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Date: Wed, 18 Oct 89 09:59:50 EDT
From: Jon Drukman <jsd@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: A review of the World
>Really-From: JONES%RPIECS.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu
> The absolutely GLORIOUS laugh between Love and Anger and The Fog
Having the CD finally answered the question that's been bugging me ever since hearing the album: namely, does the laugh belong to the end of "Love and Anger" or the beginning of "The Fog"? The answer is, it's the beginning of "The Fog." And what a fantastic song that is. It broods and brews and bubbles and brims with ominous intensity.
From: geer-john@YALE.EDU (John Yuson Geer)
Date: 18 Oct 89 16:37:36
GMT
Subject: Re: A review of the World
> Jon Drukman
> Having the CD finally answered the question that's been bugging me ever since hearing the album: namely, does the laugh belong to the end of "Love and Anger" or the beginning of "The Fog"? The answer is, it's the beginning of "The Fog."
I don't know..... When 3 of us got together to listen to TSW for the first time (ever) we couldn't help laughing when she sez "YEAH" on the end of Love and Anger ...then, suddenly she's laughing with us. It seemed to break down the distance from HoL and now, us and her....... :(
john y.
From: ed@das.llnl.gov (Edward Suranyi)
Subject: Re: *** KATE ON US MTV
11/2/89 & 11/6/89!!!! ***
Date: 9 Nov 89 18:15:07 GMT
> Someone wondered "if they kept the laugh" on the L&A video....well, since he also said he had the CD, I'm surprised he didn't notice that the giggle is the beginning of "The Fog" track, not the end of L&A... I wouldn't expect it to be on the video...
Not so fast! The laugh is at the beginning of "The Fog" on the US compact disc, but from what I understand it's at the end of "Love And Anger" on the British CD! (I'd like to hear what the situation is in other parts of the world.)
So I don't know if anybody can say for sure even now which song it really belongs to, if either.
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 89 12:22 PST
From:
IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu
Subject: Mailbag, and MisK.
>Urg! Why didn't I think of that! It's NOT on the promo cd (I'm sure of this as I used to sit and play it multiple times on repeat under sedation and darkness ;)
Yes, but the presence or absence of the laugh on the U.S. Columbia Records promo-CD settles absolutely nothing. There really shouldn't be any question about it: the laugh, attached as it is to Love and Anger in the original, Kate Bush-supervised British edition of the CD, must surely, therefore, be accepted as authoritative.
(Except, of course, that--as far as we know--Kate leaves the laugh off of the video...Hmmm...Could this be another of her little puzzles?)
-- Andrew Marvick
From: calmasd.Prime.COM!wlp%sdcsvax@ucsd.edu (Walter Peterson)
Subject: Re: Location of laugh ( was Re: (none) )
Date: 9 Nov 89 22:06:00
GMT
I have the cassette tape version and the laugh is at the end of "Love And Anger" on it. Although the gap between the two cuts is very short, the laugh is before the gap, so I would say it is at the end of L&A and not at the begining of "The Fog".
From: portal!cup.portal.com!Edward Lee Whiteside@apple.com
Subject:
THE LAUGH and KBC renewals
Date: Sun, 12-Nov-89 10:56:33 PST
I also got my KBC newsletter a couple of days ago. For additional information on the laugh, take a look of the picture of Kate with the tapes of the finished album (not including the CD bonus track). On the tape, "Love And Anger" is 4:43 and "The Fog" is 5:01. On my US CD, L&A is 4:39 and "The Fog" is 5:10. There is a bit of silence at the end of "The Fog" as well, but the laugh runs 3 to 4 seconds with some echo running into the first notes of "The Fog". Add those three seconds to "Love An Anger" and you get 4:43. Of course, the other times on the CD don't quite match up exactly to Kate's tape. Especially "This Woman's Work" which my CD player shows as 3:40, but when playing it back, it ends at 3:34 with some negative time before "Walk Straight Down The Middle".
Date: Sun, 12 Nov 89 21:59:23 -0600
From: Michael Mendelson <mendel@cs.uiuc.edu>
Subject: a survey?
