**** KATE BUSH SONG CRASH COURSE PART II ****

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

        The Ninth Wave - The side is about someone who is in the water 
alone for the night.
        "And Dream of Sheep" - "is about them fighting sleep.  They're 
very tired and they've been in the water waiting for someone to come 
and get them, and it's starting to get dark and it doesn't look like 
anyone's coming and they want to go to sleep.  They know that if they 
go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they're 
trying to keep awake; but they can't help it, they eventually fall 
asleep - which takes us into the second song."
        "Under Ice" - "is the dream that the person has.  They're 
skating on ice; it's a frozen river and it's very white everywhere and 
they're all alone, there doesn't appear to be anyone else there.  As 
they skate along they look down at the ice and they can see something 
moving underneath.  As they skate along with the object that's moving 
under the ice they come to a crack in the ice; and as it moves under 
the crack, they see that it's themselves in the water drowning, and at 
that moment they wake up into the next song, which is about friends and 
memories who come to wake them up to stop them drowning."
        "Waking the Witch" - "As they wake up and surface, they are 
coming out of the whole feeling of deep subconsciousness.  One of the 
voices tells them there's someone there to see them, and here in the 
water is a witchfinder.  This is a sort of nightmare they're having.  
This monster figure is basically trying to drown them, trying to see if 
they're innocent or guilty.  If they drown then they're innocent.  If 
they don't drown they're guilty, they'll be drowned anyway.  It's the 
trial of this girl who's in the water; and all she wants to do is 
survive and keep her head above water."
        "Watching You Without Me" - "about how she wants to go home.  
That's really the thing she wants most, just to be in the cosy 
atmosphere of her belongings all around her, and the security of those 
four walls and the firm ground, and being with the one that she loves.  
She finds that she's there in spirit, and there's her loved one sitting 
in a chair by the fire, but she hadn't conceived the idea that she 
wouldn't actually be there in real terms.  She's not real.  And 
although she can see her man, he can't see her - she can't communicate 
with him in any way."
        "Jig of Life" - "This is about the future self who comes to her 
rescue, basically.  She says "Look, I'm the next part of your life and 
if I am going to survive and enjoy the things that I've enjoyed - 
having my children, my happy home and my husband - then you've got to 
keep it together, you've got to stay alive, you mustn't drown or I will 
drown with you." It's the future begging her, pleading with her to let 
her, the future lady, live."
        "Hello, Earth" - "this is the point where she's so weak that 
she relives the experience of the storm that took her in the water, 
almost from a view: looking down on the earth up in the heavens, 
watching the storm start to form - the storm that eventually took her 
and that has put her in this situation."
        "The Morning Fog" - "Well, that's really meant to be the rescue 
of the whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and 
weight comes light.  You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the 
morning, and it's meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting 
from the rest of dense, darkness of the previous track.  And although 
it doesn't say so, in my mind this was the song where they were 
rescued, where they get pulled out of the water."

        "Burning Bridge" - I wanted something that was relatively 
up-tempo, and just a fun song.  I don't think the lyrics are by any 
means profound, but it was something that I felt was fun to do and was 
a very different energy from the a-side of the record."
        "My Lagan Love" - "A traditional song that is one of the most 
beautiful tunes I think exists in traditional music.  And throughout 
the years, people have used the song and their own versions of the 
lyrics to it."
        "The Handsome Cabin Boy" - "For me it is an absolutely classic 
story"
        "Wuthering Heights (New Vocal)" - "I wanted to put a 
contemporary mark on it.  I felt it sounded like a very little girl 
singing that to me, and the production was very much a Seventies 
production.  And although there were some other tracks in there that 
you could say the same thing of, they weren't as blatant as that one 
was."
        "Experiment IV" - "A nightmare vision of the future where music 
is harnessed by evil scientists as a weapon of destruction."

