MisK.

[Andrew B Marvick <abm4@columbia.EDU>]

     IED also appreciates the instruKTion in elementary Dutch, and will 
try to remember the correKT spellungs. By the way, Dutch Love-Hounds, what
does (spelling certainly wrong) Voor de Vuist Weg mean, and have any 
of you ever seen Kate's 1978 appearance on it?

     IED finds it both amusing and annoying that such confidence is
reflected in recent attributions of Prince to this or that Kate Bush
track.  For the record, there is a very detailed account of Prince's
only collaboration (and non-contact) with Kate in the latest Kate Bush
Club Newsletter.

     The whole issue reminds IED of the recent fiasco over the so-called
"newly discovered" six lost Haydn piano sonatas, which the talented but
headstrong pianist and musicologist Paul Badura-Skoda has embarrassed himself
over. Apparently (according to the NY Times) if it weren't for the magic of 
chemical dating techniques, these forgeries would have been impossible
to expose as such, because musicologists eager to authenticate them would
always have found ways to explain away any clumsiness in the sonatas as support
for their attribution, not proof against it: "Brief but periodic episodes
of flagging inspiration were typical of the Master!" they would cry. Like-
wise any stylistic vulgarities were but further proof of Haydn's hand, since 
these, too,  are "a hallmark of the composer's work". Any anachronistic chord
progressions?  "Typically prescient of Haydn!"; etc.
     The point being that some of our finest musicologists, once
convinced (for whatever personal reasons) that a given work is by X,
may be very convincing in their arguments in support of the attribution;
without the benefit of a preconception, however, their statements are (as they 
should be) less conclusive. 
      Was this behavior not evident in the search for non-existent
facts to prove the postulate when no fewer than five different
tracks (Rubberband Girl, Big Stripey Lie, Why Should I Love
You?, Constellation of the Heart, You're the One) were identified as "the
one with Prince on it" -- this before the official release of the album,
which finally identified "WSILY" as the _only_ track with Prince on
it (and even there, most of Prince's work had been muted or removed).
And now we are hearing that You Want Alchemy, too, is a Prince/KT track!
Entirely too much fuss has been made over Prince's involvement in
Kate's work, which is unequivocally the work of KATE BUSH, reflective of
her style, no one else's.

One other minor point (demonstrating that IED can still spin
Kate Bushological castles on air with the best of you):
Someone suggested that You Want Alchemy should have been 
on the album.  This would (in IED's view) have been impossible,
as You Want Alchemy postdates the album.  Kate referred in
interviews to the making of The Red Shoes film as a kind of Kate Bush
"Magical Mystery Tour". The reference to "our own mystery tour" (and "a
cloudbusting kind of day") on the track suggest that the song recounts
an experience Kate had during the filming of the movie.

-- Andrew Marvick (IED)
   "Off the page..."