*** Kate's SEssion WOrk PART II ***

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

Do Bears Sha-La-La 
------------------

Written by Curtis/Atkinson
Performed by Rowan Atkinson and Kate Bush
at the Comic Relief charity shows 4-6 April 1986.

(Rowan) For years I thought I'd have to live alone
        I never got a letter - had to disconnect the phone
        The only girls I ever saw were on TV
        But now I've got a Venus who's sitting next to me

(both)  Do I love you?
        Do I want you?
        Would I give my life to you? - if I could
        Do birds fly?
        Do fish swim? 
        And do bears sha-la-la-la in the woods?

(Rowan) I met her in the first-class lounge of a jumbo jet
        It was love at first sight - Romeo and Juliet

(Kate)  He looked pretty rich and I was down on luck
        So I charged him a fortune for a flying fu...
(Rowan)                                      ...for crying out loud!

(both)  Do I love you?
        Do I want you?
        Would I sacrifice my life to you? - if I could
        Is the Pope Catholic?
        Is Luxembourg small?
        And do those hairy bears sshhh... in the woods?

(Rowan) I introduced her round my friends - she was ace
        I was no longer on earth, but in a better place

(Kate)  He's a utter creep and he drives me round the bend
        To allieviate the boredom, I sleep with his friends
(Rowan) Ho-ha-ho!

(both)  Do I love you?
        Do I want you?
(Kate)  Would I tear out both my eyes and fry them?  - if I could
(both)  Is the Bible fiction?
        Is true love a contradiction?
        And do bears sha-la-la-la in the woods?

        Do I desire you?
        Do I adore you? 
(Rowan) Would I cut off all my toenails and put them into an envelope
        - with my feet?

(both)  Is ... godhead? [Word Unclear!... Reagan God-Head?]
        Is chairman Mao dead?
        And do those bears sha-la-la-la (sha-la-la-la-la)...
        Do those bears sha-la-la-la (sha-la-la-la-la)...
        Do those bears sha-la-la-la...
        On Main Street...


54. Brazil. 
    ^^^^^^ 
     A cover of the old popular song, not included in the 1985 Terry 
Gilliam film "Brazil", but promised for inclusion in the soundtrack 
LP--which, however, will probably never be officially released. A bootleg 
pressing of Kate's recording for the album may become available 
eventually, however.   
        
        I hear you sang "Brazil" on the soundtrack to Terry Gilliam's 
film.
        KATE: Yes, what a beautiful song - and I always thought it was a 
really bad cabaret number, but actually it is very sad and nostalgic.
        Michael Kamen did the orchestral arrangements.  He worked on The 
Ninth Wave: "Watching You Without Me" and "Hello Earth."  He is very 
clever.  He did the music for the film, and was putting the soundtrack 
album together with Terry, and they played me this beautiful arrangement 
without a voice.  I'm not sure if this piece was in the film or not, but 
I don't sing in the film at all. It has such a 30s/40s feel, and Michael 
asked if I would sing over it - My immediate reactions were fear and 
"Yes".   (1986, KBC 20)

57. Don't Give Up. 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
     A duet with Peter Gabriel of a song from his album "So". 
        KATE: I was so excited that he asked me to sing on that track - 
It's such a lovely, haunting song, and I love his work.  But I do get 
nervous, especially when it's something I really like.  His music is very 
strong, and he is a great person - I love working with him.   (1986, KBC 
20)
        KATE: I was so thrilled he asked me to sing such a beautiful song 
but then I got very nervous.  Recording at my home studio we don't have 
window contact between the studio and the control room, you know.  We 
can't see each other, we talk to each other through the mike and 
headphones, that's all.  It's quite isolated, the way I work, and I 
hadn't been to anyone else's studio for ages.  And then at Real World I 
was terrified.  I messed it up and had to come back another day to re-do 
it.   (1989, Q)
        Interviewed in Record Mirror, May 10, p. 27, Peter said, "Kate 
did a great job. I'm a great fan of her singing and her voice. I think 
she sang on that track very differently to
how she sings on her own records -- in a very sensitive way. There are 
similarities in the way we work. She works as slowly as
I do -- with is reassuring."
        Peter Gabriel's first compilation video, appropriately titled 
_CV_, includes _two_ versions of "Don't Give Up". Version 1 is the 
well-known video which MTV televised, featuring one unchanging camera 
angle of Kate and Gabriel embracing, and lip-synching the song in front 
of an eclipsing sun. Version 2, however, is a kind of impressionistic 
montage of narrative film which shows scenes of unemployment lines, 
driver's-seat shots of long, winding roads in the rain, and decaying 
factory-towns. In this version both Gabriel and Kate appear only 
sporadically, lip-synching with faces toward the viewer in super-imposed 
head-shots which fade in and out in one or another corner of the screen. 
The film is in color, but very drab and washed out to near-gray, and some 
of the imagery is slightly "solarized". The VHS Hi-fi sound is extremely 
good.

