Blow Away (for Bill)

[rosabelbelieve]

barrysrgowing said:

The song itself ... Kate wonders what happens to your music when you die. The music in your head, in your heart, in your soul. Where does it go? Does it go with you, or does it blow away? Then she thinks of Bill, and others who have gone. They're doing a gig in the great beyond tonight, so their music did go with them. Fortunately they left behind some great music for us to enjoy.

--Paul--

This reminds me of some of what we were talking about in Universal Code- the vibrations of strings and their connection with consciousness, our own personal 'music' which we send unceasingly out into the great symphony of the universe... Such a sad and beautiful song. I like what Kate said about it-

"'Blow Away' is a comfort for the fear of dying, and for those of us who believe that music is perhaps an exception to the Never for Ever rule. "

I can certainly identify with art being a sort of defense against the general mortality of life, and something that can perhaps tap into a higher and more eternal source. I'd like to think that the spiritual essence of music or poetry or such things is an exception to the 'Never For Ever rule'.

[tannis]

HOUSE OF ROCK

On Blow Away:
It was based on an article she read in the Observer about people who had temporarily "died" through cardiac arrests. Apparently several members of the public interviewed about this experience reckoned they felt their spirits leave their bodies and go through a door, where they were re-acquainted with dead friends and relatives. When their hearts were resuscitated, it was almost with reluctance that they stepped back out of the room and returned to their bodies.
"So there's comfort for the guy in my band," Kate explains, "as when he dies, he'll go 'Hi, Jimi!' It's very tongue-in-cheek, but it's a great thought that if a musician dies, his soul will join all the other musicians' and a poet will join all the Dylan Thomases and all that."
"Among The Bushes"
gaffa.org/reaching/i80_rm.html

Yes, Paul, this song does have a happy sentiment. It's like a Socratic pop song on dope!, questioning art, identity, immortality, the afterlife, etc. - Rosa's "the vibrations of strings and their connection with consciousness, our own personal 'music' which we send unceasingly out into the great symphony of the universe..."

"Use of the dialogue as a literary device made it easy for Plato not only to present his own position (in the voice of Socrates) but also to consider (in the voices of other characters) significant objections that might be raised against it. This doesn't mean that philosophy is merely an idle game of argument and counter-argument, he pointed out, because it remains our goal to discover the one line of argument that leads to the truth. The philosopher cautiously investigates every possibility and examines every side of an issue, precisely because that increases the chances of arriving eventually at a correct account of reality..."
www.philosophypages.com/hy/2f.htm

Simmias presents his case that it may be such that the soul resembles the harmony of the lyre. It may be, then, that as the soul resembles the harmony in its being invisible and divine, and once the lyre has been destroyed, the harmony too vanishes, that once the body dies, the soul too vanishes. And, while the pieces of the broken lyre may be seen to continue to exist as one's mortal remains, as the harmony will have dissipated, we may infer that so too will the soul dissipate once the body has been broken, through death (Phaedo, 85e-86d).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedo

But where does the "music" go? ...

"One of the band told me last night/That music is all he's got in his life" (Blow Away from the new LP, Never For Ever).
Is that really you, using the third person as a slender disguise?
KB: "Yeah. Well done. It is..."
Record Mirror, "Among The Bushes" (1980)
gaffa.org/reaching/i80_rm.html

Please don't thump me
Don't bump me
Don't dump me back there
Please don't thump me
Don't bump me
I want to stay here...

IMHO, this kinda makes life seem harsh, brutal, ominous; and the 'I want to stay here' is sung to a place of sanctuary. It reminds me of KB's "Frightened Eyes":

They've all got frightened eyes,
Saying, "Leave me alone,
I'm perfectly safe here inside.
Please don't surprise me."

Bill Duffield was the lighting director for the Tour Of Life. He literally put out the lights. Bill is honoured in "Blow Away" and "Moments of Pleasure"...

Hey there Bill
Could you turn the lights up?

Put out the light, then, put out the light
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine...

ACT 5, SCENE 2: A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA in bed asleep; a light burning.
Enter OTHELLO:
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume...

This quote occurs just as Othello is preparing to murder his wife, Desdemona. First he will put out the candle, then he will put out the light of Desdemona's life. The candle's light can be restored once extinguished, but he contrasts this with Desdemona's "light" (life) which of course cannot be reillumined once quenched.

I have just finished reading Shakespeare's Othello. In the scene just before Othello kills Desdamona, he says, "Put out the light/Then put out the light." I was wondering if this means the same thing in Blow Away.
KB: "You're the first person in four years to pick up on this--so, thank you."
gaffa.org/garden/kate18.html

You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames
That old river poet that never, ever ends...

You wouldn't make a good Lady Macbeth?
KB: "Lady Macbeth? (Laughs) No. To tell you the truth, I'm not that intrigued by acting. If someone offered me something really interesting, especially someone I admired, I'd do it because I'd be crazy not to. But I'm no actress. I don't have the talent or the temperament."
"Booze, Fags, Blokes And Me" (1993)
gaffa.org/reaching/i93_q.html

Hello Minnie, Moony, Vicious, Vicious, Buddy Holly, Sandy Denny...
Minnie Riperton: d. July 12, 1979 (aged 31) cancer
Much of Bush's high-range vocalizing shows the direct influence of Riperton's style.
Sid "Vicious, Vicious" Vicious: d. 2 February 1979 (aged 21) heroin overdose
Buddy Holly: d. February 3, 1959 (aged 22) plane crash
Many of his songs feature a unique vocal "hiccup" technique, a glottal stop, to emphasize certain words in any given song.
Sandy Denny: d. 21 April 1978 (aged 31) following a head injury
Bill Duffield: d. 2 April 1979 (aged 21) following a head injury

Bolan and Moony are heading the show tonight...
Marc Bolan: d. 16 September 1977 (aged 29) car crash
Keith Moon: d. September 7, 1978 (aged 32) overdose

[rosabelbelieve]

Great connections, Tannis. I'm appreciating this song more and more after reading this- the ideas of immortality, art, spirituality and such, and the sadness of the situation from which it arose, are very moving and quite beautiful. And as an artist it makes a lot of sense to me... and I'm sure to most other people here as well, considering the very high level of creativity common in this place.

[tannis]

Thank you, Rosa...


"Fire in the Bush"

The conversation drifts into Fade Away [He means Blow Away], Kate's fantasy of all the dead musicians in heaven. But it's not just a jolly fairy story. The song tries to deflate the awe around dying and act as a comfort for those who don't fancy it to the point of hysteria. She mentions those people who you must've read about in the Sunday papers who have been clinically dead for a few minutes and report walking a corridor to paradise.

"None of those people are frightened by death anymore. It's almost something they're looking forward to. All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear. I like to think I'm coming to terms with it, and other people are too. The song was really written after someone very special died.

