Re: Get Out of My House

[Jack <noone04@ibm.net>]

     You said it perfectly brian. I've been as guilty as anyone in letting what the
popular interpretation of a song is affect the way that song makes me feel. But in the
last few weeks, with all of the discussion on personal interpretation, i've realised
that each individual's own interpretation is something that is personal and should be
completely respected, even if one doesn't agree. The one song that has brought me
through some of the worst times in my life and will always be dearest to me over any
other is "Don't Give Up". I've never heard anyone discuss Peter Gabriels intention, and
it doesn't matter, because I take strength from that song, and I think any artist would
be happy knowing that.

~Jack~

Brian Dillard wrote:

> Can I just say that in general I am surprised and a bit saddened to find
> that so many of Kate's comments about the *inspiration* for her songs
> has led people to narrow *interpretations*? This is not meant at all to
> be a personal attack against Joe or anyone else. But in general  I
> wonder why people want so much help and _direction_ in how to engage
> Kate's music.
>
> Why in the heck _can't_ Get out of My House be about rape? The text--and
> music--are ambiguous. Kate uses a barrage of imagery to open up themes
> of invasion and protection and transformation:
>
>           "No stranger's feet/will enter me/
>           I wash the panes/I clean the stains away/
>           ...they come with their weather hanging around them/
>           But they can't knock my door down/
>           With my key I lock it."
>
> The ambiguity - indeed, the _poetry_ - of these and the other lyrics is
> that they mean many things at once. Kate is in the house. Kate _is_ the
> house. Kate and the house have the same relationship as a witch and her
> familiar. The house is being invaded--by a man (we hear a man's voice
> saying, "Woman let me in"). Kate attempts to batten down the hatches,
> but then her flight takes a different form--transformation, first into a
> bird, a delicate creature of the air, and then into a beast--the Mule.
>
> This song is about invasion, emotional, territorial, physical, and the
> many responses one can take to counter that invasion. Depending on one's
> personal background, one can bring to the song any number of "takes" on
> the nature of the invasion--including rape (and I will count on the high
> level of compassion and intelligence on this list to keep this from
> sparking off a discussion of how women are _so_ obsessed with rape!).
> The universality of the song lies in the fact that everyone at some
> point or another feels invaded, seeks protection. Like "Lily," "Get Out
> of My House" offers a highly mystical, poetic insight of how to
> accomplish that protection.
>
> The reason I consider Kate such an amazing songwriter is that she is
> able to take a scenario--whether it's from myth, biography, history or
> fiction--and use it to evoke a wide range of thematic issues open to
> multiple overlapping interpretations. I think it's sad to see these
> multiple interpretations close up into a simple 1:1 relationship of
> kate's inspiration : universal interpretation once kate explains what
> led her to write the song. Perhaps we'd all have a richer experience of
> engaging her work if we let the work stand on its own without kate, its
> "mother," hovering over it.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Brian J. Dillard     dillardb@pilot.msu.edu   773.348.9319
> +++ "State of emergency ... that's where I want to be."  --Bjork +++
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> P.S.  I don't necessarily think it's homophobic or heterosexist, but I
> do think it's at least _interesting_ that so many people are willing to
> recognize the pun in Cloudbusting about "son"/"sun" but so many people
> are insistent that Kate simply _couldn't_ have intended the "coming out"
> line to be another play on words. Given her well-documented engagement
> with queer issues and people, why is it such a stretch to think the song
> drew from more than one source of inspiration and that she simply chose
> in interviews to talk about the _main_ source of inspiration--Reich's
> book. After all, in "GOOMH," she makes reference to the Mule, which many
> of us take to be a possible Asimov reference, even though Foundation and
> The Shining are two different works.



--
 It's too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as
simple as wild dogs.
                         -Jack Handey