RE: What is "The Ninth Wave"?

["Forward, Jonathan" <JForward@sitgbsd1.telecom.com.au>]

> Date: Thursday, 9 May 1996 11:36PM

Someone wrote:

> Hello. This is the first time that I post my mail here.
> I would like to ask you one thing.
> Side Two of "The Hounds of Love" is named "The Ninth Wave".
> But what is "The Ninth Wave"? Does anybody know?
> I know this Side is about a drowning woman in the sea,
> but why "The NINTH Wave"? Is there any special meaning?

Taken from Andrew Marvick's "The Garden":

'              Kris Needs's third ZigZag interview (November 1985)

[cut to the chase - TSB]

     The second side of the album, The Ninth Wave, concerns a girl
who's been in the water a long time staring death in its cold, watery
eye. Past, present and future images mingle with her thoughts through
seven songs which crash and flow in senses-gutting layers of voices and
sounds. Morbid terror is split by an Irish gig, aching reflection ebbs
into the haunting astral moan of spectral friars before unexpected
rejuvenation. Shattering stuff.
      So donning fetching, furry trunks and clinging to a slice of
driftwood, I ask Kate how this massive concept originated.
     "Last year we went to Ireland to do some recording in Dublin, and
took a couple of weeks to out. It was brilliant, because I was writing
lyrics, and we were right by the sea. A lot of the time that I was
thinking about putting this album together, I was right there with the
water.
     "I love the sea. It's the energy that's so attractive--the fact
that it's so huge. And war films, where people would come off the ship
and be stuck in the water with no sense of where they were or of time,
like sensory deprivation. It's got to be ultimately terrifying."
The sleeve quotes a chunk of Lord Tennyson's poem, The Coming of
Arthur. Was that the initial inspiration for the piece?
     "No, actually it was the other way around. I wanted a title for
the whole thing. I was looking through some books and found this
quote. In his poem he's talking about the secrets of waves working in
nine--like a complete cycle, with everything building up to the ninth
wave and starting again. I've always liked using quotes for things."'

I guess you'll just have to read Lord Tennyson's poem if you want any
more than this.


TSB