"Although the song had been formulating before and had to be written as a comfort to those people who are afraid of dying, there was also this idea of the music, energies in us that aren't physical: art, the love in people. It can't die, because where does it go? It seems really that music could carry on in radio form, radio waves... There are people who swear they can pick up symphonies from Chopin, Schubert. We're really transient, everything to do with us is transient, except for these non-physical things that we don't even control..."

gaffa.org/reaching/i80_zz.html

Who knows where the music goes?

[rosabelbelieve]

^ Nice quotes.

[tannis]

SHREWD KATE ...

PETRUCHIO:
You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.
~ The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Scene 1

Apr 13, 2008 0:09:01 GMT tannis said:

Bill Duffield was the lighting director for the Tour Of Life. He literally put out the lights. Bill is honoured in "Blow Away" and "Moments of Pleasure"...

Hey there Bill
Could you turn the lights up?

Put out the light, then, put out the light
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine...

ACT 5, SCENE 2: A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA in bed asleep; a light burning.
Enter OTHELLO

Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume...

This quote occurs just as Othello is preparing to murder his wife, Desdemona. First he will put out the candle, then he will put out the light of Desdemona's life. The candle's light can be restored once extinguished, but he contrasts this with Desdemona's "light" (life) which of course cannot be reillumined once quenched.

I have just finished reading Shakespeare's Othello. In the scene just before Othello kills Desdamona, he says, "Put out the light/Then put out the light." I was wondering if this means the same thing in Blow Away.
KB: "You're the first person in four years to pick up on this--so, thank you."
gaffa.org/garden/kate18.html

You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames
That old river poet that never, ever ends...

You wouldn't make a good Lady Macbeth?
KB: "Lady Macbeth? (Laughs) No. To tell you the truth, I'm not that intrigued by acting. If someone offered me something really interesting, especially someone I admired, I'd do it because I'd be crazy not to. But I'm no actress. I don't have the talent or the temperament."
"Booze, Fags, Blokes And Me" (1993)
gaffa.org/reaching/i93_q.html

Blow Away: A song on the album Never For Ever. Bearing the dedication "For Bill" this song is a tribute to Bill Duffield, a lighting technician who died after the first concert date of the Tour Of Life. The song envisions an afterlife for musicians, who are greeted on arrival by the likes of Minnie Ripperton, Keith Moon, Sid Vicious, Buddy Holly, Sandy Denny, and Marc Bolan.
THE GAFFAWEB DICTIONARY
gaffa.org/diction/index.html

The conversation drifts into Fade Away [He means Blow Away], Kate's fantasy of all the dead musicians in heaven. But it's not just a jolly fairy story. The song tries to deflate the awe around dying and act as a comfort for those who don't fancy it to the point of hysteria. She mentions those people who you must've read about in the Sunday papers who have been clinically dead for a few minutes and report walking a corridor to paradise.
KB: "None of those people are frightened by death anymore. It's almost something they're looking forward to. All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear. I like to think I'm coming to terms with it, and other people are too. The song was really written after someone very special died.
"Although the song had been formulating before and had to be written as a comfort to those people who are afraid of dying, there was also this idea of the music, energies in us that aren't physical: art, the love in people. It can't die, because where does it go? It seems really that music could carry on in radio form, radio waves... There are people who swear they can pick up symphonies from Chopin, Schubert. We're really transient, everything to do with us is transient, except for these non-physical things that we don't even control..."
ZigZag, "Fire in the Bush", 1980(?)
gaffa.org/reaching/i80_zz.html

You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames
That old river poet that never, ever ends...

KaTe says that 'Blow Away' "was really written after someone very special died..." Bill Duffield? or William Shakespeare?

Bill Duffield gets no personal mention or dedication on the NFE cover; and KaTe does not say that the song was written for Duffield or even dedicated to him. So how do we know that Blow Away (for Bill) was written for Duffield or dedicated to Duffield?

In "Blow Away (for Bill)" KaTe quotes from Shakespeare's 'Othello'. Indeed, the title, Blow Away, could also come from Shakespeare.
So, is "Blow Away (for Bill)" really dedicated: Blow Away (for William 'Bill' Shakespeare)?

IMHO, Blow Away, a song on the album Never For Ever, and bearing the dedication "For Bill", is a tribute to William 'Bill' Shakespeare (1564–1616), English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language! ...

Blow Away (for Bill)

One of the band told me last night...

St Crispin's Day Speech. Preparing for battle and battlefield slaughter.

KING HENRY V:
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember'd;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.
~ The Life of King Henry the Fifth, Act 4, Scene 3

Blow away?
Blow away
Blow away...

Northumberland learns that his brother and son have been killed in battle.

NORTHUMBERLAND:
How doth my son and brother?
Thou tremblest; and the whiteness in thy cheek
Is apter than thy tongue to tell thy errand.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt;
But Priam found the fire ere he his tongue,
And I my Percy's death ere thou report'st it.
This thou wouldst say, 'Your son did thus and thus;
Your brother thus: so fought the noble Douglas:'
Stopping my greedy ear with their bold deeds:
But in the end, to stop my ear indeed,
Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,
Ending with 'Brother, son, and all are dead.'
~ The Second part of King Henry the Fourth, Act 1, Scene 1

Please don't thump me...

It is the day for the combat of Peter and Horner. [The two men fight, and Peter beats Horner, killing him.]

PETER:
I thank you all: drink, and pray for me, I pray
you; for I think I have taken my last draught in
this world. Here, Robin, an if I die, I give thee
my apron: and, Will, thou shalt have my hammer:
and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O
Lord bless me! I pray God! for I am never able to
deal with my master, he hath learnt me so much fence already.
SALISBURY:
Come, leave your drinking, and fall to blows.
Sirrah, what's thy name?
PETER:
Peter, forsooth.
SALISBURY:
Peter! what more?
PETER:
Thump.
SALISBURY:
Thump! then see thou thump thy master well.
~ The Second part of King Henry the Sixth, Act 2, Scene 3

Don't bump me...

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Shakespeare is the first authority to use the word bump (as a noun). So KaTe's use of "bump" could be another nod to Shakespeare.

Nurse launches into a long story about how, as a child, an uncomprehending Juliet became an innocent accomplice to a sexual joke. The Nurse’s husband’s comment about Juliet falling on her back when she comes of age is a reference to Juliet one day engaging in the act of sex. Lady Capulet tries unsuccessfully to stop the wildly amused Nurse. An embarrassed Juliet forcefully commands that the Nurse stop.

