nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (07/26/85)
["Rosabell, believe!"] WARNING: this is a very long message discussing some of aspects of Kate Bush and "The Dreaming" in some detail.... ------------------------------------------------------------------ Wow! It's great to hear someone else offer some of their interpretations of "The Dreaming"! > From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) > "Get Out of my House" appears to be a story of a woman who, having been > abandoned (though not maliciously) by the perfect "SO", has decided not to > let anyone else into her life thereafter. Although people occasionallyi > come to her, saying "Woman, let me in, let me bring in the memories", even > the offer itself is interpreted as a threat. (In fact, her portrayal of > this "paranoia" is so extreme as to be very reminiscent of Peter Gabriel, > whose lyrics and album covers are filled with terrifying images almost > impossible to conceive of in a sane state of mind.) Hey! I conceive stuff like this! But then again, maybe I've been listening to Peter Gabriel (and Pink Floyd, etc.) for too long.... In this song, the way that the fear of being hurt in a relationship has been superimposed on the image of fear in a haunted house is very interesting. In fact, it is very surreal. The title of the album "The Dreaming", is another example of where Kate Bush knew exactly what she was doing. Not only does the name "The Dreaming" refer to an Aborigine religious experience, but it also refers the surrealistic nature of all the songs on "The Dreaming", in that the art of surrealism is closely connected with dreams. > What interests me in this song, however, is her occasional use of > biblical metaphors. Since Doug Alan has mentioned that she > occasionally performed with Peter Gabriel, I wonder if he is > responsible for the imagery in this song, since the person who > concieved of these images is apparently sufficiently well familiar > with the biblical euphemisms to have come up with the line "No > stranger's feet/Will enter me," and have successfully merged this with > the image of a house as representative of the human body. Peter Gabriel's major influence on Kate Bush is in her present-day obsession with rhythm. (Peter Gabriel was also influenced strongly, I believe, by Kate Bush in the area of live performance. Peter Gabriel's recent live performances seem strongly reminiscent of Kate Bush (and of course himself) -- he even uses the same head-gear microphone system that Kate Bush had specially designed for her own concerts.) The biblical allusions are straight from Kate Bush herself -- she went a Catholic grammar school (with nuns and Sister Big Knickers, etc.), so is certainly familiar with the Bible. I even have a poem she wrote when she was 11 called "The Crucifixion". (It's very good!) She is definitely not Christian, though. Would you care to describe these biblical metaphors in some more detail? I have little direct knowledge of the Bible. > But what is even more intriguing is the song "All the Love," which is > very obviously a story of the problems of being a celebrity; it's > theme is quite similar to one of the subthemes in Pink Floyd's > _The_Wall_. I think you might be right, but I'm not convinced. I've always seen it as a song about the space that isolates people from one another. People often don't comunicate with each other or tell others who are close to them how they feel about them until it's too late: they are dead. > I'm not entirely sure what death symbolizes in this song; it could be > death in the sense of metaphysical poets, with the plurality of "good > friends of mine" being just an attempt to cover over the true meaning. The death may symbolize something, but I don't think that you should say that the death isn't also supposed to be real. Kate Bush often puts layered meanings in things, but all of the layers are important. The surface level is just as valid as the metaphorical level, and there may not be ONE true meaning, but many true menaings. This is one of the things that surrealism is all about -- layering of meaning. > This seems plausible since the whole "The first time I died" appears > mostly just an attempt to throw the listener off the track of > discovering the actual meaning of the song. I guess, though, it could > also be a vague reference to reincarnation, a prediction that "this > time" she will be in the arms of "the friends [she] made", her fans. I think that on one level, it is definitely talking about reincarnation. Kate Bush actually believes in reincarnation (nobody's perfect... but that doesn't make it any less interesting...). And on this level, I think that the meaning is clearly that in a previous life, she lost contact with the people she was close to, and they didn't communicate to her their love for her and vice versa, until it was too late. In her next life... The next time, I dedicate my life's work To the friends I make I give them what they want to hear They think I'm up to something weird And up rears the head of fear in me So now when they ring, I get my machine to let them in ... she tried harder to keep in touch and communicate with her friends, but she goes about it in the wrong way, by just echoing their expectations. This doesn't work, because people don't trust others who seem too fawning all the time. So eventually she shuts herself off from them. I think this interpretation is valid, but lines like "But I know I have shown/ That I stand