All Kinds of Stuff

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

        Orek asks about a FAQ listing.  I should be posting the latest 
edition of the FAQ within a week.  I am waiting for the Wordperfect version 
of my Cloudbusting book to get added to the archives before I do, so that I 
can include info on it in the FAQ.  The FAQ will also include expanded info 
on the boxed set, Kate's session work with other artists, and a few more 
things. 

        Thanks to Dick for the _Brazil_ quote.  It's more confusing then I 
thought!

        Dirk asks about Kate and Tori.  Kate's last interview was in 
December 1991, before Tori's real big push, so Kate hasn't really had the 
opportunity to comment on Tori, if she wanted to.
        Kate said at the 1990 Kate Bush Convention that she was moving more 
towards piano and simplifying things.

        Somebody who's name I can't find in the post says:

"Fans are interesting things. Rush fans just can't comprehend why the rest 
of the world doesn't like Rush. REM fans consider the rest of the world 
beneath their social level to notice. Kate Bush fans love the rest of the 
world, and the world loves them, but spend long nights plotting to knife one 
another."                    --Richard Darwin
 Richard Darwin #33, "Gradenza"

        Who is Richard Darwin?  What's the scoop on this, it seems rather 
interesting! 

        He also asks about the bow and arrow in RUTH.  All we really know if 
from the 1985 Kate Bush Convention, unfortunately the tape is tough to hear: 



*       How did the sleeve for the "Running Up That Hill" come to be archery 
themed and the idea of lyrics on Kate's back?
        PADDY: The archery... Archery is something that we have been 
interested in for many years.  It symbolizes the very basic learning 
processes, archery.  You aim an arrow at a target and you let it go and it 
flies towards the target, it misses the middle and it moves a little bit to 
the left and a little bit low, then you know that the next arrow you're 
going to shoot has to be a little bit to the right and a bit higher.  And 
[??? inaudible] where you find another learning process [??? inaudible] 
spending all the English summer walking up and down the hundred yards 
between the target and the [??? inaudible].  And  [??? inaudible] a few 
summers ago Kate was very active, very good actually, too.  Very good [??? 
inaudible] skills.  Excellent [??? inaudible] and it just [??? inaudible].
        JAY: I think there's some levels of archery which now... in terms of 
a simple fact, you can see archery as... with the left hand holding the bow, 
as the future, and the right hand is pulling this way, it's going backwards, 
as the past.  And you're the present.  You could see it as the left hand as 
the passive thing, the female, and the right hand as the male.  And it's 
obviously [??? inaudible].  And there are a lot of esoteric levels, but I'm 
sure they're not very interesting.  Perhaps they threatened to get into the 
[??? single fan].
        And the idea of the lyrics written on Kate's back was... we'd been 
working on a series for about the last eighteen months and a photograph... 
because I never found a photograph and a poem written on the page opposite - 
it never seems to work.  You look at the poem and you're having to read the 
words and that's more concentrated thing, particularly these days, because 
less of us are used to it.  And then you look at the photograph and you get 
a much more immediate reaction.  So trying to balance all that's going on.  
And I though the only way to do it was actually to write the poem in the 
photograph.  And writing it on the person, that meant you could take a 
portion of the person, you could write your poem.  You take a photograph too 
and get a much more complete thing.  So I'd done a few of those and Kate saw 
them and liked the idea, so we tried... initially we were going to try them 
for the album cover, but that didn't work out, it was much too busy.  But it 
worked well I think for the single back.   (1985, Kate Bush Con. Paddy and 
Jay Interview)


        Orek also asks about Kate's viewpoint on science and scientists.  
Kate's generally shown them to be sympathic, from _Cloudbusting_ to 
_Experiment_IV_ to the inspiration for _Head's_We're_Dancing.  Here is the 
quote you mentioned: 

        I've been noticing a theme of science in the last few songs you had 
out.  "Cloudbusting" was an experiment that went very well, but "Experiment 
IV" was one that want wrong.  But in both cases the scientists were 
sympathetic characters, but they were frustrated and manipulated.  Is that 
what you think about scientists?
        I don't think it's always what I think about scientists, but I think 
they are fascinating in that so often they're trying to create something 
that they consider positive, productive and very much something that would 
help mankind, but so often along the way those good intentions end up being 
used, particularly by other people, for completely the opposite reasons.  
Particularly experiments that end up being used by the military, things like 
the atom bomb.  I can see that perhaps when the guy was originally playing 
with that idea, he had no idea where he'd end up, and that I'm sure that he 
wouldn't have the evil intentions in his head initially.  He was so caught 
up, so obsessed with the pure level of the science that he didn't actually 
realize how it could be used.
        What do you think about scientific experimentation?  Are there 
limits to the things that people should be working on?
        I think that's very much part of the fascination, is that people 
have to do that, that's what human beings are about - discovering things, 
and perhaps the problem is that they're normally always connected by forces 
that do not have that same kind of creative curiosity.  The consequences, 
that's the problem; the consequences are quite often hindsight, rather than 
on the way.
        I consider music a really positive force, it's something that is 
there to help people, to make them happy, to make them think.  So many 
wonderful things, music therapy... It's a very positive energy and there's 
something incredibly beautiful about music.  And the thought of people using 
sound in such a negative way - and there are definitely sonic experiments 
that go on, that are used by the military - it's so obscene.  The irony of 
using something that's so beautiful, in a way, to actually kill people 
rather than help them, I find fascinating.  (1987, MuchMusic)


And on _Head's_We're_Dancing_:


