stevew@mushroom.COMputer-science.manchester.ac.UK (Steve Wallis) (01/03/90)
Here is the conclusion of the interview on Radio One between Kate Bush and
the sadly late Roger Scott. This interview occurred rather a long time ago
(the 14th October 1989) and I apologise for the delay, but better late than
never...
Many thanks to Dave Osborne for this transcription.
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KT: Again, I think it's such a human condition, where we
actually, a lot of the time, have such fear of things
actually there's no need to be frightened of at all. It's
all in our heads, this big kind of trap --- you know,
that actually it's not always as terrifying as we think.
Again, you know, it's meant to be saying "OK, so it can
be rough but there must be a way out --- it's all right!"
<laughs>
<_The_Fog_ is played>
RS: Kate Bush and _The_Fog_ from _The_Sensual_World_.
I got to stick this question in at some point, because
everyone's saying "When is he going to ask her?" I ask
you this every time and it's, "Are you going to tour
this?" --- are you going to take it out on the road and
'do it'?
KT: It's a very good question... <pause -- laughs>.
Umm... <pause>... I really enjoyed touring and this is so
ironic. Everyone presumed I hated touring and this is
why we haven't since. I wanted to spend time being a
songwriter and writing songs, not re-creating songs that
were already written, in front of an audience. They're
two very different experiences. Touring is very much
about contact. Real contact with an audience; with
people. It's really having a good time, and it's also
quite exhausting. It's a big commitment and exhausting.
Now, music is completely different. It's very
microscopic --- that thing of taking lots of little bits
of time and putting them together: it's just not running
in real time. It's very introverted and it is the actual
process of creation from scratch, and that meant so much
more to me over the last few years than that contact.
And I think I've learnt a tremendous amount by being in
the studio for such intense periods doing this. Not only
have I learnt a lot about the process of writing and and
working with music but I've learnt a lot about myself, I
think. But I do miss the human contact of touring and it
really scares me --- the idea of performing live ---
because I haven't done it for so long and the odd times I
have, I felt very uncomfortable. I'd really like to tour
again but I'm terrified of committing myself at this
point, but I guess this is one of the first points for a
long time I'm actually starting to think "...it could be
fun!". So the answer, in a short way...
RS: ...is "maybe"
KT: ...is "I dunno"! <laughs>
RS: Only do it if it's going to be fun.
KT: Yes.
RS: Don't do it if it's going to be a nightmare.
KT: Yes, and I think another reason why I haven't is I
haven't been sure about that. You're absolutely right.
RS: I must ask you this --- you must know what this one's
about. It's called "Heads We're Dancing" and... I read
the lyrics here --- well, no, I'm not going to read them
out but you just tell me what gave you the idea for this
song.
KT: This is the darkest song on the album and I think, in
some ways, it's not a song I would write now. But I had
a friend who went to this dinner, years ago. He was
sitting next to this guy all evening and they were
chatting --- they had some of the most incredible
conversations: he was so impressed with this guy. He was
so intellectual and charming; so well-read, you know. He
just thought this guy was perfect --- the chemistry
between them... wonderful! They talked all night. And
the next day, he went up to his friend who had arranged
the evening and he said, "Who was that guy I was sitting
next to last night? He was fascinating!" And the guy
said to him, "Oh, didn't you know? That was
Oppenheimer!" And my friend's reaction was absolute
horror, because he had no idea. And if he had known, he
said he would never have behaved like that. He's not
even sure he would have spoken to the guy because he had
such strong feelings of hatred for everything that man
represented. I thought that was really a bizarre and
interesting situation, that he should really have liked
this guy. He was sitting there with this person and he
really liked him. But as soon as he knew the guy's name,
he almost wanted to throw up in absolute disgust, he was
so turned off by what this guy represented. And I
thought, in some ways it must have been a wonderful
relief for Oppenheimer that night. I think he himself
perhaps paid the price --- you know what I mean? He did
not have an easy conscience, that man. And I was
thinking this was very interesting: the idea of someone
you found so charming, and later you find out they're the
most horrific thing you can imagine. And I thought,
well, this is kind of like the devil, isn't it? Where
the devil is meant to be very sweet-spoken, very
charming, very good looking! Everything that's kind of
attractive in order to tempt --- temptation is an
attractive thing. And I thought, what about the idea of
someone who dances with the devil? And then I thought,
you can't, you know --- it has to be a human. Who is the
nearest thing to the embodiment of the devil? It's
Hitler: he is the personification of evil, as far as you
can think of a single being out of history. It's a very
dark idea, but it's the idea of this girl who goes to a
big ball; very expensive, romantic, exciting, and it's
1939, before the war starts. And this guy, very
charming, very sweet-spoken, comes up and asks her to
dance but he does it by throwing a coin and he says, "If
the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!"
Even that's a very attractive "come on", isn't it? And
the idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with
him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and
she is hit with this absolute horror --- absolute horror.