at the gates alone" and "We needed you/ To love us too/ We wait for your move" seem to hint at something more. Maybe your interpretation. > It's interesting that in this song Kate Bush goes on to suggest that > her fans expect her to be perfect, stoical, and unemotional: "I didn't > want to let them see me weep/I didn't want to let them see me weak." I don't think that what she means here is that this is what her fans expect of her, but that SHE doesn't want to expose herself so. I think this line works better in my more surface level interpretation. She didn't want to expose herself to her friends, but concealing herself gets in the way of communication. > The "goodbyes" [on the answering machine] are also very ironic. > Besides the obvious fact that they are saying goodbye for the last > time, possibly, there is this interesting hint that maybe their voices > on a famous record album are "what they want to hear": like the > "you've mirrored his appeal" notion, the fans call not out of any > admiration for her work, but rather to be close to someone famous, and > thereby be famous themselves. You can imagine the 20 or so people on > there, each taking the album to play to their friends and saying, > "Look! That was me, right there! I'm on Kate Bush's album!" Nah! This is way too cynical for Kate Bush. She (unlike Roger Waters) has a lot of respect for her fans, even if she feels now that she must keep more distant. The answering machine voices are, according to Kate Bush, friends of hers. This is what Kate Bush has to say about the song (though she isn't necessarily telling us everything), and it mirrors pretty well my feelings on the song, which were well-formed before I read this: Although we are often surrounded by people and friends, we are 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 scared to show love can lead to being lonely as well. There are just some times when I can't cope and you just don't feel that 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 people's voices up beyond recognition and I just used to hope that 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 people's messages all ending with authentic farewells and by copying them onto 1/4 inch 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 recognized themselves and are still wondering how they managed to appear on the album when they didn't even step foot in the studio. > Thus, while I don't find the lyrics to be particularly warm and > appealing (I could almost believe the Jansic story after looking at > these lyrics awhile), they are certainly intriguingly good poetry. I'll agree with you that the lyrics on "The Dreaming" are not very warm, but I find them very appealing. (I'll tell you why soon...) Also I think it would be very wrong of you to conclude that Kate Bush is anything like "Binky" from "The Dreaming". "The Dreaming" is mostly an album about how someone is sorting out problems and pain and frustration. But I think you are mistaking some of this frustration and pain for anger. From listening to Kate Bush's early albums and seeing her on TV interviews, etc., it is apparent that Kate Bush is actually one of the most considerate people you could ever imagine. She's a vegetarian because she can't stand the idea of killing and hurting animals for food. She never insults anyone, even when goaded into it, and never gets angry. She sometimes even seems neurotic about not offending people. When asked about her detractors, she usually says something like "Well, there's not much I can say" or "They're entitled to their opinion". Someone in England once wrote a four part column series entitiled "Why I hate Kate Bush!" When Kate was asked to comment on this, she said something like "I guess I should be flattered that he feels me worthy of so much attention." She even seems almost not to understand the concept of anger at another person. The only time she even seems to approach anger is when discussing VERY important topics like nuclear war in the song "Breathing" or the plight of the Aborigine in the song "The Dreaming". She has songs where she describes jealousy and vengeance and hate as being completely unhealthy feelings to have. Many of the lyrics on Kate Bush's first two albums ("The Kick Inside" and "Never for Ever") are very warm. In fact so warm and so personal that it is almost uncomfortable. There's no way you can listen to them (if you enjoy the album) and not feel that Kate Bush is a close personal friend of yours. Unfortunately, this close personal friend disappears as soon as the record is over. At this time in her life, she also often discussed problems and pain and frustration, but YOU, the listener, are described as being there with her to help her overcome these problems. These lyrics are from a single B-side that Kate recorded when she was fifteen: Passing through air, you mix the stars with your arms Walking through here, the doom of eternity balms Even then, the "doom of eternity" was a prevalent image, but YOU the listener were there to help lessen the pain. All of the songs on "The Kick Inside" and most of the songs on "Lionheart" were written before Kate Bush was famous -- before her audience had become part of her frustrations. As a consequence of coming to terms with an unbelievably huge audience, "Never for Ever" is much less personal than her previous albums. It is still warm, but not personal. "The Dreaming", on the other hand, is VERY personal -- it is her most personal album. But she has now