        What was the inspiration behind that?  This, well, once again it's 
unusual - in sort of a pop context.
        Yes, it's a very dark song, and it's certainly a song I don't think 
I'd write now.  But I guess it was inspired a) by the idea of, I mean one of 
the fairy tale images for a little girl, is to go to a fantastic ball, like 
Cinderella does, and she meets this handsome, supposedly, prince.  It was 
the reversal of the idea.  He was like the worst person you could possibly 
meet.  But that really sprung from a story that a friend of mine told me who 
had been at a dinner years ago, and had spent the evening sitting next to 
this incredibly charming man.  Very intelligent, very witty, he just loved 
his company so much.  The next day he asked the host "Who was that man I was 
sitting next to.  He was fascinating."  They said, "Didn't you realize, that 
was Oppenheimer."  Now, my friend's reaction to that was absolute horror, 
because for him Oppenheimer represented such evil, because of his work with 
the bomb.
        Sure.
        But in some ways I felt a little sorry for Oppenheimer, because i 
think he really paid for himself.  He was - he committed suicide, he 
couldn't handle what he'd done.  But the whole idea of the story was so 
fascinating for me, that he'd been so taken by this man until he knew who he 
was, and then it was like a complete reversal.  I guess that hung around in 
my head and I was thinking, really, who's the closest embodiment to the 
devil, who is the most evil person ever, and I think - 
        Especially in modern times.
        Yes, who else is there, really?  But I would really hate anyone to 
be offended by the song.  It's not meant to be a glorification of that whole 
event.  It's just meant to be an exploration of the idea that evil quite 
often appears in a charming guise, and we should all be careful.  He fooled 
so many people, and I don't think you can blame them for being fooled.  But 
it's terrifying, isn't it?
        It is rather frightening.   (1989, KFNX)




        Someone also asked about the _Hounds_of_Love_ video.  Here are some 
"classic" LH messages about that.  

From: abm4@CUNIXA.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Andrew B Marvick)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gaffa
Subject: Mailbag
Date: 22 Apr 91 18:13:43 GMT
Organization: The Internet


 
   As IED interprets the video of "Hounds of Love", Kate (who
directed the clip herself) wanted to make a tribute to Hitchcock's
British films of the 1930s, particularly "The Thirty-nine Steps".
Far from having no story, "Hounds of Love" is an organized little
tale of love and trust. In the beginning Kate's heroine is a demure
and withdrawn loner, visiting a museum (of a rather odd sort--perhaps
a museum of science and industry?). (By the way, keep an eye out for
Hitch himself in this early scene.) The hero, who plays Robert Donat's
character (or a parallel thereof) in "The Thirty-nine Steps", comes in
looking for a way to escape the clutches of the law. He clamps Kate's
character to his wrist with handcuffs and rushes off into the night 
with her, with the authorities hot on their heels. The reference here
is to Richard Hannay's ploy of fettering Madeleine Carroll to him
with a pair of handcuffs, whereupon he takes her off with him 
into the night, on the Scottish hills and dales. They
take refuge at a pub (or dance hall of some kind) where a conga 
dance is taking place--a typical Hitchcock crowd scene. By the end 
of this scene Kate's character, who was initially resentful of the dangerous
stranger, has warmed to the freedom from solitude and convention that he
represents, and (following the hero's recapture and momentary second
escape from the police) she herself snaps the handcuffs back on
between them before she leads them out into the darkness to renew
their flight. The video also recalls (at least in the outdoor scene 
and the first few seconds of the video itself, before the song begins)
the introductory reference to the movie "Night of the Demon" (aka
"Curse of the Demon"). Also note Paddy's dual role (at the museum
and in the public house), and a great many other fascinating little
details worth discovering. IED's personal view is that this video has 
been badly underrated, and it's about time it got the attention it merits.




   There have been several remarks in Love-Hounds recently to the effect
that Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" video is "muddled" and vague. IED 
disagrees.
The story that Kate tells in her self-directed video for "Hounds of
Love" is, superficially at least, simple.  Referring to several early
(British-made) movies by Alfred Hitchcock, as well as to the movie
"Night of the Demon" (aka "Curse of the Demon"), a British-made horror
film of the '50s starring Dana Andrews, Kate depicts the romantic
adventure of a demure, spinsterish and scholarly young woman who, while
visiting some sort of museum in England during the 1930s, is swept off
her feet by a mysterious, dramatic adventurer who is in the custody of
undercover police agents.  The man clamps one end of his handcuffs over
the woman's wrist, escapes the clutches of the police and whisks the
woman away with him into the wilds at night.  On the run in the woods
she begins to perceive the man's generous inner nature, and she
accompanies him even after her wrist is freed from the handcuffs.  (All
of this is lifted from Hitchcock's "The Thirty-nine Steps"--look very
carefully at the first few seconds of the video and you'll even spot
Hitch's trademark cameo walk-on appearance.)
   The couple seek anonymity in a public-house crowd, where they
dance. The woman struggles with the two sides of her nature during this
scene: watch her expression shift between aloof, passive acquiescence in
the dance to sheer joy in the moment.  When the authorities catch up
with them, they begin to take the mysterious outlaw with them, but
this time it is the woman who snaps the handcuffs on the stranger, and
off they go into the night together again.
   The story is told without dialogue in three and a half minutes, yet
(in IED's opinion) with great clarity and power.  All the details that
are needed to follow the story are there to be found, if you look for
them.  But as with virtually all of Kate's stories (both in the songs'
lyrics themselves and in their video illustrations), the narrative
events are not exaggerated--they can be missed unless watched for
closely. There are some other wonderful details in this video, which
IED will let viewers discover for themselves.  But remember that, as is
true of most of Kate's works, the video of "Hounds of Love" tells a
second and perhaps larger story than meets the eye...

/l

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