NURSE:
I remember because she had cut her forehead just the day before. My husband—God rest his soul, he was a happy man—picked up the child. “Oh,” he said, “Did you fall on your face? You'll fall backward when you grow smarter. Won't you, Jule.” And I swear, the poor pretty thing stopped crying and said, “Yes.” Oh, to watch a joke come true! I bet if I live a thousand years, I'll never forget it. “Won't you, Jule,” he said. And the pretty fool stopped crying and said, “Yes.”
LADY CAPULET:
Enough of this. Please be quiet.
NURSE:
Yes ,madam. But I can't help laughing to think that the baby stopped crying and said, “Yes.” I swear, she had a bump on her forehead as big as a rooster's testicle. It was a painful bruise, and she was crying bitterly. “Yes,” said my husband, “Did you fall on your face? You'll fall backward when you grow up, won't you, Jule?” And she stopped crying and said, “Yes.”
JULIET:
Now you stop too, Nurse, please.
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3

Don't dump me back there...

Capulet sends the Nurse to go wake Juliet. She finds Juliet dead and begins to wail, soon joined by both Lady Capulet and Capulet. Paris arrives with Friar Lawrence and a group of musicians for the wedding. When he learns what has happened, Paris joins in the lamentations. The Friar reminds them all that Juliet has gone to a better place, and urges them to make ready for her funeral. Sorrowfully, they comply, and exit.
Left behind, the musicians begin to pack up, their task cut short. Peter, the Capulet servant, enters and asks the musicians to play a happy tune to ease his sorrowful heart. The musicians refuse, arguing that to play such music would be inappropriate. Angered, Peter insults the musicians, who respond in kind. After singing a final insult at the musicians, Peter leaves. The musicians decide to wait for the mourners to return so that they might get to eat the lunch that will be served.

PETER:
Musicians, O, musicians, 'Heart's ease, Heart's
ease:' O, an you will have me live, play 'Heart's ease.'
First Musician:
Why 'Heart's ease?'
PETER:
O, musicians, because my heart itself plays 'My
heart is full of woe:' O, play me some merry dump,
to comfort me.
First Musician:
Not a dump we; 'tis no time to play now...
PETER:
'When griping grief the heart doth wound,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then music with her silver sound'--
~ Romeo and Juliet, Act 4, Scene 5

Put out the light, then, put out the light...

As Othello prepares to kill Desdemona at the beginning of the final scene, the idea of killing her becomes curiously intertwined, in his mind, with the idea of taking her virginity. In Act V, scene ii, he expresses his sorrow that he has to kill her in terms that suggest his reluctance to take her virginity: “When I have plucked thy rose / I cannot give it vital growth again. / It must needs wither” (V.ii.13–15). He steels himself to kill her, but he refuses to “shed her blood” or scar her white skin, which is as “smooth as monumental alabaster.” His words imply that the real tragedy is the loss of her virginity, which would leave her irretrievably spoiled. Ironically, despite being convinced of her corruption, part of him seems to view her as still intact, like an alabaster statue or an unplucked rose. Furthermore, the reader may recall that the all-important handkerchief is dyed with the blood of dead virgins. The handkerchief’s importance to Othello may suggest that he thinks it is better for a woman to die as a virgin than live as a wife.
Although it seems ludicrous to suggest that Othello has not yet taken Desdemona’s virginity, the play includes two scenes during which their marriage is supposed to be sexually consummated, and in both the couple is interrupted as Othello is called on to resolve a crisis. This is only, it seems, the couple’s third night together, and Desdemona has asked that her wedding sheets be put on the bed. The wedding sheets would prove one way or another whether the marriage was consummated, depending on whether they were stained with blood. Desdemona’s choice of the sheets for a shroud may suggest that they are unstained. If they have consummated their marriage, Othello’s words may suggest his unwillingness to accept the fact that he has already taken Desdemona’s virginity, and his jealous fantasies about Desdemona’s supposed debauchery may stem from his fear of her newly awakened sexuality, and from his own feeling of responsibility for having awakened it.

OTHELLO:
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.
(Kissing her)
Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
~ Othello, the Moore of Venice, Act 5, Scene 2

Vibes in the sky invite you to dine...

Play-within-a-play. Pyramus (played by Bottom) commits suicide. Thisbe does likewise when she finds her Pyramus dead. [The story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which comes from an ancient Babylonian legend often reworked in European mythology, would have been familiar to educated members of Shakespeare’s audiences. The story likely influenced Romeo and Juliet, although Shakespeare also pulled elements from other versions of the Romeo and Juliet tale. In both stories, two young lovers from feuding families communicate under cover of darkness; both male lovers erroneously think their beloveds dead and commit suicide, and both females do likewise when they find their lovers dead.]

Pyramus:
O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?
Since lion vile hath here deflower'd my dear:
Which is--no, no--which was the fairest dame
That lived, that loved, that liked, that look'd
with cheer.
Come, tears, confound;
Out, sword, and wound
The pap of Pyramus;
Ay, that left pap,
Where heart doth hop:
(Stabs himself)
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight:
(Exit Moonshine)
Now die, die, die, die, die.
(Dies)
~ A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5, Scene 1

Vibes in the sky invite you to dine...

HOLOFERNES:
I do dine to-day at the father's of a certain pupil
of mine; where, if, before repast, it shall please
you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my
privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid
child or pupil, undertake your ben venuto; where I
will prove those verses to be very unlearned,
neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention: I
beseech your society.
SIR NATHANIEL:
And thank you too; for society, saith the text, is
the happiness of life.
HOLOFERNES:
And, certes, the text most infallibly concludes it.
To DULL
Sir, I do invite you too; you shall not
say me nay: pauca verba. Away! the gentles are at
their game, and we will to our recreation.
~ Love's Labour's Lost, Act 4, Scene 2

Dust to dust...

Comedy and Tragedy. In the churchyard, two gravediggers shovel out a grave for Ophelia. Hamlet picks up a skull, and the gravedigger tells him that the skull belonged to Yorick, King Hamlet’s jester. Hamlet tells Horatio that as a child he knew Yorick and is appalled at the sight of the skull. He realizes forcefully that all men will eventually become dust, even great men like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Hamlet imagines that Julius Caesar has disintegrated and is now part of the dust used to patch up a wall.

HAMLET:
No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with
modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as
thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,
Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of
earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he
was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:
O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!
~ The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act 5, Scene 1

Blow to blow...

Lord Amiens, a faithful lord who accompanies Duke Senior into exile in the Forest of Ardenne, is rather jolly and loves to sing.

AMIENS:
Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember'd not.
Heigh-ho! sing, & c.
As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

Who knows where the music goes?

TALK TO ME
by Joni Mitchell, 1976

You could talk like a fool I'd listen
You could talk like a sage
Anyway the best of my mind
All goes down on the strings and the page
That mind picks up all these pictures
It still gets my feet up to dance
Even though it's covered with keyloids
From the "slings and arrows of outrageous romance"
I stole that from Willy the Shake
You know - "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"
Romeo Romeo talk to me...

