_Saxophone Song_, More Than Kate Would Admit?

[nrc@cbema.att.com]

The response to my request for annotations to _Saxophone Song_ has
been pretty slim.  I'm not surprised.  After all, I have a direct
quote from Kate claiming that that the song is about the instrument 
and not the player so what is there to talk about?

In the third issue of the Kate Bush Club newsletter (November
1979) a fan asked Kate if _Saxophone Song_ was written about 
David Bowie.  Kate replied:

        "The song isn't about David Bowie. I wrote it about the
        instrument, not the player, at a time when I really 
        loved the sound of the saxophone -- I still do."


I was ready to put Kate's word down as gospel in the annotations to
this song but I was having a hard time reconciling the lyric to this
idea.  It just doesn't work very well with all those references to
"boy", "honey" and such.  

Then I received the following submission from John Relph...

> From: John M. Relph <relph@presto.ig.com>
> 
> >SAXOPHONE SONG
> 
> Synopsis: the song is about the feelings the protagonist, a woman, has
> for a particular male saxaphone blowing musician.  He plays at bars in
> Berlin.  They may have met.
> 
> >You'll find me in a Berlin bar
> >In a corner, brooding
> 
> Brooding over what?  Perhaps the fact that she can't have him, because
> she loves not him as a person but the music he brings forth.
> 
> >You know that I go very quiet
> >When I am listening to you
> >There's something special indeed
> >In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy
> 
> "All the places" means all the different bars or theatres in which the
> musician has played.
> 
> >There's something very real in how I feel, honey
> >
> >(Chorus)
> >It's in me, it's in me - and you know it's for real
> >Tuning in your saxophone
> >Doo-ba-doo-ba-doo
> >
> >The candle burning over your shoulder
> >Is throwing shadows on your saxophone
> >A surly lady in tremor
> >The stars that climb from her bowels
> >Those stars that make towers on vowels
> 
> "Stars" may refer to the feelings of orgasm.
> 
> >You'll never know that you had all of me
> >You'll never see the poetry you stirred in me
> >Of all the stars I've seen that shine so brightly
> 
> But this "stars" has two meanings, the first as above, the second
> referring to the sax blower.
> 
> >I've never known or felt, inside myself, so rightly
> 
> Both because she's in love and because his music is so good, which are
> one and the same thing.
> 
> 	-- John
 
Some of this makes good sense.  But how should I approach ideas like
this that are in direct conflict with Kate's own statements about a
song?

What do you think of this alternate interpretation of _Saxophone
Song_?

--
"Don't drive too slowly."                 Richard Caldwell
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