Obviously, the laugh is on the wrong album entirely! I suggest it is the result of a long, often fruitless fight between Kate and the record companies. For years, Kate has wanted to insert a laugh between tracks, and for years the record execs have nayed the proposition.
Originally, the laugh was to go between Strange Phenomena and Kite on TKI. When this plan was nixed, Kate decided to place the laugh after Peter Pan on Lionheart. And after that on NFE at the very end of the album. Again, to no avail, but this time the execs met Kate half way and let her add a little extra bass at the end of Breathing instead.
Despite the first three rejections, Kate endeavoured once more to include the laugh on TD just after Suspended in Gaffa. The execs dismissed this demand as unreasonably antagonistic towards the general public who would have a hard enough time figuring out just what Gaffa was (not to mention the "WLTWI" at the culmination of the very next track) without the added intimidation of a mocking laugh.
So it was HoL where Kate was first able to sneak in the laugh, cleverly mixed *backwards* into the secret message in WYWM, the forward contents of which were discovered by fans only recently. Luckily, the record execs never discovered this laugh, although its effect is all but lost in the mix. But Kate was still unsatisfied, since she knew most people would probably never know the laugh was even there.
TWS was the next candidate for the laugh, but since it had never charted as a single, the execs refused. Kate even volunteered to redo the laugh as a "new vocal" cut, but alas, no go.
Finally, Kate had had enough. "Look," she said, "no more albums unless I get a full, uncut, forward, undistorted laugh on the next one." British execs gave in, but Kate had to change labels in America to have her demand met.
But still, it wasn't easy... a full year of bickering about where the laugh should go on the new album ensued and caused unprecedented delays in release. And now we see the fruits of Kate's effort: the laugh, in full, is indeed a part of TSW. But in attaching the laugh to different songs on the two pressings of the CD, and omitting it entirely from the single and the video, it looks like in the final analysis the bigwigs still had the last laugh. :-)
From: dbk@mimsy.umd.edu (Dan Kozak)
Subject: Re: male / female songs
Date: 13 Nov 89 19:02:39 GMT
It always seemed "obvious" to me that the laugh was a reaction to the "Yeah!." It just sounds like she was ad libbing along and inserted the "yeah" w/o thinking and then laughed at the siliness of it. The long pause is easily attributed (by anyone whoses spent much time in the studio) to the
"keep-quiet-at-the-end-of-the-take-so-the-editing-will-be-easier" ethos.
From: greg@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Greg O'Rear)
Subject: The laugh
Date: 15 Nov 89 15:08:59 GMT
Well, it seemed obvious to me that the laugh was a separate event, unrelated to any song on the album, that occurred spontaneously. The song "Get It" on Paul McCartney's "Tug Of War" features Carl Perkins, and at the end of the song, he gives a nice long laugh, apparently enjoying the duet with Paul. The story goes, though, that it was spliced onto the end of the song, and was in fact Carl's response to a particularly dirty joke Paul told him.
Perhaps something similar happened with Kate. Maybe, for whatever reason, she laughed, it was recorded, and she decided to put it on the album for the hell of it. Maybe (gasp) she was just having fun!
Greg O'Rear
From: lizard@cbnewse.ATT.COM (russell.j.neumann)
Subject: The Laugh
Date: 15 Nov 89 16:46:27 GMT
I forget who mentioned it first, but I think it is entirely possible that the Laugh belongs all to itself. When I first listened to "Never for Ever" (before looking closely at the cover) I thought that "Army Dreamers" had an a capella intro. Later I realized that it was a short piece with a title all its own (Night Scented Stock). Maybe she's done the same thing here, only with a laugh instead of a short piece of singing. The laugh, of course, wouldn't warrant a title or track number of its own.
The Ice Princess
Cynthia C. Schaefer
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 89 13:10:51 EST
From: Jon Drukman <jsd@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: The Laugh (final statements)
I assume you all remember my survey about whether the laugh belonged to "The Fog" or "Love And Anger," right? Well, I got a bunch of answers, and here's the verdict.
