Love and Anger

[Lori]

It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it
It could take me all of my life
But it would only take a moment to

Tell you what I'm feeling
But I don't know if I'm ready yet
You come walking into this room
Like you're walking into my arms
What would I do without you?

Take away the love and the anger
And a little piece of hope holding us together
Looking for a moment that'll never happen
Living in the gap between past and future
Take away the stone and the timber
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together

If you can't tell your sister
If you can't tell a priest
'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
To anyone,
Can you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart

To let go of these feelings
Like a bell to a Southerly wind?
We could be like two strings beating
Speaking in sympathy...
What would we do without you?
Two strings speak in sympathy

Take away the love and the anger
And a little piece of hope holding us together
Looking for a moment that'll never happen
Living in the gap between past and future
Take away the stone and the timber
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together

We're building a house of the future together
(What would we do without you?)

Well, if it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
Just remember to reach out and touch the past and the future
Well, if it's so deep you don't think you can speak about it
Don't ever think that you can't change the past and the future
You might not, not think so now
But just you wait and see-someone will come to help you

[ragnar]

This song is truly a beauteousness !
The Chorus is wonderful and Kates voice is just amazing.
But what do I imagine when I listen to this song ?
Well, that's a good question.
The pictures in my mind are not clear.
It's like a dream of which I never want to awake again.
Thank you Kate for this song !

[mizzshy]

Fire. I see fire in my mind when I hear this song. I love it.

[W.HI.P]

i forgot how much i love this song

[tannis]

"i think that the song is about transcendent experience, referencing the psychological and spiritual transformation which can be precipitated by ecstatic religion (sufism, wicca, etc), by intuitive creativity (eg in this case "women's ways of knowing"), by dance (both sufi and free-form), and by yes, even male-energy-oriented rock & roll. i think the genius of the piece (both video and music working together) is that it draws connections between all of these transcendent media, pulling them together inclusively, showing both the desirability and the achieveability of the transcendent experience, and including male/female, "classical"/"vernacular", "dance/ music", "sound/image", "christian/pagan/muslim" dichotomies in an inclusive view of human experience.
i think that the performance is a representation of an ecstatic experience, which begins quietly with invocation and preparation of the self for transformation, moves into a "ritual space" constructed by evocative dance, movement, images, and language, moves further into the ecstatic experience that results, peaks out in ecstasy, and then "de-crescendos" musically, sonically, visually, and experientially" (Chris Smith, 1995).

see more:
Performance-centered analysis of the music video for "Love And Anger"
gaffa.org/dreaming/tsw_lvan.html

[rosabelbelieve]

^Interesting, I'd never thought of the video like that. This is a somewhat mysterious song, isn't it? I think even Kate said she doesn't really know what it means. I have a couple of ideas about it, though...

[Al Truest]

tannis said:

"i think that the song is about transcendent experience, referencing the psychological and spiritual transformation which can be precipitated by ecstatic religion (sufism, wicca, etc), by intuitive creativity (eg in this case "women's ways of knowing"), by dance (both sufi and free-form), and by yes, even male-energy-oriented rock & roll. i think the genius of the piece (both video and music working together) is that it draws connections between all of these transcendent media, pulling them together inclusively, showing both the desirability and the achieveability of the transcendent experience, and including male/female, "classical"/"vernacular", "dance/ music", "sound/image", "christian/pagan/muslim" dichotomies in an inclusive view of human experience.
i think that the performance is a representation of an ecstatic experience, which begins quietly with invocation and preparation of the self for transformation, moves into a "ritual space" constructed by evocative dance, movement, images, and language, moves further into the ecstatic experience that results, peaks out in ecstasy, and then "de-crescendos" musically, sonically, visually, and experientially" (Chris Smith, 1995).

see more:
Performance-centered analysis of the music video for "Love And Anger"
gaffa.org/dreaming/tsw_lvan.html

Thanks, I enjoyed this ^ post.

