Re: Lily

[Richard Bensam <rabensam@earthlink.net>]

Chris Williams wrote:

>   Lily is a unique song in Kate's canon. It is the *only* song that is
>directly addressed to a specific, living person. All of Kate's other
>songs are either addressed to a non-specific lover, or have some
>other way of distancing her from the subject of the song.

<snip>

>   This is the (as near as I can tell) the only song where Kate
>quotes herself, where the lyric features Kate speaking directly
>to the listener, presumably as herself.
>
>   I find this disturbing. Why would Kate break the habit of a lifetime?

There are a lot of things on The Red Shoes which strike me as atypical of
Kate's previous work.  The lyrics on the whole are much more direct and
plain, omitting most of the obscure imagery and fanciful turns of phrase in
favor of relatively blunt and forthright statements.  (Relatively.)  Now, I
happen to like the obscure imagery of Kate's other work -- I like a work of
art that really forces you to think, to become emotionally and
intellectually engaged with the work, and wonder what it's really about.
When writers get *too* prosaic it prevents the reader or listener from
doing their share of the work!  But TRS seems to have a deeper level of
meaning which is more complex than that.

This is an entirely subjective reaction on my part, but my feeling on
listening to TRS was that we were listening to someone who had been through
such emotional trauma that she was saying, in effect, that she couldn't
hide behind words anymore.  She felt emotionally used up, her feelings were
just too strong, and it was all she could do just to get them out in the
simplest way possible for her.  But behind this seeming openness is still
the incisive mind of an artist who knows that such direct lyrics will evoke
such a response in the listener.  She may feel used up, but she doesn't
give up control.  As I say, this is subjective and may be sheer fantasy on
my part.

On its own, TRS would just have been a moving, emotionally fraught album.
But taken in context with Kate's entire body of work, the effect is fairly
devastating.


RAB
(who is feeling very chipper and cheerful as he writes this, oddly enough)

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