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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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"