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Post by Lori on Jul 11, 2003 22:19:20 GMT
I spent a lot of my time looking at blue
The colour of my room and my mood
Blue on the walls, blue out of my mouth
The sort of blue between clouds
When the sun comes out
The sort of blue in those eyes
You get hung up about
When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in
Go blowing my mind on God
The light in the dark, with the neon arms
The meek He seeks, the beast He calms
The head of the good soul department
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
I associate love with red
The colour of my heart when she's dead
Red in my mind when the jealousy flies
Red in my eyes from emotional ties
Manipulation, the danger signs
The more I think about sex, the better it gets
Here we have a purpose in life
Good for the blood circulation
Good for releasing the tension
The root of our reincarnations
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
I spent a lot of my time looking at blue
No wonder that I blew it!
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Post by strabley on Aug 6, 2003 6:04:13 GMT
I just wanna say--that despite my voting it off I do love this song. But much of Lionheart had a big theatrical and immediate feel to it that didn't seem to benefit Symphony In Blue. (the ooompa loompa feel I mentioned in the rate Kate thread)
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Post by Neo Stella on Aug 6, 2003 13:27:29 GMT
This is my favourite track on the album! Ooompa Loompa indeed! This is Kate at her best. I just love the line, "Now I know that I'm needed for the symphony" Despite that feeling of meaninglessness, there is an inner knowledge that not only is there a purpose, but she has a major part in this beautiful "One Song" this "Uni" "Verse" I appreciate your view Sheila, I just don't agree with it! That is the beauty of being human, a kaliedescope of views that make for an interesting collage, that is art.  |
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Post by strabley on Aug 7, 2003 7:11:46 GMT
Wait, you're talking about the lyrics. I always loved the lyrics--I just think the song would have been a lot better if it was on, say The Red Shoes or Hounds Of Love---it got rushed on Lionheart, that's why it is one of the songs I wish she would redo now. I do love the song, don't get me wrong...It was like the song was too mature for her situation. (ie--RUSH AND MAKE ANOTHER HIT ALBUM! QUICK! QUICK!) And I voted it off cuz of the version of it, not the content or offense to the actual song.
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Post by passingthroughair on Nov 18, 2003 4:45:56 GMT
I love the lyrics and the song is very catchy, but I think Kate should re-record it some day. Her voice is lower now, which I think would more suit this song, and a new arrangement could made that doesn't sound so 70's.
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Post by moominreggie on Jun 20, 2005 17:49:54 GMT
its one of my favorite songs.
The more I think about sex, the better it gets
Here we have a purpose in life
Good for the blood circulation
Good for releasing the tension
The root of our reincarnations
come on boys and girls this is what music is about
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Post by tannis on Dec 6, 2007 13:13:54 GMT
"Life is a lot of grey and a little bit of blue..." A song about 'Love and Death' (1975) ... Introspection and wonder ... Virginal teenage blues, the Juliet crush, the determined optimism... The intense, vibrant excitement of the Life Force! ... Love is red, passionate, too hot, too emotional... It has the danger to kill the heart and warp the intellect! ... Eros Vs Thanatos! ... There's a lot of playful humour in this song... How intellectual pursuit can lead to sex in the city (or library!) and excessive pot-smoking! ... ('God's drug' is street slang for morphine; 'The beast' = heroin; 'blow blue' = to inhale cocaine.) ... The chorus finds an expanded sense to it all... Reason conquers fears, belonging defeats nightmares... the Great tapestry of the universe... "...I spent a lot of my time looking at blue No wonder that I blew it!"  Betty Blue (37°2 le matin; 1986) or Bergman's Nordic Blues...----- Q: Did you use the first of Eric Satie's Trois Gymnopedies to lead into 'Symphony in Blue' in your concerts, and if so, why? KB: "It's really marvellous that people have recognised this, and it is so. At the time, some of us were really into the piece, and Paddy and the band were working on a version of it. We all really liked it, and as it seemed a good way of leading into the song, I decided to use it. I'm glad you liked it. Funnily enough, at the same time the band were working on it, several other versions were coming out, so it seems a lot of people were discovering him at the same time." gaffa.org/garden/kate2.html |
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Post by tannis on Jul 24, 2008 20:35:41 GMT
In 'Symphony In Blue' she confronts her hope with its opposite, her 'terrible fear of dying'... her answer to 'that feeling of meaninglessness' is fulfilling her role, her music, 'now I know that I'm needed/ For the symphony'. But that's just a nice, fragile joke. In her songs of imagination rather than experience death is a solid enemy, the dumb numb negative if sensuality is the sensational positive. It stretches her two ways still. KB: "There was something in the news about a guy they found on the Heath who went out in his car, soaked himself in petrol and set fire to himself. Normally that kind of suicide is for a martyrdom to a cause, but this man. . . why have such a painful death except to say to people how far he'd gone?" Combatting the despair she turns to the stories of people who have 'died' momentarily and recovered, among them her mother. KB: "When I was little my mother fainted for no apparent reason. My father was there and put her on the bed, but he couldn't feel any pulse so he started doing artificial respiration and so on to try to revive her. Meanwhile, according to my mum, she'd taken off like a balloon and hit the ceiling. She was looking down from there at my father pushing her body about and she was calling out 'leave me alone, I'm all right!' "Then I walked in asking 'where's my mum?' and when she saw me she dropped back down into her body, she says, and anyway she did come back to life. I know it could be some kind of defence hysteria, but so many people have had that sort of experience." Sounds, "Labushka" (1980)gaffa.org/reaching/i80_so.html |
