*** The SEnsual World Annotated lyrics PART II ***

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

        OOPS, the first part got a little thrashed and cut off (I don't 
know where, either!), so I start part II at the beggining of the lyrics 
section.




                      The Sensual World (restored)

(The song starts with the sound of church bells)

        KATE: I've got a thing about the sound of bells.  It's one of 
those fantastic sounds: sound of celebration.  The're used to mark 
points in life - births, weddings, deaths - but they give this 
tremendous feeling of celebration.
        In the original speech she's talking of the time when he 
proposed to her, and I just had the image of bells, this image of them 
sitting on the hillside with the sound of bells in the distance.  In 
hindsight, I also think it's a lovely way to start an album: a feeling 
of celebration that puts me on a hillside somewhere on a sunny 
afternoon and it's like, mmh... Sounds of celebration get fewer and 
fewer.  We haven't many left.  And yet people complain of the sound of 
bells in cities.   (1989, NME)

MMMH, YES

        KATE: In the original piece, it's just "Yes" - a very 
interesting way of leading you in.  It pulls you into the piece by the 
continual acceptance of all these sensual things: "Ooh wonderful!" 
(1989, NME)

- FIRST SECTION - 

THEN I'D TAKEN THE KISS OF SEEDCAKE BACK FROM HIS MOUTH (643 line 14)
...first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth

        It's interesting how Kate reverses this.
        The clearest description of the seedcake episode is in chapter 
8, the Lestrygonians. Page numbers:
Vintage (Random House) ed.,  1961: p. 176
Penguin Modern Classics ed., 1984: p. 144

GOING DEEP SOUTH, GO DOWN, MMH, YES.
and it was leapyear like now yes
TOOK SIX BIG WHEELS AND ROLLED OUR BODIES
16 years ago my God

        "big wheels" is from page 643 line 31.

OFF OF HOWTH HEAD AND INTO THE FLESH, MMH, YES,
after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes

        "Howth Head" is the physical location of the episode in 
_Ulysses_, a headland north of Dublin. (see eg 643 line 13)

HE SAID I WAS A FLOWER OF THE MOUNTAIN, YES,
he said I was a flower of the mountain yes

        "flower of the mountain" also appears on page 644 line 2

BUT NOW I'VE POWERS O'ER A WOMAN'S BODY-- YES.
so we are flowers all a womans body yes [sic: thus in joyce]...


- SECOND SECTION - 

TO WHERE THE WATER AND THE EARTH CARESS
...and Gibraltar as a girl where I

        The physical setting of the episode is on a hill to the north
of Dublin, overlooking the sea, hence possibly "where the water and the 
earth caress"

AND THE DOWN OF A PEACH SAYS MMH, YES,
was a flower of the mountain yes

        "Down on the peach".  Molly uses the word "peach" once, in the 
phrase
"soft like a peach" in reference to female sexual organs (Vintage
page 770).  Earlier in the day she has been presented with a gift
of peaches and pears. Can't find a reference to "down" on peaches.
        It's possible Kate might be using "peach" independently as a 
sexual
metaphor (it's a well established metaphor).  Molly's "peach" reference 
is over 10 pages from the end of the book, where the bulk of Kate's 
source material lies. 
        One of the publicity photos shows Kate holding a peach.

DO I LOOK FOR THOSE MILLIONAIRES
when I put the rose in my hair
LIKE A MACHIAVELLIAN GIRL WOULD
like the Andalusian girls used

        `Andalusian' appears because Molly is remembering incidents 
from her girlhood when she was an `army brat' in Gibraltar.  
Characteristically, these memories blur with those of her courtship 
with Leopold Bloom on Howth Head.
        The word `Machiavellian' since is absent not only from the 
"Penelope" chapter but from the whole of _Ulysses_!  
        Why did she use the word 'Machevellian' instead of 
'Andalusian'?  Seems to
me out of place somehow, unless of course she is refering to the 
manipulative
way the Molly plays with her suitor's mind...
        

