[net.music] No, I won't shut up! And re net review of Kate Bush's single

nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (08/23/85)

From: Doug Alan <nessus>
["It wouldn't take me long to tell you how to find it"]

> From: Wayne Young <wayne@utflis.UUCP>
> To: nessus@mit-eddie.ARPA
> Subject: Re: Do you want to be on the Kate Bush fans mailing list?

> Yes, Doug I would like to be on the Kate Bush mailing list, as much
> as I hate the idea. You know, if I hadn't discovered KB discussions on
> net.music, my exposure to her music would still be very limited. I
> started reading about her and buying her albums just this summer, and
> though I'm glad that I got here just in time for the great Kate Bush
> Mailing List Sign-up, I shudder to think what would happen if the list
> had been created earlier.

Hey, don't worry -- I don't plan on shutting up in net.music!  (Thanks
for the support!  Thanks to Jim uHof too!)

But there's now almost 30 people on the love-hounds mailing list, and
new applications are coming in continuously!  Sign up today while
there's still room.

Mail to love-hounds-request@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA).  Send no money --
we will bill you later.  Once again, that's
love-hounds-request@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)!

> From: wayne@utflis.UUCP (Wayne Young)
> Newsgroups: net.music
> Subject: Kate Bush's new 12"single: a review, sort of.
> Keywords: Kate Bush, Pat Benatar, bleah.

> [crunch, crunch, lurch my lunch]

> After listening to Kate Bush's newest single, "Running Up That Hill",
> some 20 to 30 times, I can't help but feel that she did a cover version
> of one of Pat Benatar's unreleased songs. I figure that Pat gave it to
> Kate as part of a contractual agreement for "Wuthering Heights".

>      "Come on baby, come on angel
>       You don't want to hurt me"

> Did Kate really write that? I refuse to believe it. Yuck, splutter,
> ack, BLEAH.

>                        - Hermetically Sealed -
>                            (but you can call me Hermey)

Hey Wayne!  You're a Kate Bush fan, so you must be a be a great guy, but
really!  The lyrics for "Running Up That Hill" are great!  They're
perfect.  The music in "Running Up That Hill" could be better (comparing
it Pat Benetar would make me ill, though) -- it's a bit too commercial,
but the lyrics are as deep as anything Kate's done.  They blew me away
totally when I first saw them, which was several days before I heard the
music.

I mean, I can't really believe you paid too much attention to the
lyrics.  Your reaction strikes me as similar to those who say that "The
Infant Kiss" is promoting pedophilia or that "Egypt" is just a
throw-away song about how romantic the pyramids in Egypt are.  ("I
cannot stop to comfort them -- I'm busy chasing up my daemon") It's
missing the whole point!  You can't just take a couple lyrics out of
place and expect them to necessarily have deep significance by
themselves.  Seen as part of the whole, all the lyrics are important and
fit in perfectly.  Also, the lyrics aren't in the song as you quote
them.  ("C'mon baby c'mon darlin'/ Let me steal this moment from you
now")

Ever hear of a philosopher named Thomas Nagel?  He made himself famous
by writing a philospophy paper (circa 1974) entitled "What Is It Like To
Be a Bat?"  I seriously doubt if Kate Bush has ever heard of Thomas
Nagel, yet in "Running Up That Hill" she says in four minutes everything
Nagel had to say in his paper and more!  ("Do you want to feel how it
feels?")  And much more beautifully too!

It's all about art and how artists make their art but can't know what
its like to experience it, and how fans, who experience the art, can't
know what it was like to make it.  Everyone is trapped forever within
themselves, never knowing what it feels like to be anything or anyone
else.  And all this, in the song, is wrapped up in a powerful sexual
metaphor.

Once someone asked Kate Bush to respond to the common comment that one
can't dance to her music.  She responded that it didn't bother her,
because *she* could (and does) dance to it.  I wonder if it's any
coincidence, considering the subject matter of the song, that this is
the first Kate Bush song that is "danceable"?

			"You don't want to hurt me
			 But see how deep the bullet lies"

			 Doug Alan
			  nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)


P.S.  Kate's "Running Up That Hill" has entered the Billboard British
singles chart at number 9!  I don't know whether to be thrilled or
upset!  It would be so much nicer if her album would just sell like
"Dark Side Of The Moon" without any help from hit singles.  (But that
didn't work for "The Dreaming", did it?)

In any case, Madonna holds the number one and number two positions.
Will there be a drag down knock out battle?  Kate Bush in the right
corner, with her bow and arrow, and Madonna in the left corner with her
killer bellybutton?  A competition of erotic dances, where the right
side represents creativity and honesty and the left side represents
formulas and manipulation?  If Madonna wins, we all lose!

I'm sure I'm going to see an interview with Kate Bush sometime soon that
will give me heartburn.  Somebody is sure to ask something like "Foobar
compared you to Madonna, what do you think of that?"  And since Kate
will never insult any specific person, she'll probably say something
like (as she always does no matter who she's asked about) "I'm really
flattered because she's just great".  I better get the Digel ready.
(Couldn't she just just once come out and say "I think she sucks goat
phlegm!"  No?  Oh, well....)