A Weird View of The Ninth Wave

["Lee A. Blankenship" <lab4@dana.ucc.nau.edu>]

Hi all.

I have been amazed by the detail that this newsgroup goes into Kate's
songs, and I have been somewhat embarrassed about my misconceptions
about certain of them.

The most striking is the meanings behind The Ninth Wave that I had
shortly after it came out.

I thought it was about a probable (at the time) disaster with the space
shuttle. (please don't laugh)

Right in the beginning of 'Hello Earth', I could have sworn that it the
background NASA voices talking of a Columbia SS launch ended with the
repeating of the word "Malfunction". I even wrote it down as I heard it
then.
"Columbia now nine times the speed of sound."
"Roger that, and I've got a solid TACAN lock on, uhh, TACANs two and
three"
"Our tracking data, NAV data, and pre-planned trajectory are all
one..(garbled):"
KT: Hello Earth...
	BGV: "Malfunction."
KT: Hello Earth, 
	BGV: "Malfunction"

I took the rest of the song to be about the view of a
spectator/supporter of the space program, whose view of the adventure of
space travel is very personal and romantic. After the intro and the
second 'Just look at it go..' the song descends into a dirge, as though
the rising and building song of the anticipation of a launch is suddenly
and unexpectedly ruined by disaster. 

	The end of the dirge climbs slowly up, as if in determination not to be
dissuaded by the shock. Then the spectator seems to gather herself to
describe the event, somewhat sadly; 
Hello Earth/ hello Earth../ watching a storm start to form/ 
Over America, can't do anything, just watch them swing with the wind/
Out to sea../ (a picture of the horrible blast cloud of Challenger
floating out to 		sea fills my mind at this verse.)
All you sailors! (Get out of the waves, get out of the water!
All lifesavers! (Get out of the waves, get out of the water!
All you cruisers! (Get out of the waves, get out of the water!
All you fishermen, race for home! 
Go to sleep, Earth.
I was there at the birth,
Out of the cloud burst the head of the tempest. (again, the spectre of
Challenger's 
						deathcloud fills my mind here)
Murderer! Murderer of {it all}[?]
				  (as in accusation of the 'blame game' that
				   always goes on in popular culture when something
			   	   unfortunate and tragic happens)

(then the song seems to move to the view of an astronaut for a moment)
Why did I go?/ Why did I go?

(again the dirge, while the small tone of the piece seems to reach up
again, as though denying the finality of mourning, ending with a sound
of sonar, which conjured up images of the desperate search for survivors
with submarines.)

Go to sleep, little earth... (I read that 'sleep'ing referred to a
ceasing of the
			      adventure of reaching beyond our planet; a wishful and 
			      ultra-romantic view of space travel that I shared;
			      a view that says that space travel is the only true
		 	      universal reach for fulfillment for the entire Earth.)

As I would listen to the rest of the Ninth Wave, I kept on hearing
references to both the effort of space travel, its romantic and
idealized conception in many people's minds, and the tie-in to the
hum-drum Luddite world's reaction to a possible disaster.(I tune in to
some friendly voices, talkin' 'bout stupid things.)
Dream of Sheep seems to me to be a song about the situation of a
survivor out in the sea, who waits for rescue..
Under Ice, seems to be a remembrance through the night in the cold
water, about the survivor's childhood, and meshes it with her
surroundings as searching goes on.
Waking The Witch seems to be an introspective by the survivor, who by
this time is despairing of her situation, despairing as to question why
such a thing happened to her, as she suffers from exhaustion and
visions.
Watching You Without Me, seems to be a sizing up of her mortality, as
she wonders how her loved one waits for her to be rescued, and wonders
how he'll get along if she dies.
Jig Of Life - this one convinced me that the underlying theme was that
of the striving for this dream of exploring and adventure, how it
touches something within all of us, that we were made to move out,  to
give to our children and their children some measure of hope from our
lives. The first voice seems to be that of the ideal of reaching space
personified, that the Goal Itself is singing to her, not to let the
dream die, because the dream belongs to the future, and that the dream
is an old memory, always driving the race. 
	The second voice is the poetry of the dream; the frontier, the newness
and possibilities presented by the dream, the voice of futures
un-guessed at.

Like I said, don't laugh. It seemed incredibly well put together as an
interpretation at the time. 

Then Challenger blew up. Unfortunately, I got visuals for my musings
about the 
songs. 

Oh well. Tell me what you all think of this take on TNW. (even though it
is completely wrong, I know.)

Lee Blankenship