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Post by Adey on Feb 7, 2004 12:14:52 GMT
Like AT, this is my favourite KB album. I have referred to it before as her masterpiece (more so than Hounds of Love/Ninth Wave) and I stand by that now. After reading through this whole thread, I think I'm beginning to see why I believe that, rather than just feeling it instinctively.
The Dreaming is an intellectual challenge. Its depth, textures, flashes of insight, its intensity, all invite analysis. In this, it show its greatness as a piece of true- rather than high-art. It has greatness because it stimulates and inflames us, makes us look inwards for a personal framework on which to understand it. We become aware of it and rationalise it according to the essential emotional/intellectual essence of who we are as individual people.
In truth, I don't know if AT's 'deadly sins' framework is any more valid than Lucagrella's 'invasion' framework. But I really wouldn't expect to know; my internal wiring is different from both of these people. At least these 2 guys agree that there is a central unifying theme, contrived or accidental, that links the songs on this record (making it what an old prog head like me used to call a concept album). I also used to believe that too, but I don't think it anymore. I think each of the parts is unique unto itself, each a mini excursion into Kate's own internal wiring.
What Kate did with The Dreaming, was to create a world of dizzying images and a myriad of possibilities wrapped up in the outer guise of some bloody good songs. And if you only want to appreciate the album on that level, then thats entirely valid too.
I applaud those contributors with the balls to lay their beliefs out on this forum. Each will never win, but neither will they lose.
And as for Kate, well she went and did it to us again...
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Post by Adey on Feb 7, 2004 12:26:47 GMT
I hope this thread is never lost.
The board has a social context where people with a shared interest can interact together, and I really enjoy that side of it.
But this where the real action is, in discussions like this where we maybe enlightened or otherwise.
Xan, I wish I could had seen your own thoughts on The Dreaming too. Don't regret too much, in just articulating them for yourself they will have have served a purpose.
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Post by Al Truest on Feb 7, 2004 19:38:21 GMT
Like AT, this is my favourite KB album.... The Dreaming is an intellectual challenge. Its depth, textures, flashes of insight, its intensity, all invite analysis. In this, it show its greatness as a piece of truth- rather than high-art. ...Yet high-art is no more than esoteric truth or beauty. but only if we are willing to do so - which so many critics and fans have chosen not to do, I agree! Again it must hit you on an intuitive level first, followed by an intellectual curiousity. If you put up barriers right away, you'll never get this album. I can buy and respect that. I was of a similar opinion, until Luca's theory rattled my perception. Like an onion, the layers are there to pull away. If you just look at the whole and think it smells, you miss the meal. Agreed. Great post!
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Post by Sto on Jul 9, 2004 21:27:13 GMT
Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but just a thought I had while listening to the song today.
The line: "With my silver Buddha..." - if this is about about the Vietnam, the guy would be a Communist, right? And isn't a Buddha a religious icon? I always thought Communism outlawed religion?
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Post by Xanadu on Jul 9, 2004 22:13:00 GMT
Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but just a thought I had while listening to the song today. The line: "With my silver Buddha..." - if this is about about the Vietnam, the guy would be a Communist, right? And isn't a Buddha a religious icon? I always thought Communism outlawed religion? Good point Sto. This is Al's favorite Kate song, so I'll wait and see what he has to say about this. I'm sure he'll have some light to shed on it.
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Post by Adey on Jul 11, 2004 2:31:31 GMT
It IS a good point and well made. I think that the answer (or part of it anyway) is that People living under a Communist regime are only communists because their political/national leaders say they are. Despite whatever Communism may have had to say about the Father State and the redundancy of religeon, it could never hope to stop People from practising their spiritual beliefs. The Orthodox Russian Church continued to exist in the USSR, as did the Yugoslavian Church under Tito. And what about the Muslims who continued to promote the spirit of Islam despite living apparently as Communists?
It strikes me that the term Communist, is a Political description rather than personal one. Even an extremist like Marx had to acknowledge that religeon was the opiate of the masses..
And if you think about it, the true goals of Communism (rather than it's actual performance as a system of Government) are actually very Christian - fairness, equality, the importance of community over self etc.