[tannis]

Spiritual Transformation: An Oriental Take-away

Take away the love and the anger
And a little piece of hope holding us together
Looking for a moment that'll never happen
Living in the gap between past and future
Take away the stone and the timber
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together...[/color]

Questions And Answers On Buddhism

Q: Does Buddhism teach reincarnation?
A: Reincarnation is not a teaching of the Buddha. In Buddhism the teaching is of rebirth, not of reincarnation.

Q: What is the difference between reincarnation and rebirth?
A: The reincarnation idea is to believe in a soul or a being, separate from the body. At the death of the physical body, this soul is said to move into another state and then enter a womb to be born again. Rebirth is different and can be explained in this way. Take away the notion of a soul or a being living inside the body; take away all ideas of self existing either inside or outside the body. Also take away notions of past, present and future; in fact take away all notions of time. Now, without reference to time and self, there can be no before or after, no beginning and ending, no birth or death, no coming or going. Yet there is life! Rebirth is the experience of life in the moment, without birth, without death; it is the experience of life which is neither eternal nor subject to annihilation.

zencomp.com/greatwisdom/ebud/ebdha001.htm

KB: "After lasting three months on Chinese take-aways during the last part of the album, I realised food was a terribly important factor to a healthy mind and body. So now I make sure I cook one good meal a day, and have cut out all junk food--which is unbelievable for me... I always find it a miracle to turn a few vegetables and some flour and margarine into a complete meal--it's a bit like the five loaves and two fish... Of course, the big trouble with cooking is time, but I make myself set aside the time to cook an evening meal, and I really miss it now if I'm out and not able to devour my nutritious foods, and it'll take a while yet before I'll be able to handle a Chinese take-away."
Kate's KBC article Issue 14 (written in the fall of '83)
gaffa.org/garden/kate16.html

A clock somewhere strikes two and the chipper, ever attentive McIntosh arrives with tea, pizza, avocado with balsamic vinegar and cream cake for afters, only to be playfully admonished by his partner, who protests: "I can't eat all this shit!"
'I'm not some weirdo recluse', The Guardian, 2005
arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,16373,1601608,00.html

May 21, 2008 20:19:25 GMT rosabelbelieve said:

And the connections between Under The Ivy and Love And Anger are really intriguing - they do deal with similar subject matter, but sort of in opposite ways, I think. In Love And Anger the narrator seems to be breaking free of the constricting forms of her old safety, whereas in Under The Ivy she seems to be retreating deeper into her sanctuary. Interesting, though.

Under the Ivy and Love and Anger

It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it...

And it's not easy for me
To give away a secret
It's not safe...

It could take me all of my life
But it would only take a moment to
Tell you what I'm feeling...

It wouldn't take me long
To tell you how to find it...

'Our life is basically practically nothing but an infinite number of unfinished situations-incomplete gestalts.' writes Perls. 'No sooner have we finished one situation than another comes up' (1969/1971:15). The neurotic 'individual somehow interrupts the ongoing processes of life and saddles himself with so many unfinished situations that he cannot satisfactorily get on with the process of living' (1973:23).
The basis of gestalt therapy is looking at the moment - the whole moment and nothing but the moment. Gestalt therapy seeks to free the "dammed-up psychological process" so that it flows naturally... to Run Wild, Run Free...

L&A opens like a Gestalt counselling session, that is interrupted by the entry of a loved one (real or imagined). The narrator cannot confide in a sister (because she hasn't got one?) and cannot confide in a priest. The institution of confession permits all to be said, but the narrator seems mute. Indeed, the album cover to TSW shows Kate's mouth concealed by a flower and in the Aerial photograph to 'Joanni', Kate's mouth has disappeared. ... In L&A, her muteness leads her to explore other philosophies of freedom. These seem to include Buddhist principles of rebirth and karma:

"Karma, meaning action-reaction, governs all existence, and man is the sole creator of his circumstances and his reaction to them, his future condition, and his final destiny. By right thought and action he can gradually purify his inner nature, and so by self-realization attain in time liberation from rebirth. The process covers great periods of time, involving life after life on earth, but ultimately every form of life will reach Enlightenment."
www.budtempchi.org/12prin.html

So, yes, in Love And Anger the narrator seems to be breaking through of personal limitations and "busting through" constricting forms. A 'spiritual cleansing' to let a 'new house' of the future rise up. And I agree that the end of the song is a real triumphant feeling...