Of the six respondents, five thought it went with "The Fog" with the odd man out thinking it belonged to neither song and was just a piece of audio flotsam thrown in for no apparent reason by Kate. Most of the respondents said that the laugh sounded "right" with "The Fog." Some claimed that if it were part of LAA, then it would detract from the finality of the "Yeah!" The most succinct observation was provided, as usual, by our Humble Pseudo-Moderator |>oug who said:
> It's obvious to anyone who isn't an inane idiot that it belongs at the beginning of "The Fog". Geez.
And that, said Jon, is that.
From: n8344141@unicorn.wwu.edu (paul carpentier)
Subject: Re:
Kate-echism XXIX.12.ii
Date: 4 Dec 89 17:36:19 GMT
When I interviewed Kate, she said that JC had this novel idea about using a laugh track as the beginning and end of two different songs. The laugh appears as the end of "Love and Anger" and the beginning of "The Fog". It was recorded backwards and inserted into the tape machine sideways, using a mike in an arcane string-wood instrument from the Middle East made popular in Werner Herzog/Hammer ventures. If CBS wasn't run by brain-dead idiots, it would have been released properly, as in the UK, where the laugh alternates with each play as to which track it belongs.
Fighting Truth, Justice, and the American Way,
Paul M Carpentier
From: CCJS@cc.nu.oz (James Smith)
Subject: The laugh (yes, I know...)
Date: 19 Jan 90 15:20:10 -1000
Does anyone have a copy of the record? If so, in which set of grooves does the laugh fall, those for Love and Anger or those for The Fog, or is it indeterminate? You can find this out by watching the needle as the record plays. I'd check it myself but I don't have a copy of the record.
It occurs to me that the position on the record is far more significant than the indexing on any CD, and that it is much more likely that Kate oversaw it.
Jim
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 90 12:53:43 -0500
From: turney@svax.cs.cornell.edu
(Jenn Turney)
Subject: The Laugh (ha-ha)
Well, here's an addition to this silly controversy:
The laugh is at the end of "Love and Anger" on the LP. That is, the sound occurs before the needle crosses the space between "Love and Anger" and "The Fog".
She's playing with us...
Jenn
From: mailrus!gatech!mit-eddie!eddie.mit.edu!henrik@uunet.UU.NET
(Larry DeLuca)
Subject: SHE's A GENIUS -- *** AGAIN *** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 90 20:39:57 GMT
Got my 7" (w/ gatefold sleeve) and 12" versions of the UK "Love and Anger" today. I was under the mistaken impression that "Ken" wasn't on the 12" or I wouldn't have bought the 7", but I'm sure glad I did!
I was listening to the B-side, thinking, "Gee, this isn't as good as some of her other stuff - and that Del Palmer has a ways to go as a mixing engineer", and then I noticed a subtle difference in the wording of the "Love and Anger" credit on the 7" and the 12". And then I looked, and, sure enough, there were exactly four more seconds of music on the 12" (odd amount to add for a remix, I thought, and then, I said, "Wait a minute...").
I didn't want to skip to the end, so I listened to the whole thing -and then, after that "Yeah!". "<pause>...<LAUGH!!!!!>"
It was so excellent I nearly creamed my jeans.
And it's not on the 7"!!!! (Which ends with the "Yeah!").
Now, they credit the 7" as having the mix that appears on The Sensual World, and the 12" as "...original version available on ... The Sensual World ", so, in some sense, that would seem to indicate that the original intent was that the laugh belongs either A) with "The Fog", or B) just as a bit of banding between songs, but ...
You gotta hand it to her for exploiting the collective weenieness extant!!!
larry...
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 90 11:02:48 -0500
From: Match Meaty Tickle <jsd@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: SHE's A GENIUS -- *** AGAIN *** !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See, I am VINDICATED! I just KNEW it, deep down inside. And now you people have NO EXCUSE not to believe me, ever again. Because I was right. All along. Despite silly photos in silly KBC newsletters. Hey guys, it says on an OFFICIAL EMI KATE RELEASE that putting the laugh on the end makes it NOT THE ORIGINAL VERSION! Suck on THIS, planet of noise bimbo!