In Pull Out the Pin, we 'hear' the thoughts of the Viet Cong soldier in his 'to the death' struggle with the American Soldiers. I can easily imagine that combatants on both sides were wearing their own particular pieces of religeous iconry, in the hope that their God or Bhudda should protect them at a time when they were in mortal danger.
Just my thoughts..
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Post by Sto on Jul 11, 2004 11:00:43 GMT
Fascinating stuff, Adey. It must be strange to have your country suddenly taken over by a foreign ideology, when you've been taught, and have taught yourself, to believe in something (ie. religion) for so long. I can imagine not everyone would be happy to conform to religious (or atheistic) changes under a new regime, even if they choose to conform to the regime's rule (ie. not rebel against it). And as you say, especially during a war, it must be a relief to have a symbol of some kind to pray to, to believe in, during a tuime when it's so hard to believe in anything. Kate opens doorways to all kinds of discussions doesn't she!
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Post by Xanadu on Jul 13, 2004 20:56:32 GMT
I can easily imagine that combatants on both sides were wearing their own particular pieces of religeous iconry, in the hope that their God or Bhudda should protect them at a time when they were in mortal danger. Just my thoughts.. I completely agree Adey. I'm so happy Sto is stirring things up again.
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Post by Xanadu on Jul 13, 2004 21:00:02 GMT
Kate opens doorways to all kinds of discussions doesn't she! That's what it's all been about from the beginning, why we came, posted and stayed. What a wonderful way to put it Sto!
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Post by Adey on Jan 12, 2005 1:33:17 GMT
Can't argue 'bout much of that Cathy.
The Dreaming is simply beyond compare. Magnificent, the work of a huge talent realising and articulating her powers but not yet intimidated by success and expectation..
POTP & Leave It Open were the last songs from the album to make an impression on me. I'd say it was 18 months or so before the penny dropped.
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Post by Al Truest on Jan 12, 2005 2:59:18 GMT
I always enjoy revisting this most provocative thread. It is satisfying to have this remain my favorite album and song for the very reasons inspired by these discussions.
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Post by Adey on Jan 15, 2005 15:42:45 GMT
I understand exactly what you're saying AT. Without trying to sound fanciful, The Dreaming has a unique mystique - some sort of power or energy that the other albums don't seem to have. That we're down to the very essence of the Artist almost..
I too will never tire of discussing the album, it's songs and Kate's frames of mind when she created it.
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W.HI.P
Moving
On the edge of the labyrinth
Posts: 561
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Post by W.HI.P on Jul 1, 2005 2:50:17 GMT
Well, Al, I'll take your challenge as as good an excuse as any to start my mega-essay on what is still for me the greatest album ever recorded - The Dreaming. It seems to me there is a unifying theme to this record, and I've struggled over the years to isolate just what it is in a nutshell. It's been difficult to come to a definitive conclusion because the album works on such a subconscious level, and I often feel I am missing things when I listen it -- or rather that things are affecting me emotionally that I can't quite grasp intellectually (not that there's anything wrong with that...). The closest I'd been able to come for quite a while to saying about the work as a whole is that it seems to be about the fine line between intimacy and violation and what a struggle it can be to allow oneself to risk the former for fear of the latter. That theme is directly apparent in the songs that close what used to be Side One and Side Two (Leave It Open and Get Out of My House); less obvious but pretty clear in All the Love and Houdini; a bit more obscurely tackled in There Goes a Tenner; and more metaphorically approached in The Dreaming and Pull Out the Pin. But I struggled with the remaining songs -- Sat in Your Lap, Gaffa, and Night of the Swallow. The first two seem to be about a quest for knowledge and, dare I say it, deeper understanding, and do not seem to fit my "theory" and Swallow has always been a complete mystery to me, and probably for that reason my least favorite song on the album. Still, each time I listened to the album, I was left with the haunting feeling that this was a unified work of art, with a theme or message, whether consciously intended by Kate or subconsciously "just there." And as I was thinking about Pull Out the Pin this morning (after reading Al's challenge laid down herein), I was struck by another angle. As I said, Dreaming and Pull Out the Pin are metaphorical representations