WHEN I COULD WEAR A SUNSET? MMH, YES,
or shall I wear a red yes

        "sunsets" appears on page 643 line 39.

AND HOW WE WISHED TO LIVE IN THE SENSUAL WORLD
and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall

        "The Sensual World" seems to be original to Kate. The word 
"sensual"
somewhat surprisingly does not occur in _Ulysses_, and so _a_fortiori_
neither does "sensual world"

YOU DON'T NEED WORDS-- JUST ONE KISS, THEN ANOTHER.
and I thought well as well him as another

AND THEN THE ARROWS OF DESIRE REWRITE THE SPEECH, MMH, YES
and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes

AND THEN HE WHISPERED WOULD I, MMH, YES
and then he asked me would I yes
BE SAFE, MMH, YES, FROM MOUNTAIN FLOWERS?
to say yes my mountain flower
AND AT FIRST WITH THE CHARM AROUND HIM, MMH, YES
and first I put my arms around him yes
AND LOOSENED IT SO IF
and drew him down to me
IT SLIPPED BETWEEN MY BREASTS
so he could feel my breasts
HE'D RESCUE IT, MMH, YES,
all perfume yes
AND HIS SPARK TOOK LIFE IN MY HAND AND, MMH, YES
and his heart was going like mad and yes
I SAID, MMH, YES
I said yes
BUT NOT YET, MMH, YES
I will Yes
MMH, YES



COMPLETE LAST FEW PAGES

     . . .I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming
     in roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild 
     mountains then the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful
     country with fields of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and
     all the fine cattle going about that would do your heart good to 
     see rivers and lakes and flowers all sorts of shapes and smells
     and colours springing up even out of the ditches primroses and
     violets nature it is as for them saying theres no God I wouldnt
     give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why dont 
     they go and create something I often asked him atheists or what-
     ever they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves
     first then they go howling for the priest and they dying and why
     why because theyre afraid of hell on account of their bad 
     conscience ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the
     universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that 
they
     dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to
     stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said
     the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in
     the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose
     to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and
     it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long
     kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the
     mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one
     true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today 
yes
     that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what 
a
     woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him 
all
     the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes 
and
     I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I
     was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr
     Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the 
     sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up 
dishes
     they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the 
governors
     house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half 
roasted
     and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall 
combs
     and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the
     Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and
     Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons
     and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows 
     in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels
     of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years 
old
     yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings
     asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda 
with
     the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her
     lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and 
the
     castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the 
     watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful 
deepdown
     torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the
     glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and 
all
     the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and 
the
     rosegardens and the jessamine and germaniums and cactuses and
     Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when 
I
     put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used to or shall
     I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I
     thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my
     eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes
     my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew
     him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his 

     heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.



OTHER USES OF ULYSSES 

        There is a general Joycean feel to Kate's work, both in its 
Irishness and in the overall level of its detail and the richness and 
diversity of its reference. However, the only certain Joycean reference 
in Kate's work is the song "My Lagan Love". A more dubious one is 
Stephen's reference to "every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from 
farther out, waves and waves" in the third chapter (Penguin p.38 line 
40).  Kate and Joyce might simply be independently aware of the same 
bit of folk wisdom however.  Also, Kate has specically said she got the 
title from the quote on the back of "Hounds of Love."
        Another unlikely influence on Kate's work from Ulysses is "all 
the amount of pleasure they get off _a_womans_body_ were so round and 
white for them always I wished I was one myself for a change"  [Penguin 
ed. page 638 lines 41-2.], which is simular to "I'd make a deal with 
god and get him to swap our places" [RUTH]


        An edited version of the Ulysses passage, beginning with the 
line 
"I'd love to have the whole place swimming in roses" (642 line 42)  has 
been set to music (!) for soprano (!) solo and orchestra by Stephen 
Albert under the title of "Flower of the Mountain" (!). I have located 
the piano reduction of  Albert's score, which was published in 1986 by 
Schirmer. It is orchestrated for
2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling English horn),
2 A clarinets, 2 F horns, 2 Bb trumpets, percussion, piano, harp and