From: nbc%INF.RL.AC.UK@mitvma.mit.edu
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 90 10:17:53 BST
Subject: The Laugh (here we go again)
[to Jon Drukman:]
Now the presence of the laugh on the Love and Anger 12" clearly proves it has absolutely nothing to do with The Fog. Whatever the labels say about mixing (I do not have then yet to check the wording or whether anything else in the mix is different) the laugh has been placed with Love and Anger. Therefore you (and many others) were wrong. So why not admit it - you know you will feel better afterwards :-)
Be seeing you, Neil
From: jburka@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeffrey C. Burka)
Subject: Re:
The Laugh (here we go again)
Date: 7 Mar 90 19:23:16 GMT
BUT: if the sleeve proclaims that the 12" version that happens to be followed by the laugh is not the album version of the song, then we have proof that the laugh does not belong to Love and Anger and that they just happened to throw it on the 12". I liked somebody's idea that it was a nice thing to throw between two tracks.
And it does belong with "The Fog." I don't care what anybody says.
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 90 18:56:20 -0500
From: Patriarch Porch <jsd@gaffa.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Laugh and Rockets
I think we're looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps it is a ZEN laugh that belongs with both songs, and also with neither -- at the same time, of course. I'm beginning to think that Kate may have had some master plan in mind with all this, because it's just too freaky to be coincidence.
The most logical explanation, of course, is that the CD single's perplexing legend "original version available on..." is referring to SOME OTHER change in the mix of the song and the laugh is completely irrelevant to the CD's mysterious markings...
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 90 05:11:50 EST
From: katefans@world.std.com
(Chris'n'Vickie of Kansas City)
Subject: She's having fun with us :-)
Vickie here.
"They open doorways that I thought were shut for good"
Re: The Laugh
Of course, she's playing games with us you silly! It's not the first time and it won't be the last. She's probably having a wonderful time with this. Everybody remember the double-grooved TSW 12"? Poor IED does. She's got a great sense of humor and she knows that we can't resist trying to "explain" every little thing she does.
The Laugh is just another addition to the very long list of things Kate adds to her music to enable people to interpret whatever-it-is in different ways. If Jon feels that the laugh is a perfect intro to TF because of its girlish childhood memory sound (sorry jsd, I can't remember what you said exactly or even if it was you who said it) then fine, it belongs at the beginning of TF. If you or I think that it's the perfect ending to L&A because, well, what other kind of reaction could there be to that "Yeah!", well, then, it belongs at the end of L&A. This is the perfect example of a no right or wrong answer situation.
This is *Kate* we're dealing with here, remember? The same one who wrote "Some say that knowledge is ho ho ho"
Yeah yeah yeah! She's so neat!
Vickie
From: as010b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (andrew david simchik)
Date: Thu,
3 Dec 92 17:33:45 GMT
Subject: Re: Laugh: Love and Anger or The Fog?
>To Gord: Wouldn't *you* laugh after having just gone "yeahhhhhh"? If not, why *would* you laugh before "The Fog"? I don't care how the CD is programmed. I have never understood why people used that as the almighty gospel for deciding where the laugh goes.
I agree. The laugh just doesn't make any sense just before The Fog. I don't think one can really pay much attention to CD programming, what with Kate's admirable tendency to link songs together without any silence separating them. I occasionally like to shuffle "The Dreaming", which is a horrible thing to do because you lose the continuity between The Dreaming and Night of the Swallow. Similar things occur when shuffling "Hounds of Love", which is also dumb because the entire Ninth Wave sequence simply *must* be heard in order. My personal theory (and one which makes good sense, if I do say so myself) is that there's a space of silence between the "yeah" and the laugh, whereas there's a negligible space between the laugh and the intro to "The Fog". It would seem easier for the programmers to separate where there is enough space; the idea that maybe Kate intended the laugh to be "packaged" with "Love and Anger" was probably much less important, particularly if you listen to the album in order.
Drewcifer
From: ledgerj@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Jim Ledger)
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992
16:56:25 EST
Subject: Laugh in Fog/anger
Vickie Mapes writes:
>To Gord: Wouldn't *you* laugh after having just gone "yeahhhhhh"? If not, why *would* you laugh before "The Fog"?
