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Post by tannis on Apr 7, 2008 2:52:18 GMT
Adena, you say that "The lyrics are haunting, sharp, scary in nature" and that the song is "admittedly pretty good". Your main problem seems to be with the "pumping backbeat". But, as Al says, this driving force is about strength, focus and power. The lyrics to RUTH are very profound, and I would follow Rosa's advice and give this song more time. Two weeks is too early to reach a conclusion. Get a feeling of being in the song, and consider that KB wrote RUTH long after the early work, from which The Dreaming was a radical departure. RUTH addresses heavier and more difficult relationship issues. As Rosa says, the pumping beat fits the desperation and emotional intensity of the words. It might suggest the life-force, the heartbeat, the adrenaline, etc. Adrenaline is the "fight or flight" hormone, and is released when danger threatens or in an emergency. And this song does seem to deal with emotional emergency. Indeed, towards the end of the song, as Paul says, it is like the fabric of reality is being torn apart, like we are witnessing the breaking of hearts. Musically, the prominent drumming pattern appears to be influenced by Japanese taiko. Along with the martial use of the Taiko drums, they also held a strong foundation in the court style music called Gagaku. You would expect to find this style of music held in the castles and shrines across ancient Japan. In feudal Japan, taiko were often used to motivate troops, to help set a marching pace, and to call out orders or announcements. Approaching or entering a battle, the taiko yaku (drummer) was responsible for setting the marching pace, usually with six paces per beat of the drum. (wiki) What if Kate really could make her deal? What if she really did get everything she wanted? And would she make a good therapist? ... KB: I really don't know. When I was little, I really wanted to be a psychiatrist. That's what I always said at school. I had this idea of helping people, I suppose, but I found the idea of people's inner psychology fascinating, particularly in my teens. Mind you, it's probably just as well I didn't become one. I would have driven all these people to madness! Kate bush: Q magazine interview December 1993.www.paradiseplace.org.uk/Kate/Katep3.html
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Adena
Moving
This time around we dance - we're chosen ones
Posts: 611
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Post by Adena on Apr 7, 2008 3:01:25 GMT
I understand your comments about the equality portrayal, but I really don't think this song has the charisma, bold beauty and backbone put together as effectively as some of Kate's songs. Something like Cloudbusting or even KOTM form Aerial (which I dislike even more than Running Up That Hill) has the bold beauty and charisma with a more... how should I say? suitable backbone.
Tannis, don't get me wrong, I love the lyrics of this particular song. I just feel that if the idea had been to make it a more painful song, it would have done better with a different backbeat, and if it was supposed to be a bold, strong one, it really needed the lyrics to be portrayed much stronger and with much less pain. I merely feel like it's two sides of the spectrum clashing... hard.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Apr 7, 2008 3:05:39 GMT
What if Kate really could make her deal? What if she really did get everything she wanted? And would she make a good therapist? ... KB: I really don't know. When I was little, I really wanted to be a psychiatrist. That's what I always said at school. I had this idea of helping people, I suppose, but I found the idea of people's inner psychology fascinating, particularly in my teens. Mind you, it's probably just as well I didn't become one. I would have driven all these people to madness! Kate bush: Q magazine interview December 1993.www.paradiseplace.org.uk/Kate/Katep3.htmlMaybe she would have. It's funny, I often feel like there are parallels with archetypal and Jungian psychology especially in her work... Maybe she was actually a bit influenced by those kinds of ideas, if she was reading psychology books as a teenager, possibly?
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Adena
Moving
This time around we dance - we're chosen ones
Posts: 611
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Post by Adena on Apr 7, 2008 3:21:47 GMT
I think I've picked up the nuance of this. I found it on Youtube and listened to the song again. I think I must have been on too much of a sugar high when I heard it first to fully appreciate it. On second thoughts, the upbeat fits very well. The feeling of desperation in the song pulled on my heart when I listened to it again. I guess first impressions are not always as accurate as we may think. To me, it's got a feeling beyond relationships really.
