Misc

[rhill@netlink.cts.com (Ron Hill)]

*u

        THEY'RE OFF!  I finally got to the post office and sent the disks to 
the people I promiced them too, so look for Cloudbusting to show up in the 
archives in about a week or so.

        Thanks to everyone for the positive comments on the FAQ lately, 
though I don't know what I did differently on this one from the last two.  
:-) 

        Thank to Zirmi Smith for his harrowing story.  It's amazing that 
Kate can write songs that reflect things so well, especially when they 
involve experiences she says she's never had. 

        The much missed IED, who I talked to on the phone last night, is 
going to be sending me copies of reprinted interviews from the old 
BREAKTHOUGH magazine, so hopefully we will be seeing some more 
transcriptions soon.  I'm also working on another source of interview, 
though I fear most of these will languages I don't speak!  (French and 
German).  
        IED offered a question: 

        "In Search of Peter Pan":  1.) What inspired the song, specifically? 
2.) Is there a basis in fact for the story in the song, or is it your own 
invention entirely? 3.) Who is Dennis?  etc. 

        I only have this quote on the song: 

*       HAVE YOU OR WILL YOU BE WRITING MORE SONGS ON CLASSIC ENGLISH 
THEMES?
        Not intentionally, no.  But I think that's already been done a 
little on this album.  There's a song on in called 
"_In_Search_of_Peter_Pan_" and it's sorta about childhood.  And the book 
itself is an absolutely amazing observation on paternal attitudes and the 
relationships between the parents - how it's reflected on the children.  And 
I think it's a really heavy subject, you know, how a young innocence mind 
can be just controlled, manipulated, and they don't necessarily want it to 
happen that way.  And it's really just a song about that.   (1978, Lionheart 
Promo)


        Does anybody else have any insights on it.  I must admit I don't 
know much about Peter Pan. 


        Nathan asked about _Rocket's_Tail_.  Here's more then you probably 
wanted to know about it:  :-) 


ROCKET'S TAIL
-------------
        WHICH WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE FOR THE SONG THAT BEST DEMONSTRATES THESE 
VOICES [THE TRIO BULGARIA]?
        Most definitely Rocket's Tail.  It shows the trio off the most, and 
sometimes when they're singing, if you're in the same room as them when 
they're singing, you can hear the air cracking, it's like there's so much 
harmonic information in their voices [LAUGHS].
        TELL ME ABOUT THAT SONG THEN.
        About "_Rocket's_Tail_"?  Oh God, you would ask me about that one 
[LAUGHS].  I wrote this for the trio, really, musically, in that I wanted a 
song that could really show them off.  The other two songs that they appear 
on were already structured and in a way they had to very much fit around the 
song's structure to become a part of it, but this song they were there en 
masse, really, the whole song was based around them.  And I wrote it on a 
synthesizer with a choir sound and just sang along.  We put John's on and I 
had no idea if their voices were going to work on it at all, really, so the 
whole thing hung on the fact of whether when we went out to Bulgaria, 
whether it worked or not.  And the arranger we worked with out there was 
such a brilliant man.  In some ways, I think that the fact that we didn't 
speak the same language made our communication much easier because he seemed 
to know exactly what I wanted, and, really, just after a few hours he was 
coming up with the most incredible tunes, and I just had to say "Oh yes, I 
like that one," "Er, no, not too keen on that one," "Umm, that's lovely!" 
and just go away and write it out.  It was incredible, I've never worked 
like that before, so quickly with someone I've never met before.  It was 
really exciting to find that kind of chemistry.
        ROCKET IS ONE OF YOUR CATS.
        Rocket *is* one of my cats, and he was the inspiration for the 
subject matter for the song, because he's dead cute [BOTH LAUGH].  And it's 
very strange subject matter because the song isn't exactly about Rocket, 
it's kind of inspired by him and for him, but the song, it's about anything. 
 I guess it's saying there's nothing wrong with being right here at this 
moment, and just enjoying this moment to its absolute fullest, and if that's 
it, that's ok, you know.  And it's kind of using the idea of a rocket that's 
so exciting for maybe 3 seconds and then it's gone [PHUTT!], you know that's 
it, but so what, it had 3 seconds of absolutely wonderful...  [BOTH LAUGH]   
(1989, Roger Scott)