Just another long-time lurker offering a different point of view:
I have no objective data supporting either theory, but I've always rationalized the laugh-Fog connection by assuming that the playfulness in the laugh was intended to convey a sense of childhood nostalgia, which is not incompatible with the theme in The Fog. Somewhat weak, I know, but not unreasonable.
Jim
Date: 04 Dec 1992 09:29:44 +1000
From: Katrina Michael <Katrina
Michael@muwayf.unimelb.edu.au>
Subject: That Laugh!!
I bought the 12" copy of Love and Anger from Gaslight Records some time ago, and the laugh is included at the end of that song.
- Katrina Michael
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 92 15:07:41 EST
From: a virtual stranger <REWOICC%ERENJ.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Subject: The Laugh
Stuart Castergine sez:
> A couple nights ago, I stepped backwards one track to the beginning of The Fog and the laugh was included!
the laugh is not included on the "love and anger" promo cd single. nor is it on the official single either, as i recall. not that this means any-thing, as vickie correctly pointed out.
i've always felt that it belonged with "the fog" since it's a nervous laugh...which syncs up better with someone learning to let go ala the protagonist of "the fog."
woj
From: endwar@phys.psu.edu (Andrew Russ)
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 19:37:13
-0500
Subject: Re: The laugh definitely belongs to "Love and Anger"
The laugh appears at the end of "Love and Anger" on the 12" single.
andrew
From: as010b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (andrew david simchik)
Date: Fri,
4 Dec 92 18:18:58 GMT
Subject: Re: That Laugh!!
Well, I tend to think that settles that, myself. (maybe because it supports my opinion)
I just can't put the laugh and "The Fog" together.
But have we considered another little possibility?
Perhaps the laugh is intended on its own? As *between* the two songs, or even as a link between them? Perhaps tomorrow I shall have time to compare the lyrics and themes--it could definitely be intended to tie the two songs together in some way.
Drewcifer
PS: I know, let's ask Kate! :)
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 12:47:37 -0700
From: finley@zeta.uleth.ca (Kent
Finley)
Subject: That laugh, that laugh, that wonderful laugh
I just assumed the laugh belongs to The Fog ('...a little nervous laughter...'), and never even considered it might belong to 'Love and Anger'. It is *not* included in the video to 'Love and Anger', which I assume Kate had a little more control over than where the break comes in the CD or which single includes what.
So, imnsho, it belongs with The Fog, and nowhere else. (Why *would* you laugh after Love and Anger, could someone please explain?)
Kent Finley
From: meth@aol.com
Date: Fri, 04 Dec 92 13:35:16 EST
Subject:
The Laugh
Hi!
Wow, now I'm feeling old... you're recycling arguments from my first days as a Love-Hound, back when TSW first came out. It's interesting to see how the arguments haven't changed. And some of the answers haven't changed, either.
The laugh belongs neither to L&A or "The Fog". It has no place in either, and I believe it appears on that one single format as a mistake. Different CD players track it differently (z.B. my CD player at home tracks it as ending L&A, while the ones at the radio station track it as starting off "The Fog". If it belonged to either one, it would be with one or the other.
I think Kate stuck it in there as an amusing bridge between the two songs, and somehow when the CDs were made the instruction to put it in a track of its own got lost. That's it, end of story.
(Pardon me, I'm feeling rather Drukman-esque this afternoon. ;)
Of course, the real reason behind the ambiguity is that Kate decided to really give us computer fools something to chew on... but I wasn't supposed to tell you that.
Meredith Tarr
From: endwar@phys.psu.edu (Andrew Russ)
Date: Tue, 8 Dec 1992 16:41:29
-0500
Subject: Re: That laugh, that laugh, that wonderful laugh
To add to the confusion, I compared my US and UK CD versions of The Sensual World. The results?
On the UK CD, the laugh is at the end of track 2, "Love and Anger".
On the US CD, the laugh is at the beginning of track 3, "The Fog".
I guess you can associate it with whatever you want.
andrew
written by Love-Hounds
compiled and edited
by
Wieland
Willker
Sept 1995 June 1996