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Post by Barry SR Gowing on Apr 7, 2008 3:57:30 GMT
Musically, the prominent drumming pattern appears to be influenced by Japanese taiko. [/b] Along with the martial use of the Taiko drums, they also held a strong foundation in the court style music called Gagaku. You would expect to find this style of music held in the castles and shrines across ancient Japan. In feudal Japan, taiko were often used to motivate troops, to help set a marching pace,[/quote] Taiko! Good find, tannis, it certainly sounded like a martial beat. Of course she would. In fact, she does make a good therapist, even if she doesn't know it. Plus I imagine buying her albums is much cheaper than what therapists probably charge by the hour (do they charge by the hour? Can one get bulk discounts?). As she very well knows, we're aready quite mad as it is. --Paul--
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Post by Al Truest on Apr 7, 2008 14:49:25 GMT
I think I've picked up the nuance of this. I found it on Youtube and listened to the song again. I think I must have been on too much of a sugar high when I heard it first to fully appreciate it. On second thoughts, the upbeat fits very well. The feeling of desperation in the song pulled on my heart when I listened to it again. I guess first impressions are not always as accurate as we may think. To me, it's got a feeling beyond relationships really. Don't let anyone intimidate you here nonetheless - including me. There are no wrong opinions. Just remember not to state them as fact.
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Adena
Moving
This time around we dance - we're chosen ones
Posts: 611
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Post by Adena on Apr 7, 2008 14:55:32 GMT
I think I've picked up the nuance of this. I found it on Youtube and listened to the song again. I think I must have been on too much of a sugar high when I heard it first to fully appreciate it. On second thoughts, the upbeat fits very well. The feeling of desperation in the song pulled on my heart when I listened to it again. I guess first impressions are not always as accurate as we may think. To me, it's got a feeling beyond relationships really. Don't let anyone intimidate you here nonetheless - including me. There are no wrong opinions. Just remember not to state them as fact. What makes you think that I'm letting you intimidate me? I should have listened to it again and let it grow on me, like Rosa said. Instantaneous results.
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Post by Al Truest on Apr 7, 2008 14:57:56 GMT
Don't let anyone intimidate you here nonetheless - including me. There are no wrong opinions. Just remember not to state them as fact. What makes you think that I'm letting you intimidate me? I should have listened to it again and let it grow on me, like Rosa said. Instantaneous results. O.K. Now you're just being sassy.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Apr 7, 2008 19:05:21 GMT
Of course she would. In fact, she does make a good therapist, even if she doesn't know it. Plus I imagine buying her albums is much cheaper than what therapists probably charge by the hour (do they charge by the hour? Can one get bulk discounts?). As she very well knows, we're aready quite mad as it is. --Paul-- Agreed. Nothing more therapeutic than listening to The Dreaming or TNW really loudly. At least for me. ;D
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Apr 7, 2008 19:18:43 GMT
Oh and adena, I'm glad that RUTH is growing on you. I've always found that it's generally more fun to like KB songs than not to.
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Adena
Moving
This time around we dance - we're chosen ones
Posts: 611
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Post by Adena on Apr 8, 2008 9:13:59 GMT
Sassy now, am I? Never heard that one before.
It's amazing how, when I listen more carefully, this song starts to invoke some funky emotions. I don't know, but it keeps making me cry happily. Weird much?
And yes Rosa, it is more fun to like Kate's songs than not to. It's more fun to like antything than not, no?
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Post by Adey on Apr 8, 2008 13:19:44 GMT
If I had to indentify a song by Kate that was (nearly) definitive, then it would be RUTH (Deal with God). I say nearly, because there is no obvious humour in it - humour being a big part of some of Kate's material.
Lyrically it's profound and deals with the big concept - the essential emotional differences between a Man and a Woman. It's an emotive call for understanding through the means of swapping and therefore sharing gender identification. An appeal for education to foster understanding at least, and ultimately tolerance perhaps.
It comes from a time when Kate was using rhythm machines to build her compositions. An approach that is probably her friend, Peter Gabriel's biggest musical legacy to her. This certainly accounts for it's insistent pounding delivery, though it's actually low key compared to what's going on in other tracks from side one of Hounds of Love - the title track in particular. Again, like Gabriel, the vocal is a passionate emotional delivery on top of this rhythmic insistence and I guess I can acknowledge the contradiction in this that people have commented on here and have felt unsettled by. Infact, the whole song feels edgy and full of tension, which actually brings us back to the difficulties of the male/female emotional dynamic that Kate started with.
Interesting that Tannis commented on the Taiko drum vibe, and it is here, although I would point to Sat in Your Lap as the song that has this vibe most present and upfront.
RUTH was a no2 single in the UK, making it her most succesful single here since the dazzling Wuthering Heights. So clearly it caught the imagination of the general public following a time when her singles had not been selling well.
It will always be one of my most very favourite Kate Bush songs and I think one of her most important. As I said earlier, damn near definitive, and probably THE song of hers that will haunt me to my grave.
The live version with David Gilmour driving the synth riffs on his guitar is an absolute blast. Look it up if you haven't heard it yet!