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Post by tannis on Oct 12, 2009 12:27:18 GMT
Symphony in blue... and red...    James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in Blue and Pink, circa 1868 Vincent Van Gogh, Sunflowers, Painted August, 1888:
"symphony in blue and yellow" I am hard at it, painting with the enthusiasm of a Marsellais eating bouillabaisse, which won't surprise you when you know that what I'm at is in the painting of some great sunflowers... If I carry out this idea there will be a dozen panels. So the whole thing will be a symphony in blue and yellow. I am working at it every morning from sunrise, for the flowers fade so soon, and the think is to do the whole at a flash. (Letter 526)
~ Vincent Van Gogh, Alfred H. Barr, 1967, p.30. |
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Post by tannis on Nov 5, 2009 16:27:10 GMT
TRICK or TREAT The 'bondage' photo first appeared in Record Mirror in April 1978. According to Fred & Judy Vermorel's 'Kate Bush Biography: Princess Of Surburbia' publication, Kate's first manager Peter Lyster Todd tried to get the photo removed before publication, "offering £2000 to Record Mirror (declined) not to show a bondage-style picture a smart Dutch photographer had tricked her into posing for."
A caption, which accompanies the reproduced photo, reads: 'The 'bondage' picture which outraged Kate's family. Lyster Todd offered Record Mirror £2-3,000 not to print it. Unsuccessfully.'
A similar photo of Kate in the quilted dress was used as the front cover of 'Princess Of Suburbia'. Although no photographer is named, credit is given to London Features International Ltd.
Symphony in blue... and red...
The Symphony 'dolphin' sleeve is clearly from the same session as the 'bondage' photo. The 'dolphin' photo also turns up on page 26 of Paul Kerton's biography on Kate. Unfortunately, the photo credits do not refer to specific photos. However, the book credits do list the names of London Features photographers, one of whom may have been the smart Dutch photographer who "tricked" KaTe into posing for the 'bondage' photo... Govert de Roos...
Keystone Press Agency
Syndication International
Rex Features - Richard Young
London Features - Jill Furmanovsky, Paul Conty, Frank Griffin, Paul Cox, Govert de Roos, Clouds Studio.
EMI Records
It seems unlikely, therefore, that the 'dolphin' photograph is by Mankowitz. Govert de Roos is Dutch and was one of the photographers who contributed to the weekly pop magazine Hitkrant (comparable to 'Smash Hits' UK) back then.
Despite the 'bondage' photo causing so much consternation in Kate's camp, another of his photographs ended up gracing the "Symphony In Blue" sleeve in Japan... 
Can anyone identify the photographer?thehomegroundandkatebushnewsandinfoforum.yuku.com/topic/17433/t/Can-anyone-identify-the-photographer.html |
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Post by Barry SR Gowing on Nov 6, 2009 12:23:17 GMT
Excellent work, Tannis! I see you've added in some extra photos to what was posted at the Homeground site, which I don't normally go to. So that's one of the "bondage pics"?  I don't know why the Bush family got so upset, it's a fairly innocuous photo (even by the standards of the era) and hardly anything to get one's knickers in a twist over, as it were. She's wearing the same outfit as seen in other approved photos, she's not posing lasciviously, there's no leather garbed man carrying a whip. What exactly IS it that is supposed to suggest bondage in the photo? The fact that she is slightly entwined in some kind of black plastic? I mean really... Come on! I don't mean to shock you all but I've been around the block a few times and I've seen some real bondage photos. It wouldn't have occured to me in a million years to have associated this photo with bondage. Is there a more outrageous "bondage pic" than the one that has been posted? In my opinion the attempt to block the photo was nothing more than a publicity stunt by Kate's agent. Still the photo does give new meaning to the lines: "I don't know why I'm crying Am I suspended in Gaffa?"  Interestingly, check the photo of Kate used on the cover of Record Mirror, 24 March 1979 (so about a year later):  That's a field of tulips that Kate is posing in front of. You know, the kind of flowers Holland is famous for! So - did Govert de Roos take this picture as well? Also, if the Bush family were outraged by the photo published in the same magazine just a year earlier, then I wonder why was she on the cover of the same magazine again on 8 July 1978 and 24 March 1979? --Paul-- |
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Post by tannis on Nov 6, 2009 19:27:43 GMT
Excellent work, Tannis! I see you've added in some extra photos to what was posted at the Homeground site, which I don't normally go to.   Michael Leigh’s The Velvet Underground. Originally published in 1967 as Bizarre Sex Underground, the pseudo exposé from which Lou Reed and co. drew the name.
