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[rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)]

        Steve, someone was going to upload Cloudbusting Wordperfect but 
had technical troubles.  Try again in a couple of days, and if you still 
can't get it contact me and we can work something out. 

        MICHAEL - Welcome aboard.  Here's the lryics to Wuthering Heights 
and some quotes from Kate about it.  

  


Wuthering Heights 
 Out on the wiley, windy moors
 We'd roll and fall in green.
 You had a temper like my jealousy:
 Too hot, too greedy.
 How could you leave me,
 When I needed to possess you?
 I hated you. I loved you, too.

      Bad dreams in the night.
      They told me I was going to lose the fight,
      Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
      Wuthering Heights.

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

 Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely,
 On the other side from you.
 I pine a lot. I find the lot
 Falls through without you.
 I'm coming back, love.
 Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream,
 My only master.

      Too long I roam in the night.
      I'm coming back to his side, to put it right.
      I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering,
      Wuthering Heights,

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

 Ooh! Let me have it.
 Let me grab your soul away.
 Ooh! Let me have it.
 Let me grab your soul away.
 You know it's me--Cathy!

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!
           Let me in-a-your window.

           Heathcliff, it's me--Cathy.
           Come home. I'm so cold!





Wuthering Heights

        This next song's called "Wuthering Heights". and it's my single 
in England.   (1978, Self Portrait)

        Well that was based around the story Wuthering Heights, which was 
written by Emily Bronte.  And ah, and really what sparked that off was a 
TV thing I saw as a young child.  [Apparently the Timothy Dalton telefilm 
of about 1972]  I just walked into the room and caught the end of this 
program.  And I am sure one of the reasons it stuck so heavily in my mind 
was because of the spirit of Cathy, and as a child I was called Cathy.  
It later changed to Kate.  It was just a matter of exaggerating all my 
bad areas, because she's a really vile person, she's just so headstrong 
and passionate and... crazy, you know?  And it was fun to do, and it took 
- a night and a half?   (1980, Profiles In Rock)

        It's from the novel called Wuthering Heights - you probably might 
know it better as the film.  It's about the end of the film where Cathy 
has actually died and she's coming back as a spirit across the moors to 
come and get Heathcliff again.  And it just struck me very strongly 
because it shows a lot about human beings and how if they can't get what 
they want, they will go to such extremes in order to do it.  This is 
exactly what she did.  She wouldn't even be alone when she was dead.  She 
had to come back and get him.  I just found it really amazing.   (1978, 
Self Portrait)

        I wrote the song from Cathy's standpoint.  Cathy wants to take 
Heathcliff's soul so that they can be together in the spiritual world.   
(1978, Music Talk)

        I felt I just had to write a song about the tormented heroine 
Cathy calling for the soul of Heathcliff so they could be together 
eternally.   (????, AVD)

        How did the interest in the Bronte subject come up?
        Well, it was originally from a TV series years ago and I'd just 
caught the very end of it.  And it was like really freaky, cause there's 
this hand coming through the window and whispering voices and I've always 
been into that sort of thing you know and it just hung around in my head. 
 And the year before last I read the book and that was it, I had to write 
a song about it.
        When did you write the song, cause the record came out the 
beginning of year, was it January or February?
        That's right, and I'd written the song in the summer before.  
Really just before we'd recorded the album, it was my latest song.   
(1979, Swap Shop)
        
        When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so 
strong.  This young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior 
and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff.  Great subject 
matter for a song.
        I loved writing it.  It was a real challenge to precis the whole 
mood of a book into such a short piece of prose.  Also when I was a child 
I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate 
to her as a character.  It's so important to put yourself in the role of 
the person in a song.  There's no half measures.  When I sing that song I 
am Cathy.
        Her face collapses back into smiles.
        Gosh I sound so intense.  "Wuthering Heights" is so important to 
me.  It had to be the single.  To me it was the only one.  I had to fight 
off a few other people's opinions but in the end they agreed with me
        I was amazed at the response though, truly overwhelmed.   (1978, 
Record Mirror)

