Hounds of Love & Nietschze

[edouglas@dejel.com (Cinderbiter)]

I've been reading Nietschze's "Thus Speaks Zarathustra" lately, and though
it's slow going, I think there are several correlations with the whole of
"Hounds of Love" and his writings.  Admittedly, I haven't read enough and
contemplated the book and album together deeply for long enough to make
all the necessary connections. But I'll string together some loose
thoughts and possibly irrelevant quotations in a hopefully interesting
manner.

Admittedly, Nitschze's view of woman was terribly antiquated, which is
unfortunate given his brilliance of many other matters of the human
condition.  The two main things on my mind are "Running up that Hill" and
the German quote at the end of "Hello, Earth", thanks to a fellow
LoveHound who recently posted it in his discussion of TNW.  

The lyrics in "Running up that Hill" bring to mind Zarathustra's speech to
the youth in the chapter "On the Tree at the Mountainside" where he says:

"But it is with man as it is with the tree.  The more he aspires to the
height and light, the more strongly do his roots strive earchward,
downward, into the dark, the deep‹of evil"

To Z, evil is a relative thing, where its interpretation is passed onto us
through a culture saturated with religiosity (meaning "to bind up").  To
strike out on one's own and to be true to oneself and to create beyond
oneself strikes the status quo as a form of evil.

Z speaks much of mountains, and how lonely and cold it is.  But the
highest peaks is whence Z obtained much of his knowlegde as a hermit and
then descends to teach the masses of his knowledge of life and the
overman.  Where I'm going with this is that I hear KB calling to the
overman to reach where she already is.  Whether she's beckoning the
overman in each of us, underachievers that we often are, or calling to her
eternal beloved to pick up the pace, or even channelling for someone else
is unclear.


Hello Earth:

"deeper, deeper, in the darkest depths there must be a light" is what I
recall the translation for the spoken German at the end of the song.

In the chapter "On the Way of the Creator", Z says:

"But the time will come when solitude will make you weary, when your pride
will double up, and your courage gnash its teeth.  And you will cry, "I am
alone!"  The time will come when that which seems high to you will no
longer be in sight, and that which seems low will be all-too-near; even
what seems sublime to you will frighten you like a ghost.  And you will
cry, "All is false!"

Later, Z says:

"Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself.  And your way leads past
yourself and your seven devils.  You will be a heretic to yourself and a
witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and a villain. 
You must with to consume yourself in your own flame: how could your wish
to become new unless you had first become ashes!"

It seems that beyond the turmoil and despair in the inner world (and outer
world, being earth and all) there, perhaps, exists hope for clarity, light
and focus.


I think KB produced beyond herself in creating HoL, pushing beyond her own
limits.  It is the absolutely brilliant in every aspect, on par with the
greatest of creators.

While am doubtful of having produced a single conclusion here, I hope I
have provided some food for thought and discussion.

As for KB talking a bit about creating and recording HoL, check out the
"No Dead Trees" page;  I don't have the address handy.

Finally, If you want to read Nietchze and would have trouble, like me,
reading the original German, I highly recommend the Walter Kaufmann
translations out on Penguin Books so you can avoid quotes such as:

"How it, to a dance-girl, like, 
Doth bow and bend and on its haunches bob, 
-One doth it too, when one view'th it long!-

Cinderbiter