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Post by tannis on Nov 23, 2008 16:04:20 GMT
Is there so much hate for the ones we love? Tell me, we both matter, don't we? You, it's you and me. It's you and me won't be unhappy...Love and hate in Freud’s work: Ambivalence was used by Freud to indicate the simultaneous presence of love and hate towards the same object. During the oral stage the main object the child relates to is the mother’s breast. During the first sub-stage of this stage, there is no ambivalence at all towards the mother’s breast, since the only concern of the child is oral incorporation. In the second sub-stage, named oral-sadistic, the biting activity emerges and the phenomenon of ambivalence appears for the first time. The child is interested in both libidinal and aggressive gratifications, and the mother’s breast is at the same time loved and hated. It is being loved when it is a source of nutrition and pleasure, and it is being hated when it is a source of frustration. By the mechanism of projection, the baby fears similar aggression in others, mainly in powerful adults. Thus, the experience of biting can take an aspect of destructiveness. The more the child bites with anger, the more he attributes the same impulses to others. Since the oral activity is still the main source of pleasure, and the mother’s breast is genuinely loved, the addition of a sadistic component now turns in real ambivalence.
During the pre-oedipal stages ambivalent feelings are expressed in a dyadic relationship between the mother and the child. In the oedipal phase, ambivalence is experienced for the first time within a triangular context which involves the child, the mother and the father. In this stage, both the boy and the girl develop negative feelings of jealousy, hostility and rivalry toward the parent of the same sex, but with different mechanisms for the two sexes. The boy’s attachment to his mother becomes stronger, and he starts developing negative feelings of rivalry and hostility toward the father. The boy wishes to destroy the father so that he can become his mother’s unique love object. On the other hand, the girl starts a love relationship with her father. The mother is seen by the girl as a competitor for the father’s love and so the girl starts feeling hostility and jealousy towards her. The negative feelings which arise in this phase coexist with love and affection toward the parent of the same sex and result in an ambivalence which is expressed in feelings, behavior and fantasies. The negative feelings are a source of anxiety for the child who is afraid that the parent of the same sex would take revenge on him/her. In order to lessen the anxiety, the child activates the defense mechanism of identification, and identifies with the parent of the same sex. This process leads to the formation of the Super-Ego.
According to Freud, ambivalence is the precondition for melancholia, together with loss of a loved object, oral regression and discharge of the aggression toward the self. In this condition, the ambivalently loved object is introjected, and the libido is withdrawn into the self in order to establish identification with the loved object. The object loss then turns into an ego loss and the conflict between the Ego and the Super-Ego becomes manifested. The same ambivalence occurs in the obsessional neurosis, but there it remains related to the outside object.How could you leave me, When I needed to possess you? I hated you. I loved you, too...Love and hate in Melanie Klein: According to the object relations theory of Melanie Klein, love and hate start off differentiated from each other in the infant’s life. Klein stressed the importance of inborn aggression as a reflection of the death drive and talked about the battle of love and hatred throughout the life span. As life begins, the first object for the infant to relate with the external world is the mother. It is there that both good and bad aspects of the self are split and projected as love and hatred to the mother and the others around her later on.
During the paranoid-schizoid position, the infant sees objects around it either as good or bad, according to his/her experiences with them. They are felt to be loving and good when the infant’s wishes are gratified and happy feelings prevail. On the other hand, objects are seen as bad when the infant’s wishes are not met adequately and frustration prevails. Because in the child’s world there is not yet a distinction between fantasy and reality; loving and hating experiences towards the good and bad objects are believed to have an actual impact on the surrounding objects. Therefore, the infant must keep these loving and hating emotions as distinct as possible, because of the paranoid anxiety that the destructive force of the bad object will destroy the loving object from which the infant gains refuge against the bad objects. The mother must be either good or bad and the feeling experienced is either love or hate.
However, later in development, these emotions start to get integrated, in a natural process. As the infant’s potential to experience ambivalence grows, during the depressive position, the infant starts forming a perception of the objects around it as both good and bad, thus tolerating the coexistence of these two opposite feelings for the same object. When this takes place, the previous paranoid anxiety (that the bad object will destroy everything) transforms into a depressive anxiety; this is the intense fear that the child’s own destructiveness (hate) will damage the beloved others. Subsequently, for the coexistence of love and hate to be attainable, the child must believe in her ability to contain hate, without letting it destroy the loving objects. He/she must believe in the prevalence of the loving feelings over his/her aggressiveness. Since this ambivalent state is hard to preserve, under difficult circumstances it is lost, and the person returns to the previous manner keeping love and hate distinct for a period of time until he/she is able to regain the potency for ambivalence.
