IN PRAISE OF KATE BUSH -3-

[Wieland Willker <willker@chemie.uni-bremen.de>]

On the other hand, in "Cloudbusting,", the side's final cut, a father is warmly 
remembered. The song is based on A Book of Dreams by Freudian theorist Wilhelm 
Reich's son Peter. In his later years, Wilhelm Reich grew obsessed with the
notion 
that the Earth is governed by a delicate balance of energies, and he
developed a 
device called an "accumulator" to realign the natural forces at Organon, his
Maine 
home. One of the accumulator's purported abilities was the capacity to make
rain. 
Young Peter was deeply involved in his father's projects, and in his book he
recalls 
the events that led to his father's arrest and imprisonment for fraudulent
practices. 

The close emotional bond shared by father and son is conveyed by Kate Bush 
through the warm strings that continue throughout "Cloudbusting." When examined 
on its own, "Cloudbusting" is an interesting narrative, but when viewed in the 
context of the rest of Hounds the song seems full of omens and allusions.
Anyone 
familiar with Peter Reich's book who listens to Hounds will be struck by the 
similarity in structure between side 2, "The Ninth Wave," and A Book of
Dreams. In 
the book Peter is hospitalized and wavers between consciousness and dreaming. 
While awake he lives in the present, but when he is unconscious he is a
child. As in 
the eternal dreamtime, the past and present are blurred, all part of one
reality. Kate, 
and Peter Reich, is able to keep the dead father alive: "But everytime it
rains / 
You're here in my head / Like the sun coming out / I just know that some thing 
good is going to happen." 

In several ways, "Cloudbusting" previews "The Ninth Wave," the mini-concept 
album that occupies side 2 of Hounds. "The Ninth Wave" finds Kate Bush
adrift in 
the water, battling to stay awake and avoid drowning. Through the night Bush
slips in 
and out of consciousness, much as Peter Reich does in his book. As with the
eternal 
dreamtime, the past and future exist as elements of the present, in this
case through 
hallucinations and dreams. It is undoubtedly significant that side 1 ends
with Bush 
making rain in "Cloudbusting," an act in which the waters are at her mercy. In 
contrast, Bush is at the whim of the drowning pool on side 2, as if her rain
making 
got out of hand. 

"The Ninth Wave" is also previewed by the back of the album jacket, where a 
photograph of a wet, seaweed-strewn Kate Bush appears. Beneath the picture the 
following explanation is given: 

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last 

'Til last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 

And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 

Roaring, and all the wave was in flame . . . 

Tennyson, "The Coming of Arthur" 

At this point it is not surprising to learn that Tennyson's poem possesses a 
muddled chronology, beginning with the meeting of Arthur and Guinevere and 
ending with a fantastical account of Arthur's birth. The four lines on the
jacket 
refer to the night of Uther's death, but the quotation ends before the
reader can 
learn that the infant Arthur, swathed in flame, is borne on the ninth wave. As 
Merlin declares that the child washed to his feet is Uther's heir, the wave
encircles 
the two with flame. When the wave recedes, calm ensues. 

The temporal confusion in Tennyson's tale is in keeping with Kate Bush's 
narrative and musical devices, and the invocation ofArthur weaves a mythic web 
around the second side of Hounds. The cycle of birth, death, and messianic
rebirth 
central to Arthurian legend is also vital to "The Ninth Wave." Like Arthur,
Kate 
Bush experiences a death and rebirth, though hers is in the water. According
to Carl 
Jung, water symbolizes the subconscious mind into which one must descend before 
aspiring to the heights of enlightenment. In dreams, the conscious mind
fights the 
pull of water, just as Bush does. Like the subjects of Jung's analysis who
thought 
"spirit" comes from above, Bush is disturbed to be in the midst of the
water, "the 
fluid of the instinct-driven body, blood and the flowing of blood, the odor
of the 
beast, carnality heavy with passion." For Bush, the water is another vehicle
for an 
introspective ordeal. 

