Re: The Ninth Wave

[Jeff Burka <jburka@silver.ucs.indiana.edu>]

>I've come to the conclusion that it's about a close brush with
>death, and the soul/astral body being separated from the
>material one. Preface everything which follows with IMHO.

Well, it's definitely about a close brush with death, and the idea of
astral projection is there (though it only occurs in dreams).  To be honest,
with the amount of stuff you came up with, I'm kind of surprised that you
never caught the water connection.

Unfortunately, I've once again lost my text file in which KaTe describes
each song (piffle!), so you'll have to do with my inferior remembrances
and interpretations.

The suite is about a woman who's been shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean.
Whilst there, she goes through a series of experiences that change her life,
makes her appreciate and love her family.  KaTe never says whether the
woman is rescued--she seems to be more interested in the character's 
epiphany.

>"And Dream Of Sheep"

Lost in the middle of the sea, praying she'll be found, this woman realizes
that night is coming on--and with it sleep.  She realizes, though, that
if she falls asleep she'll surely drown, so she struggles to stay awake.
Eventually it is too much and she gives in and dozes.

>"Under Ice"

The character's first dream:  she is skating along a frozen riverbed, 
enjoying the solitude, the quiet, the white, when she notices something
moving under the ice.  Out of curiosity she starts to follow this shadowy
object down the river until she comes to a crack in the ice and sees that
the 'object' is in fact her own drowning body!  "It's me!"


>"Waking The Witch" - very metaphorical

The woman wakes up ("You must wake up!")  in time to be tried by a witch
hunter.  I don't remember KaTe having all that much to say about this song,
and it is a very difficult song.  In my opinion, it is the woman arguing
with herself about whether she is worth saving, or if she should give up--
she's not good enough, not worth the effort.  For this interpretation, it
is important to know that the Witch Hunter's voice is actually done by KaTe,
electronically changed.  Eventually she comes up with the willpower to stay
alive...

>"Watching You Without Me" - separated from her physical body,
>she finds herself in/goes to her house, watching her family.
>They know only that she's not returned home and that something
>must be wrong. Seeing their concern is a revelation for her,
>but in her disembodied form she can't speak to them.

Yes.  KaTe says that this is perhaps the worst dream that the character
has--she floating in the middle of the ocean, dreaming of what her husband
is doing without her.

>"Jig Of Life"

Once again, the character's strength and willpower are flagging, at which
point she's visited by her future self ("I'll be sitting in your mirror")
who begs her to live--if not for the present woman's sake, than for her
future self and children's sake.  Once again, she pulls through.

>"Hello Earth"

Finally, the woman re-experiences the storm that shipwrecked her in the
first place, this time from the perspective of a satellite traveling
across the sky.  She tries to warn her ship ("Get out of the waves/Get out
of the water"), and, of course, fails....

>"The Morning Fog" - returning to her body, she wakes up in her own
>bed. Suddenly being alive, with her family, means more to her than
>it ever has before. Now all she wants is the real world, because
>she knows every dream has it's nightmare.

Alack and alas, this song has been the center of some of the largest debates
on gaffa:  is the character actually rescued at the end of the suite, or
is she left floating?

KaTe's description would imply that a) she's left floating and b) it doesn't
matter, because the suite is more about emotions, and the epiphany the woman
undergoes.

And one last note before I run of to registration:

KaTe wrote the entire "Ninth Wave" suite without a title for the piece.
Leafing through a book one day, she happened upon the Tennyson quote,
which she decided was a perfect epigraph for the piece.  She was not
inspired by it.  I've seen a few articles and stuff come through .gaffa that
people have retyped from magazines in which people have made this mistake.

Jeff
-- 
|Jeffrey C. Burka                |"I've lost my way through this world of |
|jburka@silver.ucs.indiana.edu   | profanities/I thrive on the wind and   |
|jburka@amber.ucs.indiana.edu    | the rain and the cold."  --Happy Rhodes|