58. The Seer. 
    ^^^^^^^^ 
     A track from Big Country's 1986 album of the same name.  Kate sings 
backing vocals. Also on "Through a Big Country - Greatest Hits".  She is 
credited with "additional vocals" which is a pretty good description, as 
it's hard to call what she's doing BVs. To get the full effect of the 
KaTeness of the song, try listening to it on headphones.  The first verse 
is sung by Stuart Adamson alone, but I believe all the other verses are 
sort of a duet between the two, with Adamson's voice on one track, loud, 
and KaTe singing the same words on the other track, in kind of a 
wonderful whisper.  Once you hear it like that a few times it becomes 
quite clear no matter what situation you hear the
song in. 
        KATE: I like the Celtic influences in their music.  They were 
lovely to work with - I really enjoyed it.  They asked if I'd like to do 
some backing vocals, and I went in for an evening.  They were really 
nice.  It was fun.  I like working with different people.   (1986, KBC 
20)

        In a freebie mag from HMV in 1987, Big Country had this to say 
"We'd done the song and one of our mates, a guy called Davy Duncan who 
used to play and sing in a band called The Shaking Pyramids, put down 
Barrad which is a sort of ethnic Scottish-Irish type hand-held drums - 
and it gave it a sort of folky feel, along with the mandolins and the 
sitars. We thought 'this song needs girl vocals on it' and Stuart 
immediately thought 'why don't we get Kate Bush?' We said there's only 
one way to do it and that's phone her management. They said that Kate 
would do it but she'd like to hear a cassette of the song first. So we 
sent a cassette there and she liked the song and she worked out her parts 
for the song, orchestrating them really well. Then she came to the studio 
and did them, it took her about twelve hours to do and it was just great, 
it was fantastic. I think the woman is just a complete genius. She was 
very shy. I think we were quite awestruck as well when she walked in. 
Tony was like 'Oh, hello Kate, would you like a cup of coffee, would you 
like a glass of orange juice?', running about saying things like that. I 
think wew were quite shy, she was quite shy as well. But she was good 
fun, she's got a good sense of humour as well. She's got a very 'Comic 
Strip' type of sense of humour which we immediately identified with and 
after that it was a great time."

        Stuart said he's been a Kate fan for a long time in a 1986 Record 
Mirror: "The Central character of the song "The Seer" is a woman, so I 
though (thought) it would be good to get a woman's vocal point of view. I 
have a lot of Kate Bush albums, and I like her voice. She varies it so 
much. There's a lot of variety and texture in the way she sings, and 
she's always coming up with something different. She's a perfectionist; 
she won't give up until she's absolutely satisfied with what she's done. 
She has a lot of dedication."
 
59. The King is Dead. 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
     A track from Go West's 1987 album "Dancing on the Couch". Kate  
sings backing vocals. She probably agreed to contribute to this track  
because of her friendship with the late guitarist Alan Murphy, who was an 
unofficial member of Go West at the time.       It's amazing to IED that 
people would go to the trouble of coaxing the likes of Kate Bush to work 
on a recording with them (for surely that takes some doing), and then use 
her so minimally, and so unimaginatively, and so anonymously, that they 
might just as well have got any session singer in England to do the job 
instead! Don't misunderstand, please: Kate is recognizable -- to the very 
careful listener; and both the song and Kate's back-up vocals are well 
crafted and not without merit. It's just that there's not much to it, and 
what little there is makes little use of what Kate has to offer. Oh, 
well, it's no big deal. The rest of the album is equally well made -- a 
bit like Aja-era Steely Dan, but with Don Fagan's vocals replaced by a 
slick singer from the school of Boy George Michael: catchy, even 
attractive, but generally disposible.
 
60. Let It Be. 
    ^^^^^^^^^ 
     7" and 12" single by Ferry Aid for the survivors and families  of 
the 1987 Zeebrugge ferry disaster. Kate sang three lines of the song  
during a separate studio session unrelated to the rest of the recording. 
 
61. Running Up That Hill and Let It Be (both live). 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^     ^^^^^^^^^ 
     Songs performed by Kate in concert on behalf of  Amnesty 
International's "The Secret Policeman's Third Ball"  shows. The second of 
the two Amnesty concert performances of  "Running Up That Hill" is 
included on the official soundtrack album, and  "Let It Be" (backed with 
a poor-quality recording of the first of  the two Amnesty performances of 
"Running Up That Hill") is available  as a bootleg seven-inch single. 


64. Sister and Brother. 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
     Duet with Midge Ure of his song, from his album "Answers to  
Nothing", released in September 1988. 
 
65. Spirit of the Forest. 
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
     Kate sings one line in a guest appearance for the "all-star"  
recording of a song (not written by Kate) about the dwindling  rain 
forests of South America. This song was recorded for and  broadcast 
during a programme about ecological issues called "Our Common Future" in 
1989. As with the Zeebrugge "Let It Be" charity record (see entry 60), 
Kate did not participate in the group chorus sessions,  but came in at a 
different time to sing her one line alone.   

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