Through a Glass Darkly... Mirrors “can reflect directly, reflect with additions or deletions, or serve as a doorway into another reality. The mirror is troubling because it reveals plainly what is before us, forcing us to interpret and evaluate whether or not we like what we see.”
IMHO... The power of this song is ‘reflected’ in the words... The song is ‘a mirror’ on her grief through which we look… eg:
‘I remember…’ = I can’t forget…
‘They traipsed etc…’ = My expanding grief now that you’re gone…
'And I clean and I clean...' = This is sung in the present tense; Mrs B is mentally returning to, reliving the past.
‘And everything I could fit in it…’ = an emotional image of what she will have to work through later.
‘all our… all your…’ = The first mention of him… sung to him… they are still their dirty clothes… like he is so alive…
‘sparkled’, ‘new’ , ‘washing machine’ are sung like lifebuoys in Mrs. Bartolozzi’s sea of grief.
Mrs. Bartolozzi stares at the clothes going round and round… Her mind wanders off reflectively through the mirror window of the washing machine… Through her words, we see/feel the love between the two of them… and consequently the mirrored lost world…
‘standing right behind me…’ = supporting me / part of me…
‘I think I see you standing outside…’ = I need your support…
(outside=other=separation=beyond=death, etc.)
She is startled by a freshly laundered shirt blowing outside/through the window… She has lost her support…
‘Oh and the waves are going out/Oh and the waves are coming in…’ gives a sense of drowning reminiscent of THE NINTH WAVE… And grief is the Ninth Wave bearing down…
Washing is traditionally women's work. Mrs B.'s washing machine represents the continuation of the maternal line. A link with her mother and her grandmother. In the midst of absence, the washing machine really does stand for comfort...
Sociologically, the washing machine marked a new phase of freedom in women’s work and lives. It also made them more domestically isolated. Gone were the washing songs and the institution of collective sharing surrounding them. So the washing song at the end of Mrs. Bartolozzi heightens our sense of her isolation and aloneness in grief. Instead of sharing as her grandmother might have done, Mrs Bartolozzi is singing her grief alone...
But the vocals are somewhat strained and affected:
And it looks so alive
Nice and white
Just like its climbed right out
of my...
...and then the emotion cuts for the purpose of the washing machine refrain.
EDIT:Kate Bush: "Some of my friends loved it, others thought it was a funny interlude, and others didn’t feel comfortable either they thought it was about the disguise of a crime or it was too personal. But it’s not me in particular."
Philippe Badhorn: "Don’t you want ‘everything clean and shiny’?"
Kate Bush: "I do a lot of housework, I especially like the laundry. There’s a link between the washing, the clothes and the person wearing them, the water in the washing machine and the sea. I do a lot of laundry especially since I have a child. I think it’s a way of being close to my roots and to life. As a child I saw my mother wash and be the main character at home (daddy was a doctor). It’s incredibly important for me. I like to have a connection with this work. Holding a house isn’t that slavery to me."
Rolling Stone (France)
Interview by Philippe Badhorn
February 2006
gaffa.org/reaching/iv06_rollingstone_france.htmlMRS B REVISISTED:Mrs B's 'partner' is missing/dead/murdered. One rainy Wednesday, the police/psychiatrist arrest/section Mrs B. They take her away... Some time later, Mrs B returns to the house... The mud from that rainy Wednesday has still to be cleaned... Mrs B can't stand a dirty place, it plays havoc with her mind... First and foremost, Mrs B needs her home to sparkle...
Maybe the husband betrayed her. Maybe she killed him à la
Dancing in the Dark by Joan Barfoot -
Edna Cormick, forty-three, is incarcerated in a mental hospital for murdering her husband. For twenty years, Edna escaped the world by dedicating herself entirely to husband and home. Most people clean in circles; Edna cleaned in squares. So when she learns he’s been having an affair, her sense of betrayal is devastating and literally maddening. And so she sits, silently filling notebooks, trying to find where and how her life went wrong. 'Dancing in the Dark' is a tightly woven psychological novel, which explores the idea that madness is not necessarily self-destructive, and may lead to a kind of wisdom...www.bookclubs.ca/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780676978353As the last of the dirty washing turns in her happy new washing machine, Mrs B finds the mental space to permit happy honeymoon memories (or nightmares?) ... Her ambivalent mind travels back and forth... Grief, regret, longing and fear -
at that ghostly apparition outside - then relief! ... The 'washing song' suggests regression, isolation, despair, madness... But at least the washing is clean, gleaming, and reassuringly white...