And you're right to question why KaTe's family got so upset over that photo when they were happy to approve others from the same session and for the same publication (and the 'Symphony In Blue' sleeve). As you say, "if the Bush family were outraged by the photo published in the same magazine just a year earlier, then I wonder why was she on the cover of the same magazine again on 8 July 1978 and 24 March 1979?" 
I don't think there is a more outrageous 'bondage' picture of KaTe. Maybe Lyster Todd's offering Record Mirror £2-3,000 not to print it was a publicity stunt. Or maybe the Bushes followed Rod Stewart's concern over Britt Ekland in The Wicker Man: During the film's American release, its promoter Sterling Smith claimed publicly and loudly that Britt Ekland's then boyfriend, singer Rod Stewart, had offered them large amounts of money NOT to release the film. The above claim has been dismissed by everybody else involved, including Rod Stewart, as being nothing but myth making. [KaTe seems to have borrowed some of Ekland's erotic pounding for the 'December Will Be Magic' performance you posted earlier... ]
Still the photo does give new meaning to the lines: "I don't know why I'm crying Am I suspended in Gaffa?"
And...
Can't move my arms,
Can't move my legs.
Can't say no,
I can't say yes.
Can't help myself.
I need your help.
... ;D see more:
The Wicker Man 1973.Censored. Willow Howie in HDwww.youtube.com/watch?v=SCwHku2_WJ0 |
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Post by Barry SR Gowing on Nov 6, 2009 21:03:52 GMT
Excellent work, Tannis! I see you've added in some extra photos to what was posted at the Homeground site, which I don't normally go to. Thanks Tannis! I'm old enough to sort of remember the seventies and I know there were actresses who did the odd picture dressed in leather carrying a whip ... so it's not like these things were beyond the pale. In fact, the seventies were pretty racy even by current standards. Kate has certainly done a few things with erotic overtones over the years and there's nothing wrong with that. I quite understand that Kate never wanted to appear fully nude or do something that just appeared to be exploitative, or demeaning to women, but this "bondage" pic is so innocuous that I have to suspect an ulterior motive. It's not that I think that Kate's lyrical frankness means that she ever had to do revealing photographs, but honestly she is such an attractive woman that she could be covered from neck to knee and still exude sex. In fact, she is covered from neck to knee in "The Sensual World" video and manages to make Madonna look like a nun! --Paul-- |
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Post by tannis on Nov 16, 2009 0:27:36 GMT
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Post by tannis on Nov 16, 2009 12:27:11 GMT
Interestingly, check the photo of Kate used on the cover of Record Mirror, 24 March 1979 (so about a year later): That's a field of tulips that Kate is posing in front of. You know, the kind of flowers Holland is famous for! So - did Govert de Roos take this picture as well?   ~ Kate Bush, 1978, Old Chapel Studios, London
~ Kate Bush 'Lionheart', 1978, Gt. Windmill Street, London
~ Kate Bush 'Redhead', 1978, Gt. Windmill Street, London
Gered Mankowitz was born in London, England, on 3rd August 1946. The first of four sons of the late author, playwright and film writer Wolf Mankowitz and his wife, the Jungian psychotherapist Ann Mankowitz.
After an education of sorts at several London co-educational "progressive" schools, he left at 15, avoiding all exams and completed his education devoid of any formal qualifications. Having displayed a natural 'eye' for photography whilst on a school trip to Holland and having been inspired to take up photography by the actor Peter Sellers, his photographs were seen by the legendary photographer Tom Blau, who offered Gered an apprenticeship at his famous photo agency, Camera Press Ltd., in London. Over a period of several months Gered worked in all the various departments that made up Camera Press, finally moving to the studio and going on various assignments in and around London.www.mankowitz.com/ |
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