Psychoanalytic concepts of love and hateen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_concepts_of_love_and_hate
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Post by tannis on Nov 24, 2008 14:00:07 GMT
RUTH: Run For The HillsAll the love, all the love, All the love... ("Run for the hills...")On All The Love, at 02:14 we hear "Run For The Hills". When someone really wants to get away from a situation or relationship as fast as they can, they "run for the hills", assuming higher ground is safer. Usually it is when you are scared of something or scared of commitment. The Big Sky also suggests taking flight and running for the hills...This cloud, this cloud-- Says "Noah, C'mon and build me an Ark." And if you're coming, jump, 'Cause We're leaving with the Big Sky...KB: "[The Big Sky] is also suggesting the coming of the next flood--how perhaps the "fools on the hills" will be the wise ones." Kate's KBC article, Issue 18, Hounds Of Love songs gaffa.org/garden/kate20.htmlAnd this theme is clearly prominent on Running Up That Hill...And if I only could, I'd make a deal with God, And I'd get him to swap our places, Be running up that road, Be running up that hill, With no problems..."...the narrative of the song [RUTH] is constantly self-revising. The second verse, in talking of the extent to which the lovers hurt each other, gives the lie to the easy assertion with which the piece opens: 'It doesn't hurt me.'" (Keeping Score, 1997, p.212)"Is there so much hate for the ones we love?" is somewhat perverse (as is its opposite, "Is there so much love for the ones we hate?"). The line questions the state of tolerating the coexistence of love and hate for the same object. In RUTH, emotions are raw and laid bare. The relationship has become dangerous, or is under threat and facing breakdown. The ambivalent state seems lost to extreme and splitting circumstances, and the protagonist no longer believes in her ability to contain hate ("tearing you asunder"). The relationship is now a problem ("You, it's you and me"); and the protagonist seems trapped, paralysed and desperately wanting to run for the hills.The protagonist is wounded ("see how deep the bullet lies"), in need of reassurance ("Tell me, we both matter, don't we?"), and dreaming of freedom. The song is as desperate and confused as a film noir's femme fatale. Indeed, maybe some shady deal has been busted and our protagonist has been fatally wounded......Phyllis hugs him tightly but then pulls away and looks up at him, startled that he has not responded. Neff says "Goodbye, baby," then shoots her. Double Indemnity (1944)‘Nelly, I am Heathcliff,’ cries Catherine in Wuthering Heights. KaTe describes the RUTH deal as swapping gender positions, to see the relationship from both sides, rather like The Prince and The Pauper, the idea being that at a later date the two parties swap back, having learned something from the other's perspective beyond hypothetical deductive reasoning. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus..."Yes. It's a bit of a cliche at the moment, with so many songs called this, but it is very much about the power of love, and the strength that is created between two people when they're very much in love, but the strength can also be, um...uh...threatening, violent, dangerous as well as gentle, soothing, loving. And it's saying that if these two people could swap places--if the man could become the woman and the woman the man, that perhaps they could understand the feelings of that other person in a truer way, understanding them from that gender's point of view, and that perhaps there are very subtle differences between the sexes that can cause problems in a relationship, especially when people really do care about each other." [Long pause.] The Tony Myatt interview, Nov. 1985gaffa.org/reaching/im85_tm.htmlK: I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman, can't understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each others roles, if we could actually be in each others place for a while, I think we'd both be very surprised! [Laughs] And I think it would be lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was either... you know, I thought a deal with the devil, you know. And I thought, "well, no, why not a deal with God!" You know, because in a way it's so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. You see, for me it is still called "Deal With God", that was it's title. But we were told that if we kept this title that it wouldn't be played in any of the religious countries, Italy wouldn't play it, France wouldn't play it, and Australia wouldn't play it! Ireland wouldn't play it, and that generally we might get it blacked purely because it had "God" in the title. Now, I couldn't believe this, this seemed completely ridiculous to me and the title was such a part of the song's entity. I just couldn't understand it. But none the less, although I was very unhappy about it, I felt unless I compromised that I was going to be cutting my own throat, you know, I'd just spent two, three years making an album and we weren't gonna get this record played on the radio, if I was stubborn. So I felt I had to be grown up about this, so we changed it to "Running Up That Hill". But it's always something I've regretted doing, I must say. And normally I always regret any compromises that I make. Radio 1, Classic Albums: Hounds Of Love, Richard Skinner, Jan 26, 1992gaffa.org/reaching/ir85_r1.htmlBut the atmosphere of the song suggests that the deal is final, no swapping back. And the song seems more about escape and freedom than compromise and understanding the fundamental differences between men and women.
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Post by tannis on Dec 18, 2008 18:33:34 GMT
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