come to the realization that she can't be a close friend to every one of the million plus people that listen to her, she has to keep her distance to maintain her sanity. This is one of the reasons I like "The Dreaming" better than her other albums. It is very personal, but I don't feel like I'm being forced into falling in love with her -- which isn't really what I want out of music. Instead of the young and vulnerable girl of "The Kick Inside" singing warm and tender songs about melancholy and the mournful beauty of love and lost love and lust, etc, on "The Dreaming", I hear a wonderfully talented and mature artist describing perfectly many of the fundamental frustrations of life. And I can relate very strongly to this, because she is frustrated about the many of the very same things that I am. Whether it is about the frustration of trying to climb the infinite hill of knowledge (Sat In Your Lap) or trying to reach perfection and discover the meaning of life (Suspended in Gaffa) or the distruction of primitive cultures by "civilized man" (The Dreaming) or how to deal with a relationship that you know will probably end up with you getting hurt, etc., I can relate very strongly because these are things that are on my mind a lot. I also don't think that it would be fair to say that Kate Bush paints a hopeless picture about these things. (Not that you ever said she did, but some people might think so. Roger Waters describes things as being hopeless, and I love Pink Floyd too, but I don't think that Kate Bush is into hopelessness...) Many of the songs on "The Dreaming" are about someone trying to *deal* with pain and frustration, not letting themselves become destroyed by it. Some of the songs that seem pretty depressing end on a possitive note at the end. For example "Sat In Your Lap", which makes the quest for knowledge seem pretty futile (and it is!) ends with "I'm coming up the ladder". And at the end of "Get Out Of My House", both the man and woman turn into mules. Have they found some common ground? "See the light ram through the gaps in the land" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP P.S. Actually, I also want to nitpick a little and set a couple things straight: > ...it ["The Dreaming"] seemed to be a strange album with a woman who > usually sang in a falsetto (is that what you call it when women sing > above their natural vocal range? I'm not sure), Actually, "falsetto" only applies to men. But actually it is Kate Bush's high voice (not her low voice) that is her natural voice. Her natural singing voice is about soprano. On her early albums ("The Kick Inside" and "Lionheart") she sings in about a three octave range, starting at alto and going up (with emphasis on the "up"). Her tennor voice she cultivated for "The Dreaming". It's just that she managed to do a low voice so well, that it is hard to believe (if that's the first album of hers you've heard) that she can sing so high naturally. Also, I disagree with your saying that she usually sings high on "The Dreaming". For most of the songs, she does the main vocals in her new-found low voice and the background (or answering) vocals in her soprano voice.
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/01/85)
Well, lunchtime is almost over, so I can only answer your comments briefly, but here goes... > She is definitely not Christian, though. That is unfortunate. > Would you care to describe these biblical metaphors in some more detail? > I have little direct knowledge of the Bible. Well, I was referring in particular to two things. The first is the obvious one of the word "house" in referring to the body. The second is the use of the word "feet". In the Bible, "feet" is often a euphemism for "private parts". Thus, for example, some angelic beings are described as having wings with which they "covered their feet". There is also a story in the book of Ruth, in which Ruth is being instructed on how to go about finding a husband, that is much more understandable if you realize this fact. > Nah! This is way too cynical for Kate Bush. Maybe so. However, your other comments on Kate Bush being basically a nice person who likes her fans, etc., goes along well with my interpretation of the song as being related to feelings of GUILT over not being able to give "all the love you should have given" to all her fans. The refrain "We needed you to love us too" is rather haunting, in a sad way, suggesting also these feelings of guilt. Tell me this... in the opening lines, The first time I died, It was in the arms of good friends of mine. * * * Say, why do it now, when I won't be around? I'm going out. What does "it" refer to? This is something that puzzles me, in either interpretation. > I also don't think that it would be fair to say that Kate Bush paints a > hopeless picture about these things. (Not that you ever said she did, I don't think it is hopeless, but it seems almost demented at times. > But actually it is Kate Bush's high voice (not her low voice) that is her > natural voice. Well, it's hard to know this, but I suspect her natural voice is her low voice, and that she just cultivated the "high" one because it was better suited for a female lead vocalist. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Fvzcyvsl, fvzcyvsl." -- UQG
nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (08/03/85)