of the theme of intimacy vs. violation, each one a tale of the rape of a country, the first told apparently from the violator's point of view (or at least someone from outside the culture) and Pin obviously in the first person, presumably a Southeast Asian (Vietnamese?) man fighting the western invaders. And somehow the words "borders" and "boundaries" popped into my head. What I realize that I get from "The Dreaming" (the album) every time I listen to it is a sense of both the excitement and fear of stepping over borders and breaking through boundaries. It's a sexual/emotional journey in Tenner, Get Out of My House, All the Love, Houdini and Leave It Open, while it's an intellectual or spiritual journey in Lap and Gaffa. In Dreaming and Pin the stakes are on a different level -- it's a life and death journey, one on which the very survival of a race is in the balance. The boundaries being violated are not in anyone's mind -- they are real. And with this new insight, eureka, Night of the Swallow becomes clearer to me -- it is, suddenly and obviously all of a piece with the rest of the album, a song that touches on all the aforementioned aspects of this theme of boundaries and borders, intimacy and violation. Its Celtic-flavored arrangement and title that hints at some sort of migration or liberation give it a cultural context; its imagery of flight and escape gives it a spiritual feel, and its early lyrics hint at some sort of sexual or at least relationship conflict and later of some sort of intellectual awakening (and finally, there it is, the actual word I'd arrived at, seemingly on my own -- borderlines). Suddenly, the song seems to be, as poetically abstract as it is on the surface, the thematic centerpiece of the album. So while this rambling was inspired by thinking about Pull Out the Pin, it's really more of an evaluation of Night of the Swallow, and of course the album as a whole. Nevertheless, I'd be interested in your (Al's or anyone's) comments. I realize I haven't been specific on how some of the songs fit my "analysis" (for lack of a more appropriate word) since it seems obvious to me, so don't hesitate to question/argue/kvetch. I up for it... I'll shut up now... Luca I wish I had read this earlier. This is kinda what i was trying to say in Gaffa & Jig, but never came close. This is deffinetly worth the resurface. Where is this "Luca" anyway?
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Post by Al Truest on Jul 1, 2005 2:58:53 GMT
Not only is this thread ready to revisit (and please do) There have been well over 100 posts to the forum within the last 24 hours. Be sure and find all of those gems as well.
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W.HI.P
Moving
On the edge of the labyrinth
Posts: 561
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Post by W.HI.P on Jul 1, 2005 3:10:40 GMT
Very interesting! I think Kate enjoys that each of us can get so many things out of her work on so many levels. I like the recurrent theme that you touch on about emotional reactions that circumvent rationale (intellectual levels) I see this as her most emotional work. She calls it her "Mad Album". As many of you know it is my favorite. Furthermore, "Pull Out the Pin" has always been my favorite track. What is more urgent than the struggle of life, and your way of life vs. death and change (or being wrong theologically)? This album is fraught with violation, fear, longing, frustration and impatience. If I were to have to pick a unifying theme to this project it would be the "Capital (or Deadly) Sins" Pride-greed-envy-wrath-lust-gluttony-sloth. These elements are writhing throughout all of these compositions. I don't know if that was intentional; but, they are there nonetheless. Theologically, from The Oracle at Delphi we get "Know Thyself" and "my own heart shows me the way of the ungodly" Well to start "Sat in Your Lap" sets the tone of awareness of one's shortcomings and the sloth, greed and envy that ignorance produces. Let me highlight the rest as not to get too lengthy here: "There Goes a Tenner" - greed, lust, envy "Pull out the Pin" wrath, pride greed, (blood lust) "Suspended in Gaffa" gluttony-envy-greed-sloth "Leave it Open" wrath-pride "The Dreaming" greed-envy-wrath-gluttony-pride "Night of the Swallow" lust-pride-envy "All the Love" envy "Houdini" pride-lust-envy "Get Out of My House" wrath-greed-lust
You may say this is a thin arguement, but answer this for me. The deadly sins are juxtaposed to these virtues:
Humility, generousity, love, kindness, self-control, temperance and zeal. Do you see any of these elements prevailing here? My theory is looking pretty good, huh? Please disagree or comment. Al I can see all these elements one by one. You're certainly not crazy... I would say Amen, only if you mean this as an addition to what "Luca" was saying, and maybe add that her subconscious message, willingly or not, is that of spiritual growth, learning and thurst for enlightment.
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