Re: Diary of a wannabe Kate fan

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

>1. WUTHERING HEIGHTS.  Seen it before, a long, long time ago when
>the single was released.  I'd completely forgotten the cartwheels
>and the multiple image video trails; wow!  Was this a video ahead of
>its time or what?  Of course, when I'd seen it previously on TV it
>was accompanied by a mono soundtrack filtered through the TV
>speaker. This time it was in stereo with that great thumping bass
>line pounding the ears.  Phew, 1 track down, 15 to go! 

    Glad to see that someone else recognises that _Wuthering Heights_
was ahead of it's time. One really has to remember what the other videos
of that time were like.

>2. CLOUDBUSTING.  Never heard the song or seen the video before. 
>Hmm.. interesting.. Kate appearing as a tom boy.  Loved the song -
>almost a tribal chant.

    It tells a very specific story, of Wilhelm Reich and his son
(Donald Sutherland as Reich and Kate as Peter Reich.) Kate read
Peter Reich's childhood rememberance _A Book Of Dreams_, about his
father's unorthodox ideas. Reich had built a number of machines based
on his ideas of "Orgone energy," the Cloudbuster to make rain, and
the Orgone Energy Box. The Food and Drug Administration arrested Reich
as a quack for selling the Orgone box. He died in prison.

    The Cloudbuster in the film is much more interesting than the real
cloudbuster. It was built by H. R. Giger, best known for his work on
the film Alien.

>3. THE MAN WITH THE CHILD IN HIS EYES.  Heard the song before. 
>The video isn't terribly adventurous - just some shots of Kate
>singing (apart from the intro and outro shots of a foetal Kate.) 
>The focus is so soft it gives a really dreamy quality to the video.

    Kate has mentioned that she was in her dance studio running through
some ideas of what to do in the video. She was sitting cross-legged on
the floor. Her brother saw it and suggested that she just do it like
that.

>4. BREATHING.  Another song I hadn't heard previously.  The start
>of the video simply left me open mouthed (not a pretty sight. :-)
>)  The imagery of a polythene wrapped Kate as a foetus is awesome
>and the birth sequence is truly stunning.  I liked both the video
>and song A LOT!

    There are two people with sun symbols for heads. It is the emblem
of the UK anti-nuke movement. She is playing a baby, afriad of
the frightening world outside of the womb.

>5. WOW.  Yep, heard the song before, sort of liked it but nothing
>special.  Hearing it again against a backdrop of various clips of
>Kate in performance really enhanced it for me.  The words seem to
>take on more meaning.

    There is another video, but Kate decided that it was too "silly."

>6. HOUNDS OF LOVE.  Yet another song that's new to me.  Wow, that
>beat is so infectious it's impossible to sit still whilst watching
>this one.  And as for the video. . .  Kate at her most sultry; I
>could watch and watch this. 

    One of Kate's first directorial efforts. Look for the cameo
by Alfred Hitchcock.

>7. RUNNING UP THAT HILL.  Heard it before.  The word "lithe" could
>have been put into the English language for the sole purpose of
>describing Kate's performance in this video.  What a dancer!

     Kate had, at the time, described it as her "farewell to dance."
Thankfully she reconsidered.

>8. ARMY DREAMERS.  This was one of the few singles I bought (so it
>goes without saying I like the song.)  The video is every bit as
>powerful as the song.

    Kate has described this as the first video that she was really
happy with. She story-boarded this video out. Even this early in her
career she was very interested in expanding her art into every aspect
of presentation.

>9. SAT IN YOUR LAP.   Another one I bought as a single.  A suitably
>manic video to accompany the song.

    Filmed in the big studio at Abbey Road. I love all the symbols
of knowledge and ignorance, Minotaurs, fools, dunces.

>10. EXPERIMENT IV.  Nope, hadn't heard this before.  I nearly fell
>off my chair when Dawn French appeared in the video!  All in all,
>a pretty gruesome film - the LaserDisc is exempt from
>classification but I would have thought some kind of PG warning
>would have been in order just for this track (or am I over
>reacting to all the dead bodies??)  Loved the "Music For Pleasure"
>dig at the end.

    Dead bodies supplied by the fine folks at Homeground. Editor
Peter Fitzgerald-Morris can be seen in the film (tall man with a 
full dark beard and glasses.) Proof that you can't pay people to
lie in cold mud all day long. But rabid Kate fans *will* lie in cold
mud all day long for a chance to meet Kate. For free.

>11. THE DREAMING.  Um, let's just say I'll have to play this a few
>times before it grows on me.

    It hopefully will. A result of Kate's trip to Australia, and 
Rolf Harris's song _Sun Arise_.

    Fun fact: The outfits that she and her dancers are wearing were
off the rack, and appear in two other music videos. David Bowie in
_Ashes To Ashes_ (at the bottom of a pit) and Rupert Hine in his
video _Surface Tension_.

    The guy in the middle who can't dance is one of Kate's brothers,
Paddy.

>14. THE SENSUAL WORLD.  A first time hearing and I *love* this song
>already - it's going to get better and better each time I hear
>it.  Mmmmmm I *love* Kate in velvet, she's so, well, *sensual*.

    See also: Molly Bloom's speech at the end of James Joyce's 
Ullyses. Kate had set Joyce's words to music, and the pig-headed
ignoramusis controlling the Joyce estate refused to let her use
them. She had to "re-write the speech" (the word re-write is whispered
in the song). Erstwhile Love-Hound Jon Drukman recorded a version
of the original lyrics, as unearthed by Jorn Barger.

>15. LOVE & ANGER.  Try as I might, I couldn't sit still to this. 
>The sheer energy behind the song is amply represented in the
>accompanying video.

    We have a theory about this video. If anyone is interested,
write and ask.

>16. THIS WOMAN'S WORK.  What can I say about this?  It's a good job
>it's the last track on the disc.  How could you possibly follow
>this song with anything?  There's many a song that can cause me to
>shed a tear but I have never been so totally devastated by a first
>hearing.  I found the ending rather ambiguous.  It *is* a happy
>ending, isn't it?  I assume it is from the smile on the nurse's
>face but the final shot of Kate closing the piano has sad
>overtones.  Anyone care to tell me what the song's all about?

    It was written for the John Hughes film _She's Having A Baby_.
It was presented in full in the film, without dialog, as the soundtrack
for a very emotional scene of the young husband (Kevin Bacon) pacing
back and worrying about his wife's (Elizibeth Perkins) difficult
delivery.


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