Re: Cloudbusting - The book, the song, the controversy!!!! :-)

[jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu (Jeffrey C. Burka)]

In article <AG.93Jun5112432@anhur.sics.se> Anders writes:

>Well, it's not that the lyrics don't give all the facts of the
>matter the makes it less important than the music. No, my idea
>was perhaps even more dubious: If the song (music&lyrics) gives
>an emotional impression this is to be credited to the music
>since the lyrics are (*as I see this*) so weak. Now, one of the
>weaknesses of the lyrics is that it is so fragmental as to be
>more or less meaningless to a listener unaware of the
>background to the lyrics.

I'll have to strongly disagree here.  I loved "Cloudbusting" *and* understood
the import of its lyrics long before I knew the story of Peter Reich.

The song is *not* a biographical piece on Peter Reich and his father.
It is, I am convinced, a commentary on the nature of the love of a young
boy for his father, _despite_ the confusion resulting from bad things the
boy must associate with his father (first, the banning of his beloved
yo-yo, secondly, the abduction of his father by the government)

>This might well be untrue! Maybe it has! It stopped me from
>loving the song.

Do you also dislike the other fragmentary songs on _Hounds of Love_?
"Under Ice" and "Waking the Witch" are rather difficult to comprehend
outside of the context set by the plot of the suite in which they
appear.  

>The pictures used in a Rorschach test are not works of art.

Yes, I too think that it was silly of Ron to keep coming back to the
utterly irrelevant Utah Saints song.  ;-)  I kind of like "Something Good"
but I have trouble associating it with Kate.

>If Kate could write some lyrics in this fashion, it's sad when
>the explanation of a poem is so much better than the poem itself.

Does this mean you get no emotional punch out of "Come here with me now"
or any of the other wonderful "soundbites" at the beginning of
"Waking the Witch"?   Gack.  What a pity.  Why do you bother to listen to
Kate at all?

>You might say she cuts herself loose in her lyrics and hoovers 
>some ten inches above the ground (befitting a divinity) but we
>who walks on the earth need some friction to get forward and 
>are not much helped by Kate Bush's lyrics.

Your sarcasm here implies that you find your inability to parse Kate's
lyrics and retrieve the inherent emotions she strives (and in my and
many others' opinions) to implant therein to be a fault in Kate and not 
yourself.  

Jeff
-- 
|Jeffrey C. Burka     | "When I look in the mirror, I see a little clearer/ |
|SAFH Lite [tm]       |  I am what I am and you are you too./  Do you like  |
|jeffy@syrinx.umd.edu |  what you see?  Do you like yourself?"  --N. Cherry |