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Post by musiclover on Dec 6, 2006 9:05:44 GMT
It's amazing what Kate Bush can do with just a piano, voice and great lyrics. She truly can do it all.
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Post by tannis on Apr 30, 2008 6:19:30 GMT
Kate: The song is really about the passing of time... I like the idea of coming from this big expansive, outside world of sea and cities into, again, this very small space where, er, it's talking about a memory of my mother and this little brown jug. I always remember hearing years ago this thing about a sort of Zen approach to life, where, you would hold something in your hand, knowing that, at some point, it would break, it would no longer be there.gaffa.org/reaching/iv05_bbc_front_row.htmlA Coral Room, ushering in Kate's uncanny gift for reporting from the emotion-boggling frontier where love and grief embrace. So few artists go there. Or, more precisely, take you there. A Coral Room requires you pack a big hankie. Mojo magazineAt other points, Bush uses the familiar to personalize a painful memory. The breathtakingly gorgeous, piano-driven "A Coral Room" lifts phrases from the old drinking song "Little Brown Jug" to illustrate an anecdote about a departed mother. Kalamazoo Gazette'A Coral Room' is an epic map of the human heart.The opening lines work like a snow globe. Perhaps the snow globe that draws Citizen Kane into its memories. He remembers being sent away by his mother when it was snowing, and this leads him to remember Rosebud. As he utters "Rosebud", his dying hand falls over the side, releasing the snow globe, which breaks, shattering into a thousand pieces... See it fall...There’s a city, draped in net Fisherman net...We are taken under water to a once towered metropolis. Scuba diving among underwater ruins in Mexico... A lost ruin of time, a micro-environment, an intricate crystal structure, a coral reef, something vast and Atlantean, a city of fallen memories...
KB lowers us into the collective unconscious, as in a diving bell, and we are instructed to focus on dimmed shadows, on the mystery between light and dark. (The diving bell spider, Argyroneta aquatica, is a spider which lives entirely under water, even though it could survive on land, maintaining an air reserve in a "diving bell" constructed from silk!)And in the half light, in the half light It looks like every tower Is covered in webs...IMHO, these lines can suggest New York in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the two WTC Towers. The dust and debris, the snow globe broken...See it fall See it fall...The buildings of New York Look just like mountains through the snow...But the eternal heart continues to beat, the spider of time continues to weave, and the tapestry of life continues...Moving and glistening and rocking It’s babies in rhythm As the spider of time is climbing Over the ruins...Ruins... crashing down...The song shifts gear like a mirror turning, or the camera zooming out, or the mists unveiling in a crystal ball... There were hundreds of people living here Sails at the windows...Sails... sales... fishermen and world trade...
The clear vision is one of life, loss, catastrophe, emergency... The World Wars... 9/11... the 2004 Asian Tsunami... the social and ecological crises of the 21st century... (speedboat - marijuana, PCP, and crack combined and smoked; co-pilot - amphetamine; spider - heroin; coral - depressants) www.noslang.com/drugs/dictionary.phpAnd the speed boats flying above...Kirsty MacColl was killed by a speeding powerboat while scuba diving in Mexico on 18 December 2000. Kirsty MacColl was the daughter of dancer Jean Newlove and folk singer Ewan MacColl. She is best known with The Pogues on "Fairytale of New York", a duet with Shane MacGowan. Kirsty MacColl with The Pogues also recorded Cole Porter's Miss Otis Regrets. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrAwK9juhhY Miss otis regrets Just one of those things - The Pogues & K www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJkG2Ws1sgEPut your hand over the side of the boat What do you feel?The boat holds you up, safe above the watery unconscious ocean of feelings. You can ride above the feelings and be safe from them, but after a while you need to put your hand over the side of the boat and let go...
If the first part of the song deals with the macro, the second part deals with the micro. And by focussing on one personal grief, we focus on all distant voices, still lives... In a room filled with coral...The song plays like a photographic slide show or home cinema, weaving and conjuring up memories whose personal and intimate nature we can all feel. The family album - fishermen, seaside boats, sails and masts - history draped in the dust of time...The jug, as a vessel and metaphor for life, is full of nourishment, pleasure, pain, joy, craic, etc., and it also becomes the snow globe to a sunken city of moments and memories that are somehow preserved from the ravages of time, like hidden treasure.I hear her laughing She is standing in the kitchen As we come in the back door...KB's description of the web of loss is extremely moving. It is both macro-expansive and micro-personal. The song is all of us; and the "little spider climbing out of a broken jug" evokes the eventual coming to terms and moving on from grief to healing.