        "_ROCKET'S_TAIL_" (NOT WHAT YOU MIGHT THINK.)
        Er no, [SHE FINDS THIS HYSTERICALLY FUNNY] a couple of friends this 
song was very phallic.  I was so concerned I tried to change the "it was the 
biggest rocket I could find" line but "the most expensive rocket I've ever 
seen" wasn't quite the same.  It's just the idea a rocket is only there for 
three seconds but those three seconds are lived fully and totally.   (1989, 
Tracks)

        Rocket's my cat, but it was written for the Bulgarian girls.  
Ridiculous collection of images, nothing to do with Rocket, really.  He just 
started it all off.
        At the time the only song I could think of that mentioned rockets 
was "_Rocket_Man_" but since then there have been about three of them.  I 
feel a bit like the Python sketch with that guy making eight-millimetre 
films, saying, "Hitchcock had his _Rear_Window_ out while mine was still at 
the chemists."   (1989, NME)

        YET SHE ALSO FINDS AN EMOTIONAL FURY IN THOSE SAME VOICES.  ON 
"_ROCKET'S_TAIL_" SHE LAUNCHES PINK FLOYD'S DAVID GILMOUR ON A SCREAMING 
FEEDBACK GUITAR CODA INTERTWINED WITH THE TRIO.  Well, I'm sure that 
secretly Dave has always wanted to be Bulgarian, SHE LAUGHS.  Electric 
guitar for me has always had that suggestion of a human voice.
        It was such a buzz for me to work with him, SHE EXCLAIMS, because 
obviously I've known him for a long time and he's done little things before, 
like backing vocals.  But I've never really had a song where he could just 
let rip on a guitar - and it was great.
        "_ROCKET'S_TAIL_" IS ONE OF THOSE BEGUILING BUSH SONGS THAT HAVE A 
SIMPLE STORY ON THE SURFACE, ABOUT AN ECCENTRIC STRAPPING A ROCKET TO HIS 
BACK, BUT YOU WANT TO KNOW JUST WHERE IT COMES FROM.  I'm not sure if it's 
meant to be figured out, SAYS BUSH, OFFERING LITTLE HELP.  If you want to 
figure it out, great; but again, songs should exist in their own space.  And 
if they are a curious item, then that's very nice.  Some people are, aren't 
they?   (1990, Musician)

        AMONG THE OTHER GUESTS ON _The_Sensual_World_ ARE BULGARIAN SINGERS 
THE TRIO BULGARKA AND AN OLD FRIEND, DAVE GILMOUR FROM PINK FLOYD.
        It was so good for me to come this full circle where, as you know, 
Dave was very involved in getting my initial signing to the record company 
and I'd kinda written this song and I knew I wanted the Bulgarian singers to 
be the main body of the song.  And the idea is that at one point in the song 
the character dresses up as a rocket and jumps off this bridge, and it just 
felt so right that Dave Gilmour should be the rocket - you know, sort of...  
off the bridge.  You know...  he's kind of the guitar hero isn't he?   
(1989, Rapido)

        It was a vehicle to get their voices on a track in as dominant a way 
as possible.  So I put this down with a DX7 choir sound so it had this kind 
of vocal feel.  Then we got a drummer in and got this big Rock 'n' Roll 
thing going.  Then I got some friends in to hear what it would sound like 
with big block vocals singing behind my voice, and although they were 
English people that sing completely differently, it still gave me a sense of 
vocal intensity.  So these two friends must have spent all day trying to 
sing like Bulgarians.  But it was so useful, because there were so many 
things I immediately understood we couldn't do, and lots of things it felt 
like we could do.
        So we took it to Bulgaria and started working with this arranger.  I 
told him what I wanted, and he just went off and said "what about this?" and 
they were great.  He kept giving me all these things to choose from, and we 
worked so well together.
        It was so good that we decided to hold the drum kit - it was 
originally starting much earlier in the song.  Then we let Dave Gilmour rip 
on it, so we'd have this really extreme change from just vocals to this 
hopefully big Rock 'n' Roll kit, with bass, and guitar solos.   (1989, 
International Musician)

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