(Stereo) Joni Mitchell Jaco Pastorius - Talk To Me (Audio)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5mVXKiYlmc

Writing Blow Away (for Bill), Kate Bush "stole" a lot from Billy the Shake! ... And isn't it ironic (don't you think) that Viva City have blown fans away with their audacious debut single, KATE BUSH... (also for Bill!) ...

see more:
Kate Bush by Viva City
katebush.proboards6.com/index.cgi?board=news&action=display&thread=2487&page=1

[rosabelbelieve]

Thank you for all the Shakespearian connections. I enjoyed reading the lines from the plays. And although I do think of this song as a tribute to Bill Duffield, I think in a larger sense it's simply about art and immortality. And it would make a lot of sense to refer to Shakespeare in that context.

[tannis]

Thank you, Rosa...

KB: THE ULTIMATE UNKNOWN...

Of the nine references to Shakespeare, seven face deathwards. Death, the death-fear; homicide, suicide, genocide; grief, ghosts, gremlins - So many of KaTe's songs seem to reflect a thanatological passion...

Blow Away (For Bill); Symphony in Blue; The Ninth Wave; Watching You Without Me; King of the Mountain; Moments Of Pleasure; The Fog; Deeper Understanding; All the Love; Running Up That Hill; The Kick Inside; The Wedding List; Mother Stands For Comfort; Mrs. Bartolozzi; Breathing; Experiment IV; Heads We're Dancing; Oh England, My Lionheart; Pull Out the Pin; Army Dreamers; James and the Cold Gun; Joanni; Houdini; Wuthering Heights; Coffee Homeground; Hammer Horror... Eat The Music; Hounds of Love...

KB: "All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear..."

...AN INCOMPLETE PARANOID NIHILIST?

Incomplete nihilism faces the terror of a world in which God has died, and it sees this death as emptying the world of meaning. According to Nietzche, the Christian-moral interpretation of the world supplied humanity with a sense of purpose and meaning, but when the falsehood of this interpretation is revealed, then humanity loses all faith and meaning and hope of finding any meaning and purpose for life. Because Western society invested so much into this interpretation, the rebound from Christianity is great, causing the incomplete nihilist to move from complete faith to total despair: "the untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon which a tremendous amount of energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicions that all interpretations of the world are false." Because Western culture has projected all truth and meaning onto an other world, upon God's transcendent realm, the loss of belief in this God means the loss of all truth for this culture. But if this terrified, anguished response to nihilism is the first and necessary reaction to the murder of the Christian god, it is nevertheless an inadequate and incomplete response, according to Nietzche. The response of the perfect nihilist, the free spirit, is in many ways the opposite of the fearful response of the incomplete nihilist: "Indeed, we philosophers and "free spirits" feel, when we hear the news that "the old god is dead," as if a new dawn had shone on us; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, premonitions, expectation." Completed nihilism also faces the death of God and the loss of a transcendental signified as a foundation for meaning and truth; however, in contrast to incomplete nihilism, completed nihilism, rather than lamenting this loss, instead celebrates the freedom which results from this loss...
Anti-paranoia is the belief possessed by the nihilist, the belief that there is no purpose, no meaning to our lives that we don't create, that we are the product of chance rather than the creation of a divine will. But few have the courage of the overman to face this completed nihilism. They therefore accept paranoia, a simulacra of religious faith. Like the religious believer, the paranoid believes that there is "another mode of meaning behind the obvious." But rather than believing in a divine providence, the paranoid believes he or she is a victim of a malicious plot.
from "Is the Postmodern Post-Secular?", Ingraffia; cited in Postmodern Philosophy and Christian Thought (Westphal, 2000)

OTTO RANK: The "fear of life" is the fear of separation, loneliness, and alienation; the "fear of death" is the fear of getting lost in the whole, stagnating, being no-one. The death-fear prevents closeness; it’s the terror of being swallowed up, of losing one’s sense of self in a too entangled, too smothering or, even, too intimate bond.

Personality Theories
webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/perscontents.html

Kate Bush - The Fog
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N2OZK1ufXM

[rosabelbelieve]

Jul 24, 2008 20:22:47 GMT tannis said:

Thank you, Rosa...

KB: THE ULTIMATE UNKNOWN...

Of the nine references to Shakespeare, seven face deathwards. Death, the death-fear; homicide, suicide, genocide; grief, ghosts, gremlins - So many of KaTe's songs seem to reflect a thanatological passion...

Blow Away (For Bill); Symphony in Blue; The Ninth Wave; Watching You Without Me; King of the Mountain; Moments Of Pleasure; The Fog; Deeper Understanding; All the Love; Running Up That Hill; The Kick Inside; The Wedding List; Mother Stands For Comfort; Mrs. Bartolozzi; Breathing; Experiment IV; Heads We're Dancing; Oh England, My Lionheart; Pull Out the Pin; Army Dreamers; James and the Cold Gun; Joanni; Houdini; Wuthering Heights; Coffee Homeground; Hammer Horror...

KB: "All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear..."

They do, don't they? And thank you for the quite comprehensive list. But there is also always such a strong pull towards life that makes them truly profound, I think.

[tannis]

Jul 25, 2008 1:50:24 GMT rosabelbelieve said:

Jul 24, 2008 20:22:47 GMT tannis said:

Thank you, Rosa...

KB: THE ULTIMATE UNKNOWN...

Of the nine references to Shakespeare, seven face deathwards. Death, the death-fear; homicide, suicide, genocide; grief, ghosts, gremlins - So many of KaTe's songs seem to reflect a thanatological passion...

Blow Away (For Bill); Symphony in Blue; The Ninth Wave; Watching You Without Me; King of the Mountain; Moments Of Pleasure; The Fog; Deeper Understanding; All the Love; Running Up That Hill; The Kick Inside; The Wedding List; Mother Stands For Comfort; Mrs. Bartolozzi; Breathing; Experiment IV; Heads We're Dancing; Oh England, My Lionheart; Pull Out the Pin; Army Dreamers; James and the Cold Gun; Joanni; Houdini; Wuthering Heights; Coffee Homeground; Hammer Horror...

KB: "All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear..."

They do, don't they? And thank you for the quite comprehensive list. But there is also always such a strong pull towards life that makes them truly profound, I think.

Yes, there's enough there for three albums... ;D And I agree, there is in all of them a strong and passionate pull towards life - the push and the pull of it all - that makes KaTe's work truly profound...

[tannis]

KATUS BUSHIUS & MARCUS ANTONIUS: "Lend me your ears..."

KATE BUSH
Dear Friends,
Lend me your ears
I hope you have a fun-time [?] day
Thanks for all your continued support and response [?] to my music -
It really means a lot to me
With love,
Kate
~ Kate Bush Convention Brochure, London, 17th November 1990

ANTONY
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
~ William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2

MARK ANTONY'S SPEECH
uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7X9C55TkUP8&feature=related
Marlon Brando ... Mark Antony ... (Julius Caesar, 1953)

Antony ascends to the pulpit while the plebeians discuss what they have heard. They now believe that Caesar was a tyrant and that Brutus did right to kill him. But they wait to hear Antony. He asks the audience to listen, for he has come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. He insists that as they all loved Caesar once, they should mourn for him now. Antony pauses to weep.