"And Dream of Sheep," a lullaby played on the piano, sets up the scenario in 
which Kate Bush, as the narrator, tries to stay awake in the water and
awaits rescue. 
"Little light will guide them to me," she sings, wishing that she could
doze, desiring 
her radio as a link to civilization in the primal pool. The struggle for
consciousness 
proves futile as the sheep take her "deeper and deeper." Her error is
immediately 
signaled by the ominous strings and deep vocals of "Under Ice." The water of
Bush's 
dreamworld has turned to ice over which she skates, but "There's something
moving 
under / Under the ice / Moving under ice-through water / Trying to get out
of the 
cold water." Kate pleads, "Something-someone, help them!" until she reaches the 
awful realization, "It's me!" 

The claustrophobic dream jolts Bush back to consciousness, though the
process is 
difficult. Employing a variation of a technique used in "All the Love" on The 
Dreaming, a variety of voices urge Bush to awaken, and many make reference to 
Bush's situation. Some mention the "little light,", others recite lines from
songs 
elsewhere on the side, such as "We are water in the holy land of water" from
"Jig of 
Life." This lead-in to "Waking the Witch" contains the first appearance of
garbled 
vocals that sound like Kate Bush's cries for help as she bobs in and out of
the water, 
gasping "-help me baby help me-talk to me talk to me-." 

Once again, Kate slips into hallucination. This time she has confessed to a
priest, 
but the priest uses the confession against her in a witchcraft trial. The
jury of "good 
people" afirms that the defendant is "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" and though the 
clergyman pities the girl-"poor witch"-he condemns her. By announcing "I am 
responsible for your actions," the priest removes from the girl's hands
power over 
her own karmic destiny. Thus, in some way the "witch's" predicament
parallels that 
of the drowning victim whose fate lies with potential rescuers. The priest's 
reassurance, "You won't burn / You won't bleed," simply serves to afirm that
the 
witch will die by drowning. "Help this blackbird / There's a stone around my
leg," 
Bush cries. "Wake the witch," the clergyman's final command, is answered by the 
sound of a helicopter and a man shouting "Get out of the waves! Get out of the 
water!"-a command later uttered by Bush in "Hello Earth." The priest's voice is 
ademonic growl, contrasting strongly with the song's angelic refrains and
enhancing 
the perception that symbols of good often conceal fundamental evil. Loss of
control is 
underscored by the frenetic, electric guitar- driven melody. 

Disillusionment gives way to resignation in the quiet, droning "Watching You 
Without Me." No longer does Kate see herself in the world of the living, but
instead 
imagines that her disembodied soul has returned home to watch a loved one. "You 
watch the clock / Move the slow hand / I should have been home / Hours ago -
but 
I'm not here," she observes; yet this is the time of a distant world, a
different reality. 
Bush, as the narrator, has entered the realm of spirit where ethereal voices
sing, 
"We receive thee," and her links to the physical plane are dissolving: "You
can't hear 
me." She seems ready to accept the spirits' invitation-"You won't hear me
leaving"- 
when she is rudely jerked back to physical existence by the earthy Irish
instruments 
of "Jig of Life." 

The traditional jig begins with the line "Hello old Lady / I know your face
well," 
conjuring images of the mythic Mother on the album's first side. Kate is
told by the 
old Lady that "Now is the place where the crossroads meet"; she must choose 
between life on the Other side and continued existence on Earth. The old Lady 
urges her to struggle for her worldly existence, the aspect of Kate's being
that is the 
old Lady, the Earth Mother. A decision to enter the spiritual realm is not
without 
consequences for others: "This moment in time / It doesn't belong to you / It 
belongs to me / And your little boy and your little girl." The recitation by
John 
Carder Bush, Kate's brother, at the end of the song serves to reinforce the old 
Lady's message, advising Kate that her past, present, and future are
inextricably 
linked; though "now does ride in on the curl of the wave," she must also
remember 
"all that's to come runs in at the first on the strand." Kate Bush's ordeal has 
brought her to the crossroads, the place where past, present, and future
converge, 
where she must choose between physical and spiritual existence. In the song's 
arrangement, the feeling of the presentness of the past is intensified by
the inclusion 
of a number of traditional Irish folk instruments. 

