Re: The Ninth Wave

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

   Many thanks to Henry_Burdett_Messenger@cup.portal.com for posting
one of the cleverest pieces of Love-hounds detective work in years.

> A New Analysis of "The Ninth Wave"

> It's always been clear to us that "The Ninth Wave" is about someone
> who's been in a terrible accident at sea and is trying to survive in
> the water. But these words had always troubled me -- these are the words
> of someone who had a choice when making the journey. Usually this isn't
> the case. We travel because we must, for the most part. 

> Several years after hearing "The Ninth Wave," I started sailing again. 

> Naturally, I wanted to become a better sailor, so I started reading
> sailing books. One very good book that I read is called _'Fastnet: 
> Force 10'_, by John Rousmaniere. It's about a particularly disasterous 
> ocean sailing race. It then occurred to me that the words of the 
> protagonist in "The Ninth Wave" are those of a racing sailor. This
> is the introduction to _'Fastnet: Force 10'_:

   [story deleted]

> This book was written in 1980, and the Fastnet disaster was front page
> news in England at the time:

   [story deleted]

> I don't find it coincidental that "Hounds of Love" was released in 1985.
> This is enough time to have written "The Ninth Wave" and the rest of
> the album and then record and release it. Kate certainly would have known
> about the Fastnet gale, and it's possible she actually read _'Fastnet: 
> Force 10'_.

    I can supply some collaboration. Kate has stated that she doesn't
read much fiction, that her tastes tend to run to non-fiction. I am
a bit out on a limb, but it really *seems* like the sort of thing that
Kate *would* read, based on the sort of supposition that a friend might
make about what sort of book to buy for a birthday present. (I'm *not*
claiming that I'm one of Kate's friends, I'm just offering an opinion
based on reading a whole *bunch* of interviews.)

   And Kate does tend to let things bubble around in her subconcious
for quite some time before writing about them. It was years *after*
seeing the TV version of _Wuthering Heights_ that she wrote the song.
Same thing with the space between seeing _The Innocents_ and writing
_The Infant Kiss_, reading _A Book Of Dreams_ and writing
_Cloudbusting_, and other less well established inspirations. Suffice
to say, a gap of five years between experience and response is not
uncommon for Kate.

> The "white horses" were the breaking Fastnet seas that destroyed five
> racing yachts and caused twenty-four crews to abandon their boats.

> The storm that hit the Fastnet fleet was known to the meterologists.
> They had tracked it from the American Midwest all the way across
> the Atlantic. It was just much stronger than they anticipated, and
> took a turn to the south that they didn't expect:

>    Watching storms
>    Start to form
>    Over America
>    Can't do anything
>    Just watch them swing
>    With the wind
>    Out to sea
>
>        "Hello Earth"

> Compare that with John Rousmaniere's description:

>       The storm was born [on August 9] in the northern Great 
>     Plains of the United States, where hot air over baking wheat 
>     fields frequently tangles with cold Canadian air to 
>     produce tornadoes and violent thunderstorms.

    I got chills re-reading Kate's words in this new light. I'd say
you have it exactly.

>     On Friday [August 10]... seventy-eight boats boats 
>     competeting in the J/24 sailboat class were swept by 
>     unpredictable, violent gusts from the south-west and
>     north-west. The boats finished the race under a black
>     sky and made it safely into the protected harbor of 
>     Newport just before the Coast Guard issued an alert warning
>     for all sailors to seek shelter.

   Get out of the waves
   Get out of the water

     This is one of the best pieces of Love-hounds detective work since
Jorn Barger's discovery of the original lyrics to _The Sensual World_.

     Congratulations.


                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)