interesting and the animal noises are cool.
I listened again. Hmmm, odd, but I like those tires squealing then, BANG-a
goes another Kanga on the bonnet of the van. And that really interesting
sound, what the hell is that? (I later found out it was Orch 5).
Well, one more time did it. I really liked it. I turned it over and 
listened to Dreamtime again and that's actually when I fell in deep and
irrevocable love with the A-side! So, first I loved the details, then 
I loved the music, then I learned to love her vocals!
 By the time the album was released (another 80 mile drive!) it
(The Dreaming) was my all-time favorite Kate song (besides Wuthering
Heights, of course). Getting into the album is another story. I listened
to it once without the lyrics and once with the lyrics. I put the lyrics
away and for the next two weeks played the album whenever I could as
background music, not paying attention to it. I had to get the music into
my subconcious. I'd read, write letters, play games, whatever, with the
album playing over and over and over again. One night I was sitting on
my bed reading and all of a sudden the chorus of "Night of the Swallow"
hit me like a ton of bricks!! That's when I got the lyrics back out and
spent the next few hours learning the words song by song. Well, for the
next few months the *only* other album I listened to was Peter Gabriel's
_Security_(I'd given that album the same treatment). It may seem a hell
of a weird way to get into an album but for me it was the best way.

           ---- magic awaits those who are patient ----

She's a genius...

She really is...

Vickie (one of Vickie'n'Chris)
katefans@world.std.com

ps: Cathy finally came around and saw the Katelight.
 
pps: A little less than a month after TD album came out I met Chris.
What a wonderful thing!