NPR interview

[rhill@pnet01.cts.com (Ronald Hill)]

KT NPR
------
10-25-89

        This interview is also idenified as "All Things Considered."

[transcribed by Ray Russell]

[Wuthering Heights is played]

        K: I think I've always played with my voice um, because I've never
really thought of myself as a singer and um it's it's always in, in many ways
a continual experiment for me to see what kind of voice suits the song that
you're working on.  It's quite often um trying to create a bit of a character
through the voice to help tell the story.
        I: Wuthering Heights, the song of course draws it's name from the
famous novel Wuthering Heights.  What's the connection between the song and
the book?
        K: It's written from Cathy's point of view. When she comes back to
reclaim Heathcliff once she's actually died and what I found so fascinating
about the story Wuthering Heights was that I think still the ultimate love
story it's incredibly passionate, and it's the story that takes love beyond
life, it actually won't even be controlled by death you know she still has to
come back and get him.
        I: On your latest album, Sensual World, you wanted to write a song
based on the Molly Bloom soliloquy in, in Ulysses, in James Joyce's Ulysses. 
What is it about literature that inspires you in the writing of your song?
        K: [laughs] Um, I think literature is in many ways the ultimate
expression of something and many people have said that if you want to know
anything that somewhere it will be written in a book.

[An excerpt of The Sensual World is played]

        I: You weren't able to get the right for uh the Molly Bloom soliloquy
but you did write a song based in a general way on it.  How did you how did
you deal with that problem and yet still make the song Sensual World based on
the soliloquy?
        K: It was very frustrating for me um because when initially the  words
were put to the music, it was like it was uncanny the way that it fitted. I'd
written this piece if music with no lyrics and I just suddenly had the idea of
how wonderful it would be to use the soliloquy.  It ended up turning itself
into a story of how Molly Bloom steps out of the book in into the real world
she steps out away from her author and into the sensual world into the
sensuality of this world that we live in.
        I: One song on your album that has a very interesting story I think is
Heads We're Dancing.  It's a story of a young girl who meets a stranger at a
dance.  Will you tell us that story?
        K: It's about a girl who goes to a party in 1939 and meets a stranger
who asks her to dance and she dances with him and finds his company very
charming he's very witty and good company.  And it's not until sometime later
that she finds through reading in a newspaper that she was actually dancing
with Hitler.

[Part of Heads We're Dancing is played]

        K: I guess it's trying to say that evil things don't always, and
perhaps very rarely. appear as being evil they come across as being very
seductive, very attractive.  And this is certainly what Hitler was he was very
charismatic that's why he fooled so many people.
        I:  What do you want to explore next, you've explored Wuthering
Heights, you've explored James Joyce, you've explored Hitler. What next?
        K:  I'd like to think that um maybe I'm moving into more nicer
inspirations, but I've no real plans for any major project yet, which is very
unusual for me, and I must say I like being in the situation of no commitment
just now.  It's very unusual for me to have that sense of freedom and I'm
really enjoying it.  So I guess I'll use this period to find out what I want
to do next.
        I:  Singer/songwriter Kate Bush.  Her most recent album is The Sensual
World.  

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