A truly outstanding piece of work! ... A Coral Room can be compared to "Atlantis" an early KB demo:Kate Bush - Atlantiswww.youtube.com/watch?v=EAamEZeYTPMIn that ocean. Wide eyed and deeper in your gaze, And bluer than the bright that's in the cave.
There is a city, Came out from you, Atlantis In ruins, sunken below the waves
But in the city, Where there is no one. What's the point of being free, eh? When there is nothing there to tie me down, Oh, no more here.
The bluest city, Covered in coral and coral, On sea chests, And sealed Jamaician tales.
There is nobody, To count the soldiering meandering whales, With a shoal of herring amongst the sails.
But in the city, Where there is no one. What's the point of being free, eh? When there is nothing there to tie me down, Oh, no more here.
There is the city Atlantis.The most famous of the early prophets of earth changes and Atlantis was Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), a medium, mystic, and founder of the Theosophical Society. She prophesied: "That the periodical sinking and reappearance of mighty continents, now called Atlantean and Lemurian by modern writers, is no fiction will be demonstrated. It is only in the twentieth century that portions, if not the whole, of the present work will be vindicated."The Little Brown Jug 1958 the Clark Sisterswww.youtube.com/watch?v=NhsuTFYbYl8
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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 30, 2008 10:02:40 GMT
This song is somewhat sad and very moving. It's one of two of my favourites on this album, and certainly a de-stressor.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on May 2, 2008 21:51:52 GMT
Kate: The song is really about the passing of time... I like the idea of coming from this big expansive, outside world of sea and cities into, again, this very small space where, er, it's talking about a memory of my mother and this little brown jug. I always remember hearing years ago this thing about a sort of Zen approach to life, where, you would hold something in your hand, knowing that, at some point, it would break, it would no longer be there.gaffa.org/reaching/iv05_bbc_front_row.html Wonderful quote. Interesting information on the diving bell spider. A Coral Room really does lower us into the collective unconscious of of mysterious memories, sorrows, and emotions - the lost Atlantis of the innermost heart. And water, in Kate's work, has always seemed to me to have the symbolism of the spiritual source that gives and takes and renews all of life. Beautifully put. The spider, I've always thought, in this song, represents time, and fate, if you will, the universal weaver, and the universal mother, who is the source of both death and life, which are ultimately both at the core of her tapestry. The boat to ferry the hero(ine) over the waters of the river of the underworld... Exactly. I agree very much with this - the 'little brown jug' is the finite, mortal, vessel of this mysterious life, filled with both sorrow and joy. This jug is inevitably broken by the 'ravages of time.' But the spider of time is gliding over the ruins... It is such a beautiful song. And it's very rare that a piece can capture the pure emotion of an awful loss and at the same time provide a more transcendent view of the endless web of existence. Particularly insightful analysis, Tannis, and sorry I took so long to comment.
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Post by tannis on May 2, 2008 23:16:58 GMT
Yes, I read about the diving bell spider when checking up on diving bell. Fascinating! But I agree that the spider in this song does represent time and fate, the universal weaver and the universal mother; and the 'little brown jug' is the finite, mortal, vessel inevitably broken by the 'ravages of time.' I also read that one of Kate's hobbies is scuba diving, and that she recorded A Coral Room in candle light. And the song really does shine a light in the darkness, providing, as you say, a more transcendent view of the endless web of existence... And water, in Kate's work, has always seemed to me to have the symbolism of the spiritual source that gives and takes and renews all of life. Very perceptive, Rosa...Kate Bush: "I was always impressed by the sea, I think it's completely stunning. I'd love to be part of the sea. Wonderful."gaffa.org/reaching/i93_lt1.html
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Sheila
Moving
Life is a minestrone served up with parmesan cheese.
Posts: 701
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Post by Sheila on Nov 22, 2008 9:10:52 GMT
I had a hard time relating to this song because of my personal relationship with my mother, but I have a confession to make. I was watching of all things The Beverly Hillbillies and they were in the car singing, "Little Brown jug oh I love thee...Ho ho ho hee hee hee". The way they were singing it almost made me cry. I had a new understanding of the song which I thought Hannah Bush made up. I imagined myself as Kate breaking that jug and "A Coral Room" hit me in the soft spot. (Kate is a heavy person!) With the years--the appreciation grows deeper.
