Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/29/86)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Kate's article on the making of The Dreaming, Part III:
Her explanations of the tracks on Side Two of the album
"The Dreaming"
We started with the drums, working to a basic Linn drum machine pattern,
making them sound as tribal and deep as possible. This song had to try
and convey the wide open bush, the Aborigines -- it had to roll around
in mud and dirt, try to become a part of the earth. "Earthy" was the
word used most to explain the sounds. There was a flood of imagery
sitting waiting to be painted into the song. The Aborigines move away
as the digging machines move in, mining for ore and plutonium. Their
sacred grounds are destroyed and their beliefs in Dreamtime grow
blurred through the influence of civilization and alcohol. Beautiful
people from a most ancient race are found lying in the roads and
gutters. Thank God the young Australians can see what's happening.
The piano plays sparse chords, just to mark every few bars and the
chord changes. With the help of one of Nick Launay's magic sounds,
the piano became wide and deep, effected to the point of becoming
voices in a choir. The wide open space is painted on the tape, and
it's time to paint the sound that connects the humans to the earth,
the digeridu.
The digeridu took the place of the bass guitar and formed a constant
drone, a hypnotic sound that seems to travel in circles.
None of us had met Rolf (Harris) before and we were very excited
at the idea of working with him. He arrived with his daughter, a friend
and an armful of digeridus. He is a very warm man, full of smiles
and interesting stories. I explained the subject matter of the song
and we sat down and listened to the basic track a couple of times
to get the feel. He picked up a digeridu, placing one end of it
right next to my ear and the other at his lips, and began to play.
I've never experienced a sound quite like it before. It was like
a swarm of tiny velvet bees circling down the shaft of the digeridu
and dancing around in my ear. It made me laugh, but there was
something very strange about it, something of an age a long, long
time ago.
Women are never supposed to play a digeridu, according to Aboriginal
laws; in fact there is a digeridu used for special ceremonies, and
if this was ever looked upon by a woman before the ceremony could
take place, she was taken away and killed, so it's not surprising
that the laws were rarely disobeyed. After the ceremony, the
instrument became worthless, its purpose over.
It's interesting how some songs attract lots of ideas -- this
was definitely one of them, and because of the amount of ideas
in this song, it made me concentrate on others, so they would
not be neglected or left behind. Percy Edwards was among the ideas
for this song, and he too was a real pleasure to work with. He
really is the only man who imitates the voices of animals to
the extent that he does, and is greatly respected for his talents.
It is so beautiful to watch him burst into birdsong in a studio
in the middle of London. I had images of him waking with the dawn
chorus, taking part with blackbirds, the sparrows, the thrushes...
but we were in the studio with Percy, and there was work to do,
so he became sheep, dingoes and Australian magpies. The light
grew dim and we were out in the bush on a warm windy night by the
light of Percy, our fire.
Percy is a true professional, and he kept us all in awe with his
wonderful ways. He was, however, a little upset by the treatment
of the kangaroos, but after Paddy and I
explained it was the only way to get the sound
we wanted, he completely understood the situation and tried to
communicate to the kangas what they had to do. The only problem
was he couldn't remember the kanga word for "Dang" so he worked
on "Boing" with a "D".
"Night of the Swallow"
Ever since I heard my first Irish pipe music it has been under my
skin, and every time I hear the pipes, it's like someone tossing
a stone in my emotional well, sending ripples down my spine.
I've wanted to work with Irish music for years, but my writing has
never really given me the opportunity of doing so until now. As
soon as the song was written, I felt that a "ceilidh" band would
be perfect for the choruses. The verses are about a lady who's trying to
keep her man from accepting what seems to be an illegal job. He is
a pilot and has been hired to fly some people into another country.
No questions are to be asked, and she gets a bad feeling from the
situation. But for him, the challenge is almost more exciting than
the job itself, and he wants to fly away.
As the fiddles, pipes and whistles start up in the choruses, he is
explaining how it will be all right. He'll hide the plane high up
in the clouds on a night with no moon, and he'll swoop over the
water like a swallow.
Bill Whelan is the keyboard player with Planxty, and ever since
Jay (Kate's eldest brother John Carder Bush) played me an album
of theirs I have been a fan. I rang Bill and he tuned into the idea
of the arrangement straight away.
We sent him a cassette, and a few days later he phoned the studio
and said,
"Would you like to hear the arrangement I've written?"
I said I'd love to, but how?
"Well, Liam is with me now, and we could play it over
the phone."
I thought how wonderful he was, and I heard him put down the phone
and walk away. The cassette player started up. As the chorus began,
so did this beautiful music -- through the wonder of telephones it
was coming live from Ireland, and it was very moving.
We arranged that I would travel to Ireland with Jay and the multi-track
tape, and that we would record in Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin.
As the choruses began to grow, the evening drew on and the glasses of
Guiness, slowly dropping in level, became like sand glasses to tell
the passing of time. We missed our plane and worked through the night.
By eight o'clock the next morning we were driving to the airport to
return to London. I had a very precious tape tucked under my arm,
and just as we were stepping onto the plane, I looked up into the sky
and there were three swallows diving and chasing the flies.
"All the Love"
Although we are often surrounded by people and friends, we are all
ultimately alone, and I feel sure everyone feels lonely at some time
in their life. I wanted to write about feeling alone, and how having
to hide emotions away or being too scared to show love can lead to
being lonely as well.
There are just some times when you can't cope and you just don't feel
you can talk to anyone. I go and find a bathroom, a toilet or
an empty room just to sit and let it out and try to put it all together
in my mind. Then I go back and face it all again.
I think it's sad how we forget to tell people we love that we do love
them. Often we think about these things when it's too late or when an
extreme situation forces us to show those little things we're normally
too shy or too lazy to reveal.
One of the ideas for the song sparked when I came home from the studio
late one night. I was using an answering machine to take the day's
messages and it had been going wrong a lot, gradually growing worse
with time. It would speed peoples' voices up beyond recognition, and
I just used to hope they would ring back again one day at normal speed.
This particular night, I started to play back the tape, and the machine
had neatly edited half a dozen messages together to leave "Goodbye",
"See you!", "Cheers", "See you soon"... It was a strange sensation
to sit and listen to your friends ringing up apparently just to say
goodbye. I had several cassettes of peoples' messages all ending with
authentic farewells, and by copying them onto 1/4" tape and re-arranging
the order, we managed to synchronize the "callers" with the last verse
of the song.
There are still quite a few of my friends who have not heard the album
or who have not recognised themselves and are still wondering how
they managed to appear in the album credits when they didn't even set
foot into the studio.
"Houdini"
The side most people know of Houdini is that of the escapologist,
but he spent many years of his life exposing mediums and seances
as frauds. His mother had died, and in trying to make contact through
such spiritual people, he realized how much pain was being inflicted
on people already in sorrow, people who would part with money just for
the chance of a few words from a past loved one.
I feel he must have believed in the possibility of contact after death,
and perhaps in his own way, by weeding out the frauds, he hoped to
find just one that could not be proven to be a fake. He and his wife
made a decision that if one of them should die and try to make contact,
the other would know it was truly them through a code that only
the two of them knew.
His wife would often help him with his escapes. Before he was bound up
and sealed away inside a tank or some dark box, she would give him a
parting kiss, and as their lips met, she would pass him the key which
he would later use to unlock the padlocks that chained him.
After he died, Mrs. Houdini did visit many mediums, and tried to make
contact for years, with no luck -- until one day a medium called Mr.
Ford informed her that Houdini had come through. She visited him
and he told her that he had a message for her from Houdini, and he
spoke the only words that meant for her the proof of her husband's
presence. She was so convinced that she released an official
statement to the fact that he had made contact with her through the
medium, Ford.
It is such a beautiful and strange story that I thought I had very
little to do, other than tell it like it was. But in fact it proved
to be the most difficult lyric of all the songs and the most
emotionally demanding. I was so aware of trying to do justice
to the beauty of the subject, and trying to understand what it
must have been like to have been in love with such an extraordinary
man, and to have been loved by him.
I worked for two or three nights just to find one line that was
right. There were so many alternatives, but only a few were right
for the song. Gradually it grew and began to piece together, and
I found myself wrapped up in the feelings of the song -- almost
pining for Houdini. Singing the lead vocal was a matter of conjuring
up that feeling again and as the clock whirrs and the song flashes
back in time to when she watched him through the glass, he's
on the other side under water, and she hangs on to his every breath.
We both wait.
"Get Out of My House"
The Shining is the only book I've read that has frightened me. While
reading it I swamped around in its snowy imagery and avoided visiting
certain floors of the big, cold hotel, empty for the winter.
As in Alien, the central characters are isolated, miles (or light years)
away from anyone or anything, but there is something in the place with
them. They're not sure what, but it isn't very nice.
The setting for this song continues the theme -- the house which is
really a human being, has been shut up -- locked and bolted, to
stop any outside forces from entering. The person has been hurt
and has decided to keep everybody out. They plant a "concierge"
at the front door to stop any determined callers from passing, but
the thing has got into the house upstairs. It's descending in the lift,
and now it approaches the door of the room that you're hiding in.
You're cornered, there's no way out, so you turn into a bird and
fly away, but the thing changes shape, too. You change, it changes;
you can't escape, so you turn around and face it, scare it away.
"Hee Haw"
"Hee Haw"
"Hee Haw"
Lots of love,
Kate
xxxx