Act III, scene ii evidences the power of rhetoric and oratory: first Brutus speaks and then Antony, each with the aim of persuading the crowd to his side. We observe each speaker’s effect on the crowd and see the power that words can have—how they can stir emotion, alter opinion, and induce action. Antony’s speech is a rhetorical tour de force. He speaks in verse and repeats again and again that Brutus and the conspirators are honorable men; the phrase “Brutus says he was ambitious, / And Brutus is an honourable man” accrues new levels of sarcasm at each repetition (III.ii.83–84). Antony answers Brutus’s allegation that Caesar was “ambitious” by reminding the crowd of the wealth that Caesar brought to Rome, Caesar’s sympathy for the poor, and his refusal to take the throne when offered it—details seeming to disprove any charges of ambition. Pausing to weep openly before the plebeians, he makes them feel pity for him and for his case.

Antony’s refined oratorical skill enables him to manipulate the crowd into begging him to read Caesar’s will. By means of praeteritio, a rhetorical device implemented by a speaker to mention a certain thing while claiming not to mention it, Antony alerts the plebeians to the fact that Caesar cared greatly for them: “It is not meet [fitting] you know how Caesar loved you . . . ’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs” (III.ii.138–142). Under the pretense of sympathetically wanting to keep the plebeians from becoming outraged, Antony hints to them that they should become outraged. He thus gains their favor.
Further demonstrating his charisma, Antony descends from the pulpit—a more effective way of becoming one with the people than Brutus’s strategy of speaking in prose. In placing himself physically among the crowd, Antony joins the commoners without sacrificing his rhetorical influence over them. First he speaks of Caesar’s wounds and his horrible death; he shows the body, evoking fully the pity and anger of the crowd. He claims, with false modesty, that he is not a great orator, like Brutus, and that he doesn’t intend to incite revolt. Yet in this very sentence he effects the exact opposite of what his words say: he proves himself a deft orator indeed, and although he speaks against mutiny, he knows that at this point the mere mention of the word will spur action. Having prepared the kindling with his speech, Antony lights the fire of the people’s fury with his presentation of Caesar’s will. Caesar had intended to share his wealth with the people of Rome and had planned to surrender his parks for their benefit. Antony predicts and utilizes the people’s sense of injustice at being stripped of so generous a ruler. The people completely forget their former sympathy for Brutus and rise up against the conspirators, leaving Antony to marvel at the force of what he has done.

Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/juliuscaesar/section7.rhtml

Kate Bush at Le Palais, London, November 17, 1990
gaffa.org/dreaming/chat_90.html

[tannis]

KATE BUSH and DEFENSE HYSTERIA: A Freudian Slip...

I: The song after that, "Blow Away", is also about musicians, this in a different way - It's about a member of your band, perhaps fictitious, perhaps real life, who wonders where the music goes when he goes. Is there such a person who mentioned that thought to you.
K: No, there isn't such a person who actually said it, but I'm sure I know so many people that think that. I myself do feel that sometimes and it just seemed for someone in my band fictionally to open up to me, made it a much more vulnerable statement. It was really brought on by something - I think it was The Observer. They did an article on all these people who when they'd had cardiac arrests had left their bodies and travelled down a corridor into a room at the end. In the room were all their dead friends that they'd known very well and they were really happy and delighted. Then they'd tell the person that they had to leave and they'd go down the corridor and drop back into their body. So many people have experienced this that there does seem to be some line in it, maybe. It's some kind of defense hysteria, I don't know, but they felt no fear and in fact they really enjoyed it. Most of them have no fear of dying at all. And I thought that a nice idea, what a comfort it was for musicians that worry about their music; (knowing) that they're going to go up into that room and in there there's going to be Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Minnie Ripperton, all of them just having a great big jam in the sky, and all the musicians will join in with it.
Kate Bush Interview EMI (London) 1980
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/im80_nf2.html

Dissociation
- Involuntary splitting of mental function from rest of the personality & allowing the forbidden impulses to express out without having any sense of responsibility for actions
Eg. Near Death Experience
Clinical Illustration : Fugue, Amnesia, Mulitiple Personality, Possesion Syndrome, Somnabulism, Dissociative Disorder.

Conversion
- Repressed forbidden urge is simultaneously kept out of awareness & also expressed in disguised or symbolic form of Somatic Disturbance (Mostly sensory & Motor)
E.g. During Catastrophic stress
it always implies a psychopathology
Clinical Illustration : Hysteria (Conversion Disorder)
www.rxpgonline.com/article1568.html

Responding to a question on "Blow Away", KaTe mentions near death experiences (dissociation) alongside "defense hysteria" (conversion). "Defense hysteria" is a concept developed by Freud in his studies on psychical trauma and their defense mechanisms. Now, why would KaTe drop a reference to Freud's defense hysteria? Could KaTe's personal interest in a philosophy of life extend to psychoanalysis and trauma studies?

FREUD and TRAUMA

When Sigmund Freud visited Charcot at the end of 1885, he adopted many of the ideas then current in the Salpetriere, which he expressed and acknowledged in his early papers on hysteria. In much that he wrote between 1892 and 1896, Freud followed the notion that the "subconscious" contains affectively charged events encoded in an altered state of consciousness. In "On the Psychical Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena: A Lecture" (Freud, 1893/1962), he wrote on the nature of hysterical attacks: "We must point out that we consider it essential for the explanation of hysterical phenomena to assume the presence of a dissociation - a splitting of the content of consciousness... the regular and essential content of a (recurrent) hysterical attack is the recurrence of a psychical state which the patient has experienced earlier" (p.30). When Breuer and Freud expanded this work in "Studies on Hysteria," they acknowledged their debt to Janet and stated that "hysterics suffer mainly from reminiscences... the traumatic experience is constantly forcing itself upon the patient and this is proof of the strength of that experience: the patient is, as one might say, fixated on his trauma" (Breuer & Freud, 1893-1895/1955). Citing Janet, Breuer and Freud thought that something becomes traumatic because it is dissociated and remains outside conscious awareness. They called this state "hypnoid hysteria." As late as 1896, Freud proposed in "Heredity and the Aetiology of Neuroses" (Freud, 1896a/1962) that "a precocious experience of sexual relations... resulting from sexual abuse committed by another person... is the specific cause of hysteria... not merely (as Charcot has claimed), an agent provocateur" (p.152).
In "The Aetiology of Hysteria," Freud (1896b/1962) began to develop the concept of "defense hysteria," in which he for the first time abandoned dissociation as the central pathogenic process related to trauma, thereby beginning to make his own original contributions by claiming that repressed instinctual wishes form the foundation of the neuroses.
Traumatic Stress, Bessel A. Van der Kolk, Alexander C. McFarlane, Lars Weisæth, 1996, pp.53-54

In "Studies on Hysteria," however, Freud (with Breuer's concurrence) advanced a radically different explanation of the etiology of dissociation with his introduction of the concept of defense hysteria. Dissociation occurs, he proposed, when the ego (as he called the personal consciousness) actively represses memories of the traumatic event to protect itself from experiencing the painful affects associated with them. "The basis for repression itself," he wrote, "can only be a feeling of unpleasure, the incompatibility between the single idea and the dominant mass of ideas constituting the ego. The repressed idea takes its revenge, however, by becoming pathogenic" (Breuer and Freud 1893-1895/1955, p.116). With this formulation of defense hysteria, Freud introduced the vital concept of psychological conflict that marked the point in his divergence from Janet's views and became the central guiding principle of psychoanalysis and its derivative, psychodynamic psychiatry, in the century ahead.