> From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) >> [Me:] She is definitely not Christian, though. > That is unfortunate. No, it's very fortunate! Now, all we have to do is get her to give up these silly beliefs about reincarnation and spirits, etc. (Not if it would cause her to lose any of her weirdness, though!) > Well, I was referring in particular to two things. The first is the > obvious one of the word "house" in referring to the body. Yes, it's very clear that in "Get Out of My House" she has somehow become the house, or equates herself with the house, but what is the biblical allusion involved? What does the Bible have to say about houses being human bodies or vice versa? > The second is the use of the word "feet". In the Bible, "feet" is > often a euphemism for "private parts". No strangers feet Will enter me I wash the panes I clean the stains away Wow! How risque! I would have never picked up on that meaning! This is not exactly the same picture she paints of sex in her early stuff (but then again, "Get Out Of My House" is a story -- not a description of the way things should be, as much of her early stuff is). > However, your other comments on Kate Bush being basically a nice > person who likes her fans, etc., goes along well with my > interpretation of the song as being related to feelings of GUILT over > not being able to give "all the love you should have given" to all her > fans. The refrain "We needed you to love us too" is rather haunting, > in a sad way, suggesting also these feelings of guilt. I certainly won't argue with this. Sounds good to me! Speaking of allusions to Kate's fans, it certainly sounds to me like the title to Kate's new album "Hounds of Love" is a definite reference to her fans! (Gee, can we start analyzing an album 41 days before we've heard it?) And it has clear conotations of both love for them and frustration with them. So maybe now the correct term for Kate Bush fans is neither "Lionhearts" or "Bushies", but "Love Hounds"! > Tell me this... in the opening lines, The first time I died Was in the arms of good friends of mine. They kiss me with tears They hadn't been near me for years Say, why do it now, when I won't be around? I'm going out. > What does "it" refer to? This is something that puzzles me, in either > interpretation. I'm not sure which "it" you mean (you had another "it" in front of the "was", but that "it" isn't actually in the lyrics), but I'm puzzled about your puzzlement -- the surface meaning seems pretty straight-forward to me. I'll give you my translation into non-poetic English: The first time I died, I did so in the arms of good friends of mine. They showed their love for me while I was dying, But they hadn't been close to me for years before. Why show your love for me now, when it's too late? I'm dying. Why didn't you do it while I was still alive, when it would have done some good? > I don't think it is hopeless, but it seems almost demented at times. Why? Like I said before, I think the perfect description for the tone of the album would be "frustrated" -- certainly not "demented"! (Well maybe "Get Out Of My House", but Kate has said that she wrote the song after reading Steven King's "The Shining", which is the only book that ever scared her, and after seeing the movie "The Alien" -- and she wanted to somehow put that fear into a song.) It also seems to me that unless you have some religious crutch to lean on, life is basically and fundamentally a futile endeavor. Which isn't the same thing as saying it's not worth doing (there's always existential protest, etc.) -- but it is a frustrating thing to realize. Just look at he title to Kate's third album "Never for Ever". This alludes to the fact, that we are completely transient beings. That everything we are, do, and achieve is only temporary. That eventually we won't exist anymore -- forever. Then again, on Lionheart, Kate says "I see myself suddenly on the piano/ As a melody/ My terrible fear of dying, no longer/ Plays with me/ For now I know that I'm needed/ For the symphony." She sure is! I just wish I was needed for the symphony too... >> But actually it is Kate Bush's high voice (not her low voice) that is her >> natural voice. > Well, it's hard to know this, but I suspect her natural voice is her > low voice, and that she just cultivated the "high" one because it was > better suited for a female lead vocalist. Well, in her early stuff, she has no problem reaching very very high notes. She does sing some low notes too, but it usually sounded like (until "The Dreaming") she was trying really hard to reach those low notes. Also, on "The Dreaming" they actually used a tape effect to make her voice lower for one part -- the part in Houdini where she screams "With your spit still on my lip -- you hit the water". (I suppose she still has problems singing very loudly at low pitches.) Speaking of "Houdini", has anyone figured out what the background vocals are singing while the foreground vocals are singing "I'd watch you breathe/ Bound and drowned/ And paler than you've ever been"? I can only pick out one word, "Houdini". (When I listen to this song, even I believe...) "Not even Eternity Can hold Houdini" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/05/85)