As "Hello Earth" fades in, the ancient mood of "Jig of Life" is disrupted by
space 
radio chatter. The song finds Bush in the aerial position she occupied at
the end of 
"The Big Sky," and from her elevated station she can make our planet seem 
insignificant: "Hello Earth / With just one hand held up high / I can blot
you out / 
Out of sight." But she cannot affect events on Earth, she can merely watch. 
"Watching the storms / Start to form / Over America / Can't do anything /Just 
watch them swing with the wind / Out to sea." Though Kate wants to warn 
seagoers of the potential danger, the danger that placed her existence in
peril, she is 
helpless - she gave in to her desire to ascend the heights before
experiencing the 
primal depths, forfeiting her earthly power. 

However, Kate Bush's journey through the collective unconscious has shown her 
that it is not too late to reclaim her physical existence. Though she seems
resentful 
of the forces that interfered with her plans to cease her struggle for life,
Bush also 
sees that she was wrong to give up so easily and accepts her baptismal trial: 

I was there at the birth 

Out of the cloud burst 

The head of the Tempest, 

Murderer, Murderer of calm! 

Why did I go! 

Why did I go! 

At the end of "Hello Earth" Bush descends to the physical plane, asking in 
German if there is a light and whispering "tiefe, tiefe," which in German is 
synonymous with "deep" in the sense of "profound." Thus, Bush's perception of 
being taken "deeper and deeper" in "And Dream of Sheep" has been borne out in a 
spiritual way as well as physically. 

"Hello Earth" is the most dramatic track on Hounds of Love. Bush uses piano, 
bass, folk instruments, guitar, sound effects, and her voice to create a
melodramatic 
mood and cinematic scope. The most remarkable feature of the song, however,
is the 
integration of a Gregorian-type chant into the melody. The liturgical chant
acts 
much like traditional folk instruments on other tracks; it brings an element
of the 
past into present reality. Yet unlike didjeridus and pipes, such chants
suggest a 
Christian culture and tend to imbue lines like "I was there at the birth," with 
Christian connotations. 

Its lyrics, soaring melody, and placement on the album make "Hello Earth" a 
climactic moment. The song represents Bush's epiphany. "The Morning Fog," a 
joyous celebration of Kate's spiritual rebirth, follows "Hello Earth" to
close the 
album. After surviving the night, Bush welcomes the light of morning as it
burns off 
the fog, and she greets the Earth: "D'you know what? / I love you better
now." Her 
declaration that "I am falling / Like a stone" seems to imply that Kate is
being pulled 
underwater for a final time, but the gaiety with which she sings the line
suggests 
she is falling from the spirit world back to the material realm. In fact,
Bush tells us 
that the descent is "Like a storm / Being born again." The enlightened
appreciation 
she has gained for humanity and the Earth will be demonstrated when she is back 
among the living: "I'll kiss the ground / I'll tell my mother / I'll tell my
father / 
I'll tell my loved one / I'll tell my brothers / How much I love them." Lest
anyone 
doubt that "The Ninth Wave" is a description of Kate Bush's own struggle for 
spiritual understanding, it is interesting to note that these lines from
"The Morning 
Fog" accurately describe the Bush family unit. 

Kate Bush leaves it up to the listener to decide whether the drowning person of 
"The Ninth Wave" is rescued. "The Morning Fog" is such an upbeat song that one 
might be tempted to argue that help must be in sight. Yet when "The Ninth
Wave" is 
taken as a whole, physical salvation is much less important than the spiritual 
enlightenment Bush has already received. Rather than turning from the primal 
drives and the evil that lie at the core of humanity, Bush realizes that she
must face 
and accept this part of her soul. Within each individual the past, present,
and future 
coexist, and no element in the balance can be neglected. Humans strive to
cultivate 
their civilized exteriors, but without a recognition of the natural forces
that spring 
from their primitive essences there can be no true understanding. 

-END-