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Post by tannis on Nov 23, 2008 16:27:32 GMT
^ Nice post. John Wilson: You have, so many times in the past in songs, sung almost as a child. You've sung about your parents, your father's appeared on your records, the last record was dedicated to your mother...I mean, and people have talked about the childlike quality of your voice. Is this a record that is made by a mother, rather than a child? Kate: Yes, I think it probably is. John Wilson: I mean, has the process of motherhood, bringing up a son, that has changed the way you compose and write and perform, do you think? Kate: Yes, I think it has. And I think also, as well as being a mother, when you lose your mother you're no longer a little girl anymore. And so, I've had a lot of things that have changed me over the years, from the last album to this. John Wilson: Now, I think on the last record there's a great...I mean, some of the songs, heartbreakingly sad... on "The Red Shoes". And "The Sensual World" was a real exploration/celebration of love and sex, but very dark, very often, those songs... almost like a claustrophobic feeling. And on this record, on "Aerial", as the title suggests there is a sense of freedom, I think, and space. You feel like you’re in a wider, open space making this record, because there wasn't the pressure, because you weren't in the public eye, because you had, in effect, disappeared for a while. Kate: Yeah, I think in a lot of ways, I got my life back, and… it's very important to me as a creative person, as a writer, which is what I think of myself as. BBC4, "Front Row", November 4, 2005gaffa.org/reaching/iv05_bbc_front_row.html"Little Brown Jug" is a song written in 1869 by Joseph Winner. It was originally a drinking song. It remained well known as a folk song into the early 20th century. Like many songs which make reference to alcoholic beverages, it enjoyed new popularity during the Prohibition era. In 1939 bandleader Glenn Miller recorded and broadcast his swing instrumental arrangement of the tune with great success, and the number became one of the best known orchestrations of the American Big Band era. The song's lyrics are about a man and his wife and their hard life due to alcoholism; however, the tone and tune are bright and cheerful.Original lyrics
Me and my wife live all alone In a little log hut we call our own; She loves gin and I love rum, And don't we have a lot of fun!
(Chorus) Ha, ha, ha, you and me, Little brown jug, don't I love thee! Ha, ha, ha, you and me, Little brown jug, don't I love thee!
When I go toiling on the farm I take the little jug under my arm; Place it under a shady tree, Little brown jug, 'tis you and me. (Chorus) ’Tis you that makes me friends and foes, ’Tis you that makes me wear old clothes; But, seeing you're so near my nose, Tip her up and down she goes. (Chorus) If all the folks in Adam's race Were gathered together in one place, I'd let them go without a tear Before I'd part from you, my dear. (Chorus) If I'd a cow that gave such milk, I'd dress her in the finest silk; Feed her up on oats and hay, And milk her twenty times a day. (Chorus) I bought a cow from Farmer Jones, And she was nothing but skin and bones; I fed her up as fine as silk, She jumped the fence and strained her milk. (Chorus) And when I die don't bury me at all, Just pickle my bones in alcohol; Put a bottle o' booze at my head and feet And then I know that I will keep. (Chorus) The rose is red, my nose is too, The violet's blue and so are you; And yet, I guess, before I stop, We'd better take another drop. (Chorus)
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Post by tannis on Jul 22, 2009 11:27:30 GMT
He said, "Just put your feet down child, 'Cause you're all grown up now."
"Just put your feet down child, The water is only waist high. I'll let go of you gently, Then you can swim to me."I can hear her singing “Little brown jug don’t I love thee” “Little brown jug don’t I love thee” Ho ho ho, hee hee hee
Put your hand over the side of the boat Put your hand over the side of the boat What do you feel?
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Post by tannis on Sept 13, 2009 18:27:28 GMT
As the spider of time is climbing Over the ruins...
TIME from Masks and farewells, Harindranath Chattopadhyaya, 1961
The spider of time weaves with uncanny ease Its web which catches colours from the sun While into it we enter, one by one, Creatures of sad divided loyalties, When, caught in the invisible subtle tangle We struggle for a while and death begins To shroud our wings, like to dead flies we dangle, While that cold spider spins and spins and spins Around us and about us, soon and late: Callous spectators put it down to fate !
THE SEEKERS from A bruise of ashes: collected poems, 1940-1992, Carlos A. Angeles (1993, p. 11)
Working with the looms of mind, Splendored and sacramental, Each in his own separate kind Weaves the fabric integral.
Not with the active drone of bees But non-the-less dramatic As the circling 'round of trees In arbor time, florid, static.
Nor is passiveness too patly Drawn into the reined-in pace: 'Tis the working about so surely Into the labyrinthian maze
Where, seeking, they find the Minotaur. Truth is something they must stay And so must slay the monster In the quickest, pure way,
While the spider of time keeps webbing Subtle strings for the unwary, Too silver for the denying Eyes of the bleary-eyed quarry.
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Post by tannis on Sept 25, 2009 1:27:26 GