Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (12/07/86)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Greetings, Love-Hounds, from IED0DXM.
Today's issue of the Daily Variety included
a review of the film "Castaway". This is almost
certainly the film for which (Doug tells us)
Kate contributed the theme song. Since she
does not receive a credit for writing the
music for the film (not that anyone here said
she would), it is safe to say that if they
decided to use her performance at all, it
was just a vocal version of the film score
theme. (This was the case with Kate and
"The Magician of Lublin" -- score and theme
song by Maurice Jarre {anyone happen to know
who wrote the lyrics to that one?} -- and "Brazil",
and was nearly the case with "Moonraker"...)
The composer of the soundtrack for "Castaway" is
veteran scorer Stanley Meyers. He's done scores of
scores (ha, ha), but off hand IED can think of only
one memorable one by him: "Billion Dollar Brain".
The review makes no comment about Meyers's score,
much less about Kate's possible performance of the theme.
The movie itself stars Oliver Reed and a young British
starlet named (if IED remembers correctly) Amanda Donahoe. It is
directed (and here's why Kate probably got involved in
the movie) by Ken Russell, who is known to have made
one of the movies Kate was moved and inspired by, his
biographical film about Delius. The review is very mixed,
saying essentially that the lead actors are dynamite, but
that the film itself has no plot or interest, that it is
surprisingly tame and mainstream for Russell without being
better than if it weren't, and that the girl goes about
nude in most of the movie while Oliver Reed is always
artfully obscured from view by a strategically placed
palm frond. (Fine with IED! Have you seen how seedy Oliver
Reed looks lately?) The movie is now definitely out in
Europe, so perhaps we'll hear the news about Kate's
connection from our English and Scottish Love-Hound
contributors soon?
Speaking of "The Magician of Lublin", perhaps Doug
has deciphered some of the lyrics sung by Kate in
the movie? That is the one KT track which IED cannot
stand to listen to -- not because of the song, but
because that damn Alan Arkin is yelling his foul
dialogue over it, and it's impossible to follow the
music. This has got to be the most colossal waste of
talent ever condoned by a film company: why get Kate Bush to
sing your theme song if you're going to drown it out in
loud, surly Americanese?
There was a full-page ad for "The Whole Story" in
the December 6 issue of "Billboard", quite artfully
handled, using the quotation from "Running Up That Hill":
"Come on angel, come on darling, Let's exchange the experience."
In the latest issue (December 13), "The Whole Story" is the
first "Pick" of the week LP, with a very positive review.
IED was amazed to find two of the original marbleized
cassettes of Hounds of Love in Tower the other day. He duly
snatched them up for possible future bartering clout.
Any T-shirt news yet?
Doug, can you explain why not even "Don't Give Up" has
been shown on MTV? We're not naive enough to be expecting
a screening of "Experiment IV" yet from that evil corporation,
but wouldn't you think the follow-up video from a Recent-Number-
One-in-the-U.S.A.-artist like Gabriel would get shown once in
a while, even if it WASN'T the U.S. follow-up single? Or is
IED all wrong, and they've actually been showing it alot?
One reviewer said in reference to Kate's appearance that it
was "treacly" or summat like that.
Incidentally, "Big Time" is to be the third PG single in the U.S.
Also incidentally, MTV is going to begin a UK/Europe cable/satellite
edition early next year -- twenty-four hours a day, as in the U.S.
R.I.P. U.K.
Doug, have you seen some of the hidden lyrics people are
starting to hear in HoL songs and writing in to Break-Through
to report? All quite inaudible at this end. Can you confirm any of them?
If there really is going to be a KT covers project, IED will
contribute a minimalist interpretation of the painful cries
of mothers and the terrifying scream.