But in Under The Ivy she seems to be retreating deeper into her sanctuary...

This little girl inside me
Is retreating to her favourite place...

Under The Ivy feels like a dangerous regression, a compulsion to repeat something forbidden. Maybe the noise and pressure of the party get to her and she is tempted by secret love... But will her lover join her? ...

-----

It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it

Could these lines refer to both tangible and emotional Its? Like something or someone is really buried, and that the protagonist is having to bury/suppress their emotional responses? Perhaps this song deals with abortion?

It could take me all of my life
But it would only take a moment to

On Leave It Open there is the masked message "We let the weirdness in". Some believe it to be a two-way masked message, and that played backwards it sings "They said they would [not] let me in" or "They said they were buried here".

[rosabelbelieve]

^ Interesting quote on rebirth and reincarnation... It reminds me of some of the stuff we were talking about in the Universal Code thread a while ago, about time being simultaneous, I think. Love and Anger does remind me of sort of a spiritual cleansing, maybe like the Tarot card 'The Tower' a bit, where the obstructions and outdated forms and and 'old house' of the psyche are dismantled to let a 'new house' of the future rise up in its place. To do this requires we go deeper than our personal 'love and anger' that makes up the way we see the world and act in it- almost like the breaking through of personal limitations - and set free the hidden energy and inspiration that is 'so deep I don't think I can speak about it.' It is a rather ambiguous song, though, and that shows the fear and loss of the familiar that could accompany these changes. In the end I think there is a real triumphant feeling, though.

Thank you for reminding me of this song, Tannis, I hadn't listened to it for a little while, and this made me do so. I think it's really one of my favorites from TSW.

[Adena]

'I don't know who I can tell, they all betray me. If you keep your life quiet, then you will be destroyed from inside. Outside's worse, they feed you to the dogs, Adena.'
'Ayinsa, I know they feed you to the dogs. Look at me, I keep together through willpower. I get trodden on and walked over all the time with what they know of me. If they knew about my secrets... God, I would be dead.'

This song reminds me of blood, happiness, smiles, love, family, friendship... I agree with Rosa's comments about spiritual healing.

[tannis]

Love and Anger was released on February 26, 1990 and made it to the number 38 in the UK Singles Chart. The lyrics are about knowing who you can trust and turn to when trouble arises, and having faith that things always work out in the end. (wiki)

Kate Bush on LOVE AND ANGER

"I do think it's a very big self-therapy for me now. The more my work coming out, and the more I think it's actually almost a process for me to try and heal myself, have a look at myself.
"I feel this is probably my most female album as well...
"Well `Love and Anger', of all the songs on the album, is really the one I know the least about. I don't really know what it's about --it's had so many different faces. But it was one of the first songs to be written, and one of the last songs to be finished. And I think all the songs on this album are about relationships."
gaffa.org/reaching/iv90_vh1.html

"Relationships revolve around love and anger. Being in love makes you very angry sometimes and there's two sides to everything. I must be honest though, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here."
"Love, Trust and Hitler"
gaffa.org/reaching/i89_tr.html

"This song! This bloody song! ... It was one of the most difficult to put together, yet the first to be written. I came back to it 18 months later and pieced it together. It doesn't really have a story. It's just me trying to write a song, ha-ha.
"Obviously the imagery you get as a child is very strong. This is about who you can or cannot confide in when there's something you can't talk about. 'If you can't tell your sister, If you can't tell a priest...' Who did I have in the lyrics? Was it sister or mother? I can't remember."
"In the Realm of the Senses" (1989)
gaffa.org/reaching/i89_nme2.html

A Paranoid personality disorder is characterised by a reluctance to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against them. They are also preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or trustworthiness of friends or associates.

