Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Rolf Harris

We're coming up now on one of kate's favourite songs of all time. Ladies and gentlemen, this could be the only show in history to feature both frank zappa and rolf harris.

[Giggle from kate.]

And I remember, I remember hearing this song on the radio in america in the sixties. Did you hear it on the radio or from a copy at home?

From the radio but very much a copy at home, too, a forty-five. I don't know whose it was. Uh, I think it's the most fantastic track, I really do. I don't think there's anything being done like it since then, and I wish Rolf would do some more musical ventures. I think it's fantastic. I mean to be the discoverer of the wobble-board, and to be able to play the dijeridu, and sing and write and draw. He's a very talented man, he really is. And I think _he's_ very underestimated because of the areas he's got into now. He's a sort of top television personality. But it seems to me he's got a great deal of musical talent, and for me this track is just magic. It's just... Oh...

In the early sixties ``sun arise'' was a very experimental sound.

[The record is played. It is immediately obvious how direct and heavy was the influence of this recording upon kate's track, `` the dreaming.'' not only the rhythmic pulse and instrumentation, but even the unusual use of a major-key tune that avoids resolution in the tonic, using instead a single, unchanging dijeridu drone; As well as the use of the vocal lines as a group of peculiar instruments - all these qualities are echoed, even reproduced in kate's track. - ied]

I was just thinking if john peel had an experimental radio programme then as he does now, he would have been playing that rolf harris song.

[Laughing] maybe he would. I wonder what he'd say about that.

Just shows you how some artists do change in their career direction.

Absolutely.

"Sun arise", that track by rolf harris.

An interesting comment is that apparently Alice Cooper has since done a version of ``Sun Arise.'' I've no idea what it sounds like, I've not heard it, but it's an interesting thought.

Hm, one to drag out for sure. (1980, BBC)

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