The conditions under which the memories of psychical trauma become pathogenic, Freud splits up into two categories: 1. the content has a traumatic effect (e.g., the hysterical deliria), 2. the patient was under a special condition (the hypnoid or auto-hypnotic state) at the time of the trauma. From 1894-1895 the former group becomes the Freudian "defense hysteria;" the second group, the hypnoid hysteria, Freud from 1900 on explicitly ascribes to Breuer. In The Neuro-Psychoses of Defense (1894a) Freud, for the first time, speaks of a third form, the retention hysteria. In it a reaction to the trauma is, because of external conditions, impossible. In the Studies (1895d) Freud classifies this third form (which is ascribed to Breuer) with the defense hysteria.
Hysterical psychosis, Katrien Libbrecht, 1995

Freud maintained that he 'had never in my own experience met with a genuine hypnoid hysteria. Any that I took in hand turned into a defense hysteria' (p.286). Freud's explanation of the psychical mechanism of hysteria was the theory of defense. That is, 'hysteria originates through the repression of an incompatible idea from a motive of defense' (p.285). In another place Freud says, 'before hysteria can be acquired for the first time one essential condition must by fulfilled: an idea must be intentionally repressed from consciousness and excluded from associative modification' (p.116). Intentional does not mean with conscious awareness, but having a clear and definable motive for not being aware of the idea. The person in unaware of the repression, but the therapist can specify why the individual would not want to know the thought. The repressed idea persists as a memory trace, but the strong affective intensity of the idea which led to the defense against it 'is torn from it' and converted into a somatic innervation (p.285). The defense against the idea, the repression of an emotionally laden thought, 'becomes the cause of morbid symptoms' (p.285). 'In so far as one can speak of determining causes which lead to the acquisition of neurosis,' Freud said, 'their aetiology is to be looked for in sexual factors' (p.257). Defense against ideas are charged with effect, and they are unacceptable to consciousness. Therefore, they are repressed. Once repressed, the affect is diverted into bodily excitation, converted into the various physical symptoms of hysteria, and the idea persists as a memory trace outside of consciousness.
Freud and Jung, Conflicts of Interpretation, Robert S. Steele, Susan Virginia Swinney, 1982, pp.58-9

Freud wrote, that in defense hysteria (as opposed to hypnoid or retention hysteria) the ego is faced with an experience, an idea or a feeling that arouses such a distressing affect that the subject 'forgets' about it because she has no confidence in her power to resolve the contradiction between the incompatible idea and her ego by means of thought activity (Freud, 1894/1962).

The hypnoid state defends against the terror of death, the physical and emotional pain, and the mortification that accompany traumatic abuse. The problems that arise when these experiences remain out of awareness are well known. There are, however, two other avenues down which damage travels. First, there is the direct damage to the psyche of the victim. Modern theorists have argued that this damage occurs regardless of how a victim defends. Second is the damage that results because a trauma victim who enters a dissociative trance is especially vulnerable to introjecting the perpetrator... The more vampiric the predator (and, in turn, the introject), the greater the direct damage to the victim's heart and soul. In addition, the victim of vampiric predation is more likely to reenact because vampires are renowned for their ability to induce the hypnoid state. For an interpretation of the mythic and literary vampire's ability to "entrance" its prospective victims, see Lapin (1995). When "triggered" (Putman, 1993), the introject reinduces the hypnoid state. Unfortunately, one who can be triggered to dissociate is extremely vulnerable to retraumatization. In [certain] cases, the blocking of or decrease in ego functions, characteristic for every traumatic neurosis, created a lasting decrease in perception, judgement, and interest in the external world, a readiness to withdraw from any contact with reality, probably corresponding to a fear of repetition of the trauma (Fenichel, 1945, p.128).
Broken Images, Broken Selves, Stanley Krippner and Susan Marie Powers, 1997, pp.260-261

You have been accused in the past of living in some kind of fantasy world. Would you say you refuse to face up to reality?
KB: "Now. I think I do, actually, although there are certain parts of me that definitely don't want to look at reality. Generally speaking, though, I'm quite realistic, but perhaps the songs on the first two albums created some kind of fantasy image, so people presumed that I lived in that kind of world."
Kerrang!, "Bushy Tales", Karen Swayne, 1982
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/i82_ker.html

[tannis]

A great big jam in the sky...

Responding to a question on 'Blow Away', KaTe refers to "a great big jam in the sky". So could 'Blow Away' be her response to Pink Floyd's 'The Great Gig in the Sky'?

KB: And I thought that a nice idea, what a comfort it was for musicians that worry about their music; (knowing) that they're going to go up into that room and in there there's going to be Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Holly, Minnie Ripperton, all of them just having a great big jam in the sky, and all the musicians will join in with it.
Kate Bush Interview EMI (London) 1980
www.gaffaweb.org/reaching/im80_nf2.html

"The Great Gig in the Sky" is the fifth track from English progressive rock band Pink Floyd's 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon. It features voice instrumental music by Clare Torry. Clare Torry had worked previously with Alan Parsons and he suggested her for the song. David Gilmour said that she did "maybe half a dozen takes, and then afterwards we compiled the final performance out of all the bits. It wasn't done in one single take." Roger Waters said that Clare came into the studio and the group said that "there's no lyrics. It's about dying".

Pink Floyd - The Great Gig in the Sky
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K28Zgo72ODg

[tannis]

"Ghost Synthesiser by Billy Smith"

"A Could Be Story" by Kate Bush

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that this story came out at about the same time that Kate was working on the early version of her Christmas recording, 'December Will Be Magic Again', a song that she also performed on two British television programmes during the same period. (The song was finally released a year or so later.) Also, Kate has commented more than once since that time on the powerful sense of history she experienced while working in Abbey Road Studios...
Then there's the tragic death of Bill Duffield. The ghost in this story is called Billy Smith. So maybe this story addresses Bill Duffield's ghost, shade, spook, or spectre...