[rosabelbelieve]

May 22, 2008 11:10:50 GMT tannis said:

"Relationships revolve around love and anger. Being in love makes you very angry sometimes and there's two sides to everything. I must be honest though, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here."
"Love, Trust and Hitler"
gaffa.org/reaching/i89_tr.html

I like what she says about relationships revolving around love and anger. I suppose one could say that our relationship with everything - the world, each other, nature, a higher power - is a mix of love and anger, or something like it.

"This song! This bloody song! ... It was one of the most difficult to put together, yet the first to be written. I came back to it 18 months later and pieced it together. It doesn't really have a story. It's just me trying to write a song, ha-ha.

Reminds me of the poem I'm working on now! Mustn't talk about it, though,I should just go work on it.

[tannis]

Is there so much hate for the ones we love? (RUTH)
I hated you. I loved you, too... (WH)[/i][/color]

May 23, 2008 1:40:12 GMT rosabelbelieve said:

I like what she says about relationships revolving around love and anger. I suppose one could say that our relationship with everything - the world, each other, nature, a higher power - is a mix of love and anger, or something like it.

I guess Freud would say that all relationships are fraught with love-hate ambivalence, and that the suppressed part of this ambivalence (the hate parts) gets projected onto others. And in our species-relationship with our environment, so much of our 'creation' seems to depend on destroying the planet and its natural habits. And the idea of God is no longer capable of acting as a source of any moral code.

"Karma, meaning action-reaction, governs all existence, and man is the sole creator of his circumstances and his reaction to them..."

If we control how we react, then we are sure to find more love than anger...

Good luck with the poem...

[rosabelbelieve]

I love how in Kate's work there is a real exploration of the love and anger that permeates the world we relate to everything, but also a determination, I think, to get to the bottom of this and find a true and powerful compassion, and a love that transcends to need we have for people and our own desires. A bit like in The Morning Fog, how after she's gone through all these terrible psychic hallucinations and also, I think, found out a lot about herself and the universe, the narrator says "Do you know what? I love you better now." And in Running Up That Hill, she is also searching for a way to keep the 'thunder in her heart' from hurting the person she loves. You're right, if we control how we react, there is a way to find more love than anger. And I think that if you're aware of the potential for anger and hate, it can give love much more meaning.

Thanks about the poem, as well. I have made some progress, so here's fingers crossed that it will continue.

[tannis]

LOVE & ANGER: A chirpy little number...

One of the first tracks she wrote for the album was Love and Anger. Again, the track didn't exactly write itself.
"I couldn't get the lyrics. They were one of the last things to do. I just couldn't find out what the song was about, though the tune was there. The first verse was always there, and that was the problem, because I'd already set some form of direction, but I couldn't follow through. I didn't know what I wanted to say at all. I guess I was just tying to make a song that was comforting, up tempo, and about how when things get really bad, it's alright really - 'Don't worry old bean. Someone will come and help you out.'
"The song started with a piano, and Del put a straight rhythm down. Then we got the drummer, and it stayed like that for at least a year and a half. Then I thought maybe it could be okay, so we got Dave Gilmour in. This is actually one of the more difficult songs - everyone I asked to try and play something on this track had problems. It was one of those awful tracks where either everything would sound ordinary, really MOR, or people just couldn't come to terms with it. They'd ask me what it was about, but I didn't know because I hadn't written the lyrics. Dave was great - I think he gave me a bit of a foothold there, really. At least there was a guitar that made some sense. And John (Giblin) putting the bass on - that was very important. He was one of the few people brave enough to say that he actually liked the song."
Do you give your musicians quite a free hand?
"When I don't know what's happening, yes. But that song was just so bizarre. In some ways it's a very ordinary structure compared to the other songs. I think putting the Valiha on was very important. It's a beautiful sounding instrument - it looks a bit like a Zither, and it's from Madagascar. It sounds like sunshine - it has this really happy, bubbly sound. I think that really helped to give the song a different perspective. It's a very straightforward treatment - drums, bass, guitar, piano - and I think for me it's one of the more straightforward songs on the album. A chirpy little number."
International Musician, "What Katie Did Next", Tony Horkins, December 1989
gaffa.org/reaching/i89_im.html