> Yes, it's very clear that in "Get Out of My House" she has somehow > become the house, or equates herself with the house, but what is the > biblical allusion involved? What does the Bible have to say about > houses being human bodies or vice versa? The Bible just describes the body as a "house" or "temple" on occasion. Incidentally, I guess you are aware that another song on that album (I think Suspended in Gaffa) also alludes to Biblical symbols. I don't have the lyrics here, but there is a line there that says something like There's a plank in me eye, And a camel trying to get through it. This is a reference to two separate New Testament passages. The first says something like "Remove first the log that is in your own eye, so that you may see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother's eye." This refers to working on your own problems before criticizing others (or something along those lines). (I think the King James Version says "beam" instead of "log"; I don't know if any version says "plank".) The second passage says "It is easier for a camel to go through an eye of a needle [some scholars read "the Eye of the Needle", the name of a narrow gateway in Jerusalem] than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven." These two passages are tied together, of course, by the word "eye" in her song. Their presence also makes me doubt somewhat whether she is really as atheistic as you suggest; although she has a strange ecumenical view of (atonement, enlightenment, salvation), she does seem to express a concern for attaining it in this song. > Why show your love for me now, when it's too late? I'm dying. > Why didn't you do it while I was still alive, > when it would have done some good? I guess that makes sense; i.e., "it" might mean "show your love for me." However, I would interpret it as meaning that she doesn't pay as much attention now as she once did; perhaps that due to the flood of fans, she finds it impossible to listen to them all, all the time. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Frr ubj Tbq jvgu uvf yvtugavat nyjnlf fzvgrf gur ovttre navznyf, naq jvyy abg fhssre gurz gb jnk vafbyrag; juvyr gurfr bs n yrffre ohyx punsr uvz abg." -- Negnonavf
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/05/85)
I accidentally exited before I had finished my comments on your posting. > It also seems to me that unless you have some religious crutch to lean > on, life is basically and fundamentally a futile endeavor. Which isn't > the same thing as saying it's not worth doing (there's always > existential protest, etc.) -- but it is a frustrating thing to realize. I don't really see how any one can exist in any moral way if you believe that life is a futile endeavor. However, that is more of a religious issue, and I don't want to go into net.religion just to talk about that. However, I am not sure that The Dreaming suggests that life is a futile endeavor; several of the songs suggest impatience with the difficulty of life, but not really a resignation, a feeling that it is hopeless. > Speaking of "Houdini", has anyone figured out what the background vocals > are singing while the foreground vocals are singing "I'd watch you > breathe/ Bound and drowned/ And paler than you've ever been"? I can I have a related question. While I understand how most of the song relates to facts about Houdini, what does his saying "Rosabel, believe" refer to? I know that Houdini and his wife made a sort of agreement, that whichever died first would "come back" if possible to tell the other there was life after death (notice, in fact, that this is another hopeful sign from Kate Bush, an intimation of immortality), and that supposedly he did so. Did he also supposedly give some message, phrased that way, in some form? -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Frr ubj Tbq jvgu uvf yvtugavat nyjnlf fzvgrf gur ovttre navznyf, naq jvyy abg fhssre gurz gb jnk vafbyrag; juvyr gurfr bs n yrffre ohyx punsr uvz abg." -- Negnonavf
nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (08/10/85)
["Do you want to feel how it feels?"] > From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) > Incidentally, I guess you are aware that another song on that album (I > think Suspended in Gaffa) also alludes to Biblical symbols. I don't > have the lyrics here, but there is a line there that says something > like > There's a plank in me eye, > And a camel trying to get through it. Yeah, I caught those, of course, because they're also common expressions. There's another Christian reference in the song too. The line "I caught a glimpse of a god all shining and bright" alludes to Catholic mythology, where people who are put in purgatory are shown a "glimpse of God", then they never get to see him again as a form of torture -- they're shown perfection and then are denied it. Kate Bush has said that she thinks that this is a really heavy image to lay on little kids. > The second passage says "It is easier for a camel to go through an eye > of a needle [some scholars read "the Eye of the Needle", the name of a > narrow gateway in Jerusalem] than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom > of Heaven." The scholars who translate it the second way must be rich! > These two passages are tied together, of course, by the word "eye" in > her song. Their presence also makes me doubt somewhat whether she is > really as atheistic as you suggest; although she has a strange > ecumenical view of (atonement, enlightenment, salvation), she does > seem to express a concern for attaining it in this song. I never said she was atheistic! Who ever heard of an atheist who believes in reincarnation, an afterlife, or astrology (real astrology, not newspaper astrology). I don't think she has any firm religious beliefs, but I KNOW she isn't Christian. Her religious beliefs are probably a conglomeration of a lot of things she wants to believe in. I have a radio interview somewhere on tape where an evangelistic Christian calls up and asks Kate if she is Christian. She says something about believing in God, but that it isn't the Christian one (Though she says that she thinks Christianity is good for many people -- just not for her. She also says that she thinks it is bad for many people too). The caller keeps telling her that it IS the same god, and eventually the announcer tells the guy that he has to go to the next caller and hangs up on him. I could listen to this tape again and tell you more precisely what she says, if you are really interested. Interpreting lyrics is more fun though... Also, I don't think that the essence of "Suspended in Gaffa" is religious. Kate Bush says she used the image of god as a symbolic thing -- a goal to obtain. I think the song is about the pursuit of perfection, one's goals, the meaning of life (not neccesarily seen in a religious way), etc. > I guess that makes sense; i.e., "it" might mean "show your love for me." > However, I would interpret it as meaning that she doesn't pay as much > attention now as she once did; perhaps that due to the flood of fans, she > finds it impossible to listen to them all, all the time. Maybe it means both! (Though I think mine is closer to the truth....) > I don't really see how any one can exist in any moral way if you > believe that life is a futile endeavor. I manage! And I believe VERY STRONGLY in a somewhat Golden Rule based set of ethics. > However, I am not sure that The Dreaming suggests that life is a > futile endeavor; several of the songs suggest impatience with the > difficulty of life, but not really a resignation, a feeling that it is > hopeless. Just because it's all futile doesn't mean you should resign. Kate Bush said once in an interview that she would never be able to reach perfection in her art and that this is a very difficult thing for her to accept, but that she has to accept it, because even though it's a very frustrating thing to realize, that's just the way it is. (Actually *I* think she reached perfection on "The Dreaming", and it's really frustrating to realize that someone else has reached perfection but that I never will!) I think that both "Sat In Your Lap" and "Suspended In Gaffa" are about this frustration of Kate thinking that she can never reach the perfection she wants SO much to reach -- that it's really a futile endeavor -- but she's going to continue to try anyway. > While I understand how most of the song relates to facts about > Houdini, what does his saying "Rosabel, believe" refer to? I know > that Houdini and his wife made a sort of agreement, that whichever > died first would "come back" if possible to tell the other there was > life after death (notice, in fact, that this is another hopeful sign > from Kate Bush, an intimation of immortality), and that supposedly he > did so. Did he also supposedly give some message, phrased that way, > in some form? I think you are precisely correct. Long before I ever heard of Kate Bush I read some biographies on Houdini because I was into performance magic. My memory is kind of vague but if I remember correctly, Houdini's mother died at some point, and he really wanted to get in contact with her, so he went to all sorts of mediums, etc., but they all turned out to be phonies. So Houdini spent a lot of his time debunking mediums. He gave his wife a secret message and told her that if he were to die, he would try to come back and give her the message, and that any seance where she didn't get that message was a hoax. So when Houdini died, Rosabel (Houdini's wife) went around debunking mediums for a long time. The story goes, that after many many years, she finally met an honest medium who actually contacted Houdini and received the message "Rosabel, believe". In any case, Kate Bush definitely believes in some sort of afterlife or supernatural spirit. She said in some interview something like "I can't believe that when you die you just disappear. All that energy has to go somewhere..." She must have never seen a file system experience a head-crash, if you ask me... > "Frr ubj Tbq jvgu uvf yvtugavat nyjnlf fzvgrf gur ovttre navznyf, > naq jvyy abg fhssre gurz gb jnk vafbyrag; juvyr gurfr bs n > yrffre ohyx punsr uvz abg." -- Negnonavf Well I sure hope I'm not a big animal! "And if I only could I'd make a deal with God And I'd get him to swap our places Be running up that road Be running up that hill Be running up that building If I only could" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)
jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) (08/13/85)
>> "Frr ubj Tbq jvgu uvf yvtugavat nyjnlf fzvgrf gur ovttre navznyf, >> naq jvyy abg fhssre gurz gb jnk vafbyrag; juvyr gurfr bs n >> yrffre ohyx punsr uvz abg." -- Negnonavf > >Well I sure hope I'm not a big animal! No, that was a reference to the discussions on domain routing in net.mail, which, like net.unix-wizards, are suffused by a strange philosophy that the ability to say meaningful things is directly proportional to the size of the university with which one is presently associated. I doubt it has much to do with Kate Bush, who probably has never heard of denotational semantics before at all. I just forgot to take it off before I wrote about Kate Bush. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Lbh xabj... jura lbh pybpx gur uhzna enpr jvgu gur fgbcjngpu bs uvfgbel, vg'f n arj erpbeq, rirel gvzr."