When the Shades went into Priory Street Studios to make their third album they were working on a very tight schedule. Their first album had made the top sixty but their second had hardly done anything at all, and now their third one had to be good or they would have difficulty in getting another recording contract. They felt they needed to find a Christmas single that would help them out of their troubles, but they only had until the end of November to get this together. Any later than that and the record company would be unable to bring a single out--even November was cutting it pretty fine! They had decided to try something different on the new album and had become interested again in the music that was around in the middle 50s.

They had come across a song that none of them had ever heard of before, and it could be the one they were looking for. The song was called I'm Riding With Santa Tonight, by someone called Billy Smith. They decided they would give it a very genuine Bill Haley treatment, with saxophones and lots of shoo-bops-doo-wah-woo-bops-di-wops.

They worked on the rhythm track the first day, putting onto tape the drums, bass guitar and some funky rock-and-roll piano, with a rough voice-track to keep it all together. Late that night they played the various takes they'd done, to choose the one they would keep. Half way through listening to the first take the recording engineer started to look worried and began pressing buttons and pulling down slide controls on his mixing desk where all the sounds were controlled. When he was asked what was the matter, he said he was starting to pick up interference on the track that certainly hadn't been put on there by any of the band during the day. This was the first time he had worked in Priory Street Studios, and he was not used to the equipment. He played back the bit that he thought was wrong, and there was quite clearly a whining sound breaking in on the track. It could have been a loose connection, or even one of the band's stomachs rumbling.

They listened to all the takes, but the interference was there on each one, and the engineer couldn't find a way of shifting it. This meant a whole day of studio time had been wasted, and feeling pretty disappointed with their first attempt at a comeback, the Shades slid back home in the early hours to get some sleep before starting again the following day.

At two o'clock the next afternoon they turned up at the studio and did the rhythm track once again. But on listening to it that evening, instead of the interference having been cleaned off, it was now even more noticeable, and the engineer could not understand what was happening. It put him in a difficult situation because the band were now talking about using other studios; but he'd been booked for the next two months to do the album, and he was determined that was what he was going to do. After a lot of arguing and shouting the Shades were sitting on one side of the studio and the recording engineer and his assistant on the other and they weren't talking.

At that point the roadie who looked after the Shades' equipment came bouncing into the studio hoping to get an earful of what had been going on for the last couple of days. When he saw the glum faces he knew something was up, and had great difficulty in persuading the engineer to let him hear the tape. Eventually he was persuaded, and the roadie sat back and listened with a critical ear. The Shades knew that he never missed spotting a potential hit single and they often used him as a test of their music.

When the track came to the bit with the heavy interference the roadie began to brighten up, much to the surprise of everyone else in the room. When the track had finished, he said it was one of the best things he'd ever heard, and how on earth did they get the amazing effects? The engineer had to say that it was a mistake, and they'd been trying to get rid of it. The roadie said that that was ridiculous, and he managed to persuade everybody that if they pretended it wasn't interference but a very interesting form of synthesiser, it could be the hook needed on the record to make it sell. So it was agreed that the Shades would come back in the next day and put down some guitar work and talk about the vocals.

On the third day, at the end of the evening, they played back an almost completed track, apart from the lead vocals. Once again, the interference was there, and once again, if anything, it seemed to be a lot more dominant. But they had to agree with the roadie that it certainly did give the song a lot of crackle and bite. When the lead vocal was put on and the track finished and ready to go off to the record company for their approval--and hopefully then for release as a single--they all gathered for one final listen.

The odd thing was that the interference now seemed to have mellowed out, and was almost adding a very strange sort of harmony to the lead singer's voice. But everyone agreed that the track was good, and that it could work.

When I'm Riding With Santa Tonight eventually reached number ten on the hit parade, the Shades arrived at the Top of the Pops studio to appear for a Christmas edition and sing their hit single. While they were waiting in the canteen to be called up to perform, they talked with a producer friend and mentioned that they had recorded the single at Priory Street Studios. He nodded his head to show that he knew the studios, and then asked them if they'd had any trouble with the ghost.

The Shades looked at each other, and went whiter than the white make-up they wore on stage. The producer explained to them that Priory Street Studios had a reputation for its ghost, and that at one time the owners had thought of closing down the studio because of the electrical interference they kept getting on takes. They had gone as far as taking out all the equipment, having it thoroughly looked at and put back in again, but this had made no difference. In the early 70s the Studios had been completely re-modernised, and he'd assumed that the troubles were over, but he had heard that occasionally they still had problems.

The Shades didn't say anything, but after doing a strong appearance--though it was a rather shaky one--on the television, they went for a celebration party at a friend's house. They now had a good talk about the ghost story they'd heard, and they were all wondering whether it was the ghost that had made the single a success.

The following day they sent their roadie off to the publishing company where they'd found the song, with the job of looking through the catalogues and finding anything he could about the song and the songwriter. That evening he met them at the studio with some very interesting news. It seemed that Billy Smith, who had written I'm Riding With Santa Tonight, recorded his first and only album at Priory Street Studios. All the songs on the album were his own compositions--this was quite unusual in those days, as most of the early rock-and-roll singers in England sang other people's songs.

Unfortunately, just after the album had been completed he'd been electrocuted in the Studios when something had gone wrong with his electric guitar. The record company hadn't thought much of his album anyway, so it was shelved and eventually completely forgotten.

The Shades thought this was a pretty good reason for a ghost to hang about the studios and, wondering how they could best express their thanks to the dead rock singer, they decided to put a credit on the album--"Ghost Synthesiser by Billy Smith".

Apparently there has been no more trouble with interference at Priory Street Studios, which probably goes to show that a ghost is quite content when his music has eventually reached his public.

[We don't think that the names and places in this story are the names and places of anybody involved in the music business but if our research has not been that accurate we apologise and did not intend to make any personal references!]

-- Kate

KBC Mag 04 (KBC short story, Issue 4, Christmas 1979)
www.gaffaweb.org/garden/kate5.html

[tannis]

BILL DUFFIELD: AN UNUSUAL CONCERT

Jul 31, 2003 22:47:09 GMT Lori said:

For you information on this track, just incase anyone didn't know (from TKI):

BILL DUFFIELD
In March 1979 – The Tour was to open officially on April the 3rd at the Liverpool Empire but first there was a preview at the Poole Arts Centre near Bournemouth to iron out any last minute hitches. Everyone was naturally very nervous but the show went tremendously well and afterwards, Richard Ames recalls, “We went back to the hotel having a few drinks, everyone was very up. And I got the call from the hall that Bill had run back up to the top of the auditorium where the (Lighting) desk had been and where he’d been running the show. He was doing the ‘idiot check’ – you rush up after everything’s in the truck to make sure nothing’s forgotten. Someone from the auditorium had lifted up a panel from the flooring on the very last step of the aisle between the seats and placed it on the step below the top step. Bill rushed up, tripped over it ‘cos it wasn’t lit very well, and went head first down 17 feet onto concrete. He lasted a week on the life support machine.
May 12th 1979 a special benefit concert was staged at the Hammersmith Odeon. David Lewis reviewed the show for Sounds, confessing that he had gone along principally to hear Steve Harley break his two-year silence. But David admitted: “Like practically all the other gnarled old cynics, I cannot deny that I was wrong, her fans were right and she was left to reap the applause for a show that sometimes teetered on the farcical but was never short of compulsive to watch.”
The set order had been revamped and it was near the end of the show when Steve and Peter (Gabriel).”Crept slowly out of the wings in trench coats and fedoras to singalongaKate on ‘Rolling The Ball’. “Then after a solo from Steve, he and Peter sang ‘Woman With The Child In Her Eyes’ as a duet. Later Peter sang ‘Here Comes The Flood’ unaccompanied and finally Steve Harley had the crowd joining in with ‘Best Years Of Our Lives’ and ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)’. As the show ended they were mown down by Kate in ‘James And The Cold Gun’. The encore for Bill was The Beatles ‘Let It Be’.

