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From: ***SEMPSY*** <sre017%cck.cov.ac.uk@mitvma.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 90 16:28:21 -0100
Follow that! (part 2 of interview) Q:The boxed set rarities include Cloudbusting's so called "Orgonon Mix".The song was based on A Book Of Dreams,Peter Reich's memoirs of his father,Wilhelm Reich,who held that sexual energy could be transformed into what he called "orgone" energy.Yes? If I've got this right,he believed that sexual energy was positive,usable energy that he tied in with his concept of orgone energy.He upset a lot of people selling orgone boxes,saying they could cure cancer and stuff.He ended up being arrested and put in prison. I knew nothing about Wilhelm when I read the book,which was his son's experience of all this,written from a child's point of view with atremendous innocence and sadness.Years ago,I just went into a shop and picked it off the shelf,and really liked the title and the picture on the front.I'd never bought a book before which I hadn't known anything about;I just felt I'd found something really special.And nine,10 years later,I re-read it and it turned into a song.When it was finished,I wrote a letter to Peter Reich saying what I'd done.It was important to me in some way to have a sense of his blessing because his book really moved me.He sent me back such a lovely letter.It was an incredible feelin g of returning something he'd given to me. Q:Molly Bloom's monologue from Joyce's Ulysses in the song TSW,Wuthering Heights of course-have other books provided inspiration? Every book I've read has had a very big effect on me.At the moment it's a conscious decision that I'm trying to do a lot more reading.When I was very little I read a lot,but not that much in my twenties.I think people should read more;we've all got conned by the cheap thrill of television.Reading a book does not just make you think,it makes you explore.I think The Shining is terrific;its the only book by Stephen King I've read.It's atmosphere ended up in a couple of my songs,and Get Out Of My House(from The Dreaming) was very inspired by it.I think literature is the most powerful form,but all works of art inspire artists; I find films very inspirational. Q:Like...? So many films touch you,even if it's only the atmosphere you're left with.There was The Innocents(adapted from Henry James's ghost story The Turn Of The Screw and directed in 1961 by Jack Clayton,starring Deborah Kerr and Michael Redgrave) which I saw when I was a kid.It was so strong,and years later I wrote The Infant Kiss.There's an old horror film called Night Of The Demon(adapted from the M.R. James short story Castin The Runes and directed in 1957 by Jacques Tourneur, starring Dana Andrews and Peggy Cummins) and that very much inspired Hounds Of Love. Q:Is other music inspirational? I tend not to listen to music as consistently as i take in visual imagery.I don't know if this is deliberate or because i spend so much time working my ears listening to music.There's also a slight problem,i guess,that if you really like something,you find yourself being pulled towards it without realising. Q:And pictures? I love paintings.Years ago when I didn't have the money to afford it at all,I bought a big picture.People thought i was mad,and they were right!But I just fell in love with it.It's a bit like Millais's Ophelia,but a modern image of it; in fact,she's floatin in a sewer,hahaha!But I thought the irony was great,and the water,although it's disgusting,has all the colours of oil in it.I do have a tremendous fascination with grotesque beauty and sad humour,opposites put together.I'd sit and look at that picture and than spend a couple of hours writing. Q:Your fans are among the most devoted in music.Lacking the feedback of a live audience,are you aware of many people's more than averagely intense interest in you and your work? It sounds really corny,but i feel so honoured that people into my music are so. ....patient.Their priorities are gorgeous;I don't feel thare's a fickleness- they're happy with whatever i do.It's almost a form of love. When we did the shows last time(1979),I did love it.The contact with the audience was fantastic.But I did feel a tremendous sense of intensity towards me and I felt very exposed.I'm really quite a quiet,private person,and it was very difficult for me,and that's got a lot to do with why I haven't toured,which has left me without a great sense of contact with an audience.It's quite a surprise to me to think I'm a famous person.It jolts me and I think,Oh my God!Right now, I would like to have more contact with audiences again.I think it would be a nice thing. Q:Peter Gabriel,Nigel Kennedy,Dave Gilmour-these are the musicians whom you're linked.Is it a social set,or do you have a social life that excludes music? It depends.I do go through phases,very much so.Some are professional and some are very much friends.Nigel is the fullest of the two,in that we work together and he's also a great friend.He's really nice to work with,and because we're friends,the communication's great.You develop an almost unspoken sense of what you want,and a lot less needs to be said.They trust you,you trust them.It's much easier to experiment because they're not so frightened.There's a lot to be said for workin with people who are close to you. I've lost one of our important members of that group:Alan Murphy(a regular guitarist with Kate)died late last year and another friend of mine died this year.Again,that's why I feel the boxed set marks the end of an era because I'll never work with them again.And I do miss them,and it's made me think about a lot of things,and I have consciously taken a break from work since their deaths to do nothing.I've just taken six months off.I've had six months gaps between things,but always carrying this project around,and I don't know why I haven't done it before.I'm a bit obsessive about my work you see.But now I can see there's a part of me that loves not being tied into a project,that loves just to be able to go off. Q:Have you begun to formulate your next move? Yes,I have,but I can't tell you because it's probably oing to change!I want to find a balance between the observer and the observed.I love making music,and as long as I'm doing that,even if the albums don't sell,there'll be a certain amount of recognition.I feel I have to accept that,and learn from it and not run away from it any more... Kate Bush relaxes with a Silk Cut-a habit common among ballet dancers past and present-and is asked once again to contemplate the life of isolation.In other words,to select her desert island discs.Sitting as we are in the legendary Abbey Road studios,her choice of The Beatles' Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour could not be more appropriate,followed by Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts("tremendously influential on me and the whole of modern of modern music with the repitition and sampling "),her friend Nigel Kennedy's The Four Seasons("There's something light and uplifting about it"),The Trio Bulgarka's Strati Angelaki(on the Bulgarian compilation LP,Balkana),Donal Lunny's last album(called Donal Lunny)Eberhard Weber's Fluid Rustle("a lot of fond memories"),Billie Holliday's I love You Porgie("the singer of singers.Lindsey Kemp used to use this one in a show of his,and the combination of her sining and his theatre was terrific")and Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb. Q: A song of your own? "The song The Sensual World.Cloudbusting has fond memories for me because of the book and the video,but The Sensual World because musically I'm jolly pleased with it-and it was hell to make!" Q: And your book? "Oscar Wilde,in particular The Happy Prince.That's a strong story for me;I heard it a lot when i was little.It's so sad.I guess that's the Irish.We all like the beauty of sadness,but I do think there's a real Irish link of the happy with the sad.Everything contains the opposite-the little observer and the little observed.This is my plan,to get the balance..." That's it folks hope you enjoyed it!! Andy Semple sre017@uk.ac.cov.cck 'Phew thank god all that typing is finished!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"