        "The Sensual World" - "Because I couldn't get permission to use 
a piece of Joyce it gradually turned into the song about Molly Bloom 
the character stepping out of the book, into the real world and the 
impressions of sensuality, says Kate, softly, almost childlike.  Rather 
than being in this two-dimensional world, she's free, let loose to 
touch things, feel the ground under her feet, the sunsets, just how 
incredibly sensual a world it is."
        "Love and Anger" - "This is about who you can or cannot confide 
in when there's something you can't talk about."
        "The Fog" - "It's about trying to grow up.  Growing up for most 
people is just trying to stop escaping, looking at things inside 
yourself rather than outside.  But I'm not sure if people ever grow up 
properly.  It's a continual process, growing in a positive sense."
        "Reaching Out" - "I had this lovely conversation with someone 
around the time I was about to start writing it.  They were talking 
about this star that exploded.  I thought it was such fantastic 
imagery.  The song was taking the whole idea of how we cling onto 
things that change - we're always trying to not let things change.  I 
thought it was such a lovely image of people reaching up for a star, 
and this star explodes.  Where's it gone?  It seemed to sum it all up 
really."
        "Head's We're Dancing" - "A woman at a dance before the war and 
this guy comes up to her tossing a coin with this cocky chat-up line, 
Heads we're dancing.  She doesn't recognise him until she sees his face 
in the paper later on and then she's devastated.  She thinks that if 
she'd known she might have been able to *get* him and change the course 
of history."
        "Deeper Understanding" - "And this is the idea of someone who 
spends all their time with their computer and, like a lot of people, 
they spend an obsessive amount of time with their computer.  People 
really build up heavy relationships with their computers!  And this 
person sees an ad in a magazine for a new program: a special program 
that's for lonely people, lost people.  So this buff sends off for it, 
gets it, puts it in their computer and then like <pyoong!>, it turns 
into this big voice that's saying to them, "Look, I know that you're 
not very happy, and I can offer you love: I'm her to love you.  I love 
you!"  And it's the idea of a divine energy coming through the least 
expected thing."
        "Between a Man and a Woman" - "It's about a relationship being 
a very finely balanced thing that can be easily thrown off by a third 
party.  The whole thing really came from a line in The Godfather, 
during some family argument, when Marlon Brando says, "Don't interfere, 
it's between a man and a woman."  It's exploring the idea of trying to 
keep a relationship together, how outside forces can break into it."
        "Never Be Mine" -  "It's that whole thing of how, in some 
situations, it's the dream you want, not the real thing.  It was 
pursuing a conscious realisation that a person is really enjoying the 
fantasy and aware it won't become reality.  So often you think it's the 
end you want, but this is actually looking at the process that will 
never get you there.  Bit of a heart-game you play with yourself."
        "Rocket's Tail" - "I guess it's saying there's nothing wrong 
with being right here at this moment, and just enjoying this moment to 
its absolute fullest, and if that's it, that's ok, you know.  And it's 
kind of using the idea of a rocket that's so exciting for maybe 3 
seconds and then it's gone [phutt!], you know that's it, but so what, 
it had 3 seconds of absolutely wonderful..."
        "This Woman's Work" - "John Hughes, the American director, was 
doing a film called She's Having a Baby - a great film, very nice and 
comic.  And he had this scene which he wanted me to write a song for 
where it gets very heavy.  The film's about this guy who gets married 
and he likes being a kid, really - very much up in the clouds - and she 
gets pregnant and they go into hospital, and she's rushed off becuase 
the baby's in the breach position.  And suddenly there he is, just left 
in the waiting room by himself.  It's probably the first time in his 
life he's had to grow up."
        "Walk Straight Down the Middle" - "came together very quickly.  
It's about following either of two extremes, when you really want to 
plough this path straight down the middle.  Rather than 
"WAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH": being thrown from one end of the spectrum to the 
other.  I'd like to think of myself as holding the centre, whereas in 
fact I'm - "WAAARRRRGGGGHHHH" - taking off all the time. "

        "Be Kind To My Mistakes" - Kate wrote this for Nicholas Roeg's 
film Castaway.
        "I'm Still Waiting" - NO QUOTES 
        "Rocket Man" - From the age of 11, Elton John was my biggest 
hero.  I loved his music, had all his albums and I hoped one day I'd 
play the piano like him (I still do). When I was asked to be involved 
in this project and was given the choice of a track it was like being 
asked "would you like to fulfill a dream?  Would you like to be Rocket 
Man? ...yes, I would."
        "Candle in the Wind" - NO QUOTES.  Notice the apparent 
simularities between Marilyn Monroe and Kate's life.

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