Jun 2, 2009 14:27:19 GMT tannis said:

Kate toured only once. The venture was touched by tragedy when lighting engineer Bill Duffield was killed in an accident after the tour's warm-up date at Poole Arts Centre, Dorset, UK on April 2, 1979. Although Bill was not a member of The K.T. Bush Band, Kate performed a commemorative concert for him on 12 May 1979 at the Hammersmith Odeon. Also appearing on the bill were special guests Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley, who had each worked with Duffield in the past. The trio performed The Beatles' "Let It Be", later released on a Japanese Fan Club commemorative 7" flexidisc.

On 5 July 1969, the Rolling Stones performed a free concert in Hyde Park, two days after Brian Jones's death. The concert had been scheduled weeks earlier as an opportunity to present the new guitarist. The band decided to proceed with the show as a tribute to Jones. Before the concert began, Jagger read excepts from "Adonais", a poem by Percy Shelley about the death of his friend John Keats, and stagehands released hundreds of white butterflies as part of the tribute. The Stones opened with a Johnny Winter song that was one of Brian's favourites, "I'm Yours And I'm Hers".

So perhaps the Stones in the Park tribute to Jones inspired KaTe to mark the death of Bill Duffield with a benefit concert? In 1987, during David Bowie's The Glass Spider Tour, a lighting engineer, Michael Clark, was tragically killed at the Stadio Comunale, Florence, after falling from the scaffolding before the show commenced. Bowie proceeded with the show, but I do not know if any dedication was ever made to Clark.

Put out the light, then, put out the light.
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine... *

As pointed out on Homeground, there is some confusion surrounding the official date of the Poole Arts Centre play date. The "On The Road" contemporary account of the tour by Lisa Bradley (KBC 03) implies that the play date was 1st April 1979. Bradley states that the "first night at Liverpool was free for Kate and everyone who travelled with her", and this suggests there was a night off between the Poole date and the Liverpool gig. The Liverpool date was definitely 3rd April. If the Poole date had been the 2nd, then where did the free evening fit in? So perhaps the Poole date was the night of the 1st April, and that this information got censored because of the April Fools' Day strange phenomena spook? Or maybe the accident happened during the early hours of the 2nd? The Nationwide Special on Kate's Tour (originally broadcast on April 4th) does not mention the Poole play date or the Bill Duffield accident.

There were three dates played at the Hammersmith Odeon, the 12th, 13th and 14th of May, the final three dates of the tour. The programme doesn't mention the Hammersmith dates, so they were added to the original tour itinerary. The Bill Duffield benefit concert was 12th May 1979. KaTe writes about the benefit gig in KBC 03, something good was going to happen, "An Unusual Concert".

[*--"Vibes in the sky invite you to dine": In the book Kate Bush Complete (EMI Music Publishing, 1987) the word "dine" is written as "die".][/color]

ON THE ROAD

The first night at Liverpool was free for Kate and everyone who travelled with her which included the band, dancers, backing vocalists, Hilary Walker, Richard Ames who was The Tour Manager who underwent the cream cake treatment on the last night at Hammersmith. It was a shame that the crew rarely had free evenings as they worked such long hours putting up the stage, lights and everything then when the show was over they had to take it all down and move onto the next place and start all over again.
After booking in at the hotel at Liverpool and getting accustomed to the maze like room numbering system a couple of guys came up from EMI and took all of those who were free out for an Indian meal. We had a great evening and it ended up as an outrageous joke telling session featuring Brian and Stewart. ('On the Road', Lisa Bradley).
KBC Mag 03 (KBC Issue 3, November 1979)

AN UNUSUAL CONCERT by Nicholas Wade (aka Kate Bush)



Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen...

The first concert of the Tour was what is called a play date, a show that is not a dress rehearsal but pretty close to it. It is a tradition to start a tour with one of these and there is never any publicity - I suppose in case anything goes wrong - and so not very many people knew about it. The fans in Poole were lucky to be the starting point (as has been pointed out the next gig, the 1st gig of the Tour was in Liverpool).
It was after the breaking down of the Tour to move onto Liverpool the light director Bill Duffield met with an accident. The concert at Hammersmith on the 12th May was a way of paying respect to him and to collect some money for his dependants so the show that went on in Hammersmith was a shortened version of Kate's show and incorporated 2 other stars, Peter Gabriel & Steve Harley, who both had worked with and knew Bill Duffield. It was unbelievable when both Peter and Steve came on in Heavy People instead of Kate's 2 dancers Gary & Stewart, wearing the gangster hats and macs. They sang verses of Heavy People themselves as well as dancing out their version of the song and then to Kate's complete surprise they rushed her off the stage in true Chicago style. Peter & Steve did a version of "Man With A Child In His Eyes" which got the audience very excited. Peter sang 3 of his own songs - the duet with Kate in 'I don't remember' was extraordinary, she seemed so small and he seemed so big and both of them belting out such high energy rock and roll with Kate's band playing the music as though they'd never done anything else. Peter's solo version of "Here Comes The Flood" struck a perfect note and stands out as one of the many enchanted moments in the show. Steve Harley showed that his absence from the stage had not affected his power of getting an audience on his side and when he eventually launched into "Come Up And See Me" again with Kate's band and this time with his own guitarist Joe Partridge backing him he had everyone feeling it really was summer again. The show returned back to Kate's original format and after her last number Steve and Peter joined her for the strongest and somehow most beautiful version of the Beatles "Let It Be" I've ever heard, with flowers flying up from the audience now standing packed around the front of the stage and flowers and hand-shakes going back to them from the singers.
Unfortunately the concert was never filmed so that all that there is left of this unique event is in the memories of those fans lucky enough to know something good was going to happen...
KBC Mag 03 (KBC Issue 3, November 1979)

Hey there Bill, could you turn the lights up?

see more:
KATE BUSH: The Rising Sun and The All-Seeing Eye
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