Re: Wow! vs. Kashka?

[nessus@media.mit.edu (Douglas Alan)]

In article <1992Oct12.170829.3507@galileo.cc.rochester.edu>
as010b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (andrew david simchik) writes:

>	 The lyrics to "Wow!" contain a line which *sounds* like:
>   "He's too busy hitting the Vaseline".  If this is really how the
>   lyrics go, am I mistaken in assuming that Kate is establishing the
>   "He" as a--to be technical--homosexual?  If so, I wish she could
>   have found a more appealing turn of phrase.  It borders on the
>   offensive, were I the easily offended type.

Well, it's *meant* to be offensive, so it's good that it is.  The
speaker in that part of the song is a sleazy producer, who tells an
actor, when speaking directly to him, how great and wonderful he is
and how much everyone loves the actor, and then when the actor's back
is turned, the producer gossips about the actor and tells everyone how
the actor will never succeed.  It's the sleazy producer who is being
offensive -- not Kate.

>   However, another song on the album, "Kashka from Baghdad"--and
>   here I'm sure I'll plunge myself into attacks of flaming from all
>   sides--*seems* to imply a homosexual couple.  The line goes, if I
>   hear it right, "Kashka from Baghdad lives in sin, they say, with
>   another man but no one knows who."  I take this line to mean
>   (since I don't know the gender of the name Kashka) that Kashka is
>   also a man.  Now the song is very positive ("They know the way to
>   be happy") and I wonder at Kate's inclusion of both lyrics on the
>   same album.

Kashka is male and the affair is a homosexual one.  This was told to
me by John Carter Bush, so the source is fairly reliable.  Kate's
lyrics consistently indicate that she has no ill feelings toward gay
people.  Also, she has worked very closely with many gay men over the
years.

|>oug
<nessus@mit.edu>