        Well, I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night 
in March at about midnight.  There was a full moon and the curtains were 
open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon.  
Actually, it came quite easily.  I couldn't seem to get out of the chorus 
- it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats.  I had 
originally written something more complicated, but I couldn't link it up, 
so I kept the first bit and repeated it.  I was really pleased, because 
it was the first song I had written for a while, as I'd been busy 
rehearsing with the KT Band.
        I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it 
for quite a while.  I remember my brother John talking about the story, 
but I couldn't relate to it enough.  So I borrowed the book and read a 
few pages, picking out a few lines.  So I actually wrote the song before 
I had read the book right through.  The name Cathy helped, and made it 
easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you 
hate them.  I could understand how Cathy felt.
        It's funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was 
writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she 
didn't know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct.  A 
similar thing happened with "Wuthering Heights": I put lines in the song 
that I found in the book when I read it later.
        I've never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would 
like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it's supposed to be.
        One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive 
feedback I've had from the song, though I've heard that the Bronte 
Society think it's a disgrace.  A lot of people have read the book 
because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about 
it for me.  I didn't know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the 
year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song 
helped them.  I'm really happy about that.
        There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song.  
When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of 
consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song.  Also, when I 
was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in 
town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him.  When I came 
back I had this urge to switch on the TV - it was about one in the 
morning - because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on.  I 
tuned in o a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, 
playing channel roulette, until I found it.  I came in at the moment 
Cathy was dying, so that's all I saw of the film.  It was an amazing 
coincidence.   (1979, KBC 1) 

*       The story in "Wuthering Heights" had been bugging me for about a 
month.  At the time I was recording the album, I began to get down my 
thoughts on Cathy and Heathcliff and their incredible relationship.  I 
really enjoyed the energy between those two.   (1984, Pulse!)

*       I tried to project myself into the role of the book heroine and, 
because she is a ghost, I gave her a high-pitched wailing voice.   (1978, 
A Tonic For The Doctor's Daughter)

*       I developed a kind of fascination with Cathy after I saw the last 
10 minutes of the television series where she was at the window and 
cutting herself with the glass.  It always stuck in my brain.
        It was probably a lot to do with the fact that her name was Cathy 
- and I was always called that as a child.
        My feeling about it was so strong that it kept coming back to me 
again and again.
        Then I read the book and discovered that Emily Bronte had her 
birthday on the same day as me, July 30, and I really, really wanted to 
write a song about it all.   (1978, TV Week)

        That must mean an awful lot to you, that song, actually, mustn't 
it?
        Yes, it does.  It means an awfully lot.  I mean that's really why 
my name is known, because of that song, and because of the book.   (1979, 
Swap Shop)
        
        Funny, but I've only ever seen ten minutes of Wuthering Heights - 
 it looked a bit corny to me.  [This is probably a reference to the 
famous version with Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon. - IED]   (1982, 
Robin Smith) 

        What inspired you to write that?  That sounds like an obvious 
question, but maybe it's not an obvious answer, I don't know.
        I think it is an obvious answer.  [Laughs]  It was very much the 
book.  The idea of a relationship that even when one of them is dead, 
they will not leave the other one alone.  I found that fascinating.  Not 
unlike the energy behind the Houdini song that we did, where the strength 
of love... I mean it's incredibly romantic.  But a very nice story and 
the sense of how even when she's dead she has to come back for him.  
Possessive lady.  [Laughs]
        Have you ever been in love in that way or that much?
        Yes, I think love effects you in a funny way and I think everyone 
loves something or someone so I think everyone understands at least on 
some level the experiences.  I wouldn't say I was a terribly possessive 
or ... [laughs]  I mean I would hate to think that I was like Cathy!  But 
I think everyone certainly has shadows or little tinges of those things 
in them.   (1985, MTV)

*       I have to ask you, though, about your high pitched range, what 
reaction did you get when you came out with "Wuthering Heights" to the 
actual pitch?
        I think there were a lot of different reactions, some people 
really liked it, some people really didn't, and other people found it 
very amusing.  For me, really, I just see it as a phase of my writing 
where I was just into playing around with that kind of range.  And I find 
it changes, I mean as far as I'm concerned that's an old style for me 
now.  But of course a lot of people still see that as being me now.  But 
that's just, you know, part of the time situation where for a lot of 
people they will always think of me as "Wuthering Heights" and nothing 
else.  But...
        That was partly because it was so unusual, you know.  It was 
really quite unique in itself.
        Yes, I suppose so.  And also of course it was the most successful 
single I've had, so that obviously does tend to stick in people's mind 
alot.  But as far as I'm concerned, I feel like I'm changing, hopefully 
with each album I do.   (1982, Dreaming debut)

---
rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill)
NetRunner's Paradise BBS, San Diego CA