What could be worse? To have been so close to the man...
she could have tried to kill him... she could have tried
to change history, had she known at that point what was
actually happening. And I think Hitler is a person who
fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And
I don't think you can blame those people for being
fooled, and maybe it's these very charming people...
maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to
be.
<_Heads_We're_Dancing_ is played>
RS: As Kate was saying, a very dark song:
_Heads_We're_Dancing_, from her new album,
_The_Sensual_World_. Well, from that, let's move to this
truly beautiful song right at the end here, called
_This_Woman's_Work_, which you've done with the
orchestra. This one I can't get to grips with, either.
What it is she's just done; whether she's expecting; or
exactly what's going on in this. All I know is: I hear
it; it's a beautiful song; but I can't quite get to grips
with it.
KT: All right. John Hughes, the American film director,
had just made this film called "She's Having a Baby", and
he had a scene in the film that he wanted a song to go
with. And the film's very light: it's a lovely comedy.
His films are very human, and it's just about this young
guy --- falls in love with a girl, marries her. He's
still very much a kid. She gets pregnant, and it's all
still very light and child-like until she's just about to
have the baby and the nurse comes up to him and says it's
a in a breech position and they don't know what the
situation will be. So, while she's in the operating
room, he has so sit and wait in the waiting room and it's
a very powerful piece of film where he's just sitting,
thinking; and this is actually the moment in the film
where he has to grow up. He has no choice. There he is,
he's not a kid any more; you can see he's in a very
grown-up situation. And he starts, in his head, going
back to the times they were together. There are clips of
film of them laughing together and doing up their flat
and all this kind of thing. And it was such a powerful
visual: it's one of the quickest songs I've ever written.
It was so easy to write. We had the piece of footage on
video, so we plugged it up so that I could actually watch
the monitor while I was sitting at the piano and I just
wrote the song to these visuals. It was almost a matter
of telling the story, and it was a lovely thing to do: I
really enjoyed doing it.
RS: Has the film been out yet?
KT: Yes. I don't think it was released here. It was
released in America and did OK, but not really as well as
his other films, which have been very successful. But it
was a lovely thing to be asked to write for, because it
was such a moving piece of film and I really like writing
to visuals as well --- I find that very exciting.
<_This_Woman's_Work_ is played>
RS: Just to conclude, you said earlier that the making of
this album and the years of work that have gone into
this, that one thing that came out of it, you did learn a
lot about yourself. What sort of things have you learnt
about yourself over the past three or four years?
KT: Um, well that's a very "up front" question there,
Roger! And I suppose, I don't think I would have said
after the last album "this is just an album". That's a
very important thing for me to have learnt: I am very
obsessive about my work. I spend most of my time
working, and I think this is something that I've really
looked at in the last few years: there's a lot more to
life than just working and just making an album. It is
just an album, it's just a part of my life. It's not my
Life. And I think it was, you know... making albums was
my life and it doesn't feel like that is any more. And
that's tremendous, the sense of freedom that that gives
me. It's so good and I think it's really healthy and
much better for me, to try and put these things into
perspective, you know.
RS: Right. Let us conclude with _Deeper_Understanding_
here... just fill me in on that one.
KT: This is about people... well, about the modern
situation, where more and more people are having less
contact with human beings. We spend all day with
machines; all night with machines. You know, all day,
you're on the phone, all night you're watching telly.
Press a button, this happens. You can get your shopping
from the Ceefax! It's like this long chain of machines
that actually stop you going out into the world. It's
like more and more humans are becoming isolated and
contained in their homes. And this is the idea of
someone who spends all their time with their computer
and, like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive amount
of time with their computer. People really build up
heavy relationships with their computers! And this
person sees an ad in a magazine for a new program: a
special program that's for lonely people, lost people.
So this buff sends off for it, gets it, puts it in their
computer and then like <pyoong!>, it turns into this big
voice that's saying to them, "Look, I know that you're
not very happy, and I can offer you love: I'm her to love
you. I love you!" And it's the idea of a divine energy
coming through the least expected thing. For me, when I
think of computers, it's such a cold contact and yet, at
the same time, I really believe that computers could be a
tremendous way for us to look at ourselves in a very
spiritual way because I think computers could teach us
more about ourselves than we've been able to look at, so
far. I think there's a large part of us that is like a
computer. I think in some ways, there's a lot of natural
processes that are like programs... do you know what I
mean? And I think that, more and more, the more we get
into computers and science like that, the more we're
going to open up our spirituality. And it was the idea
of this that this... the last place you would expect to
find love, you know, real love, is from a computer and,
you know, this is almost like the voice of angels
speaking to this person, saying they've come to save
them: "Look, we're here, we love you, we're here to love
you!" And it's just too much, really, because this is
just a mere human being and they're being sucked into the
machine and they have to be rescued from it. And all
they want is that, because this is 'real' contact.
RS: Let's hear the song: _Deeper_Understanding_, Kate
Bush, from her _Sensual_World_ album. Kate, thank you
very much.
KT: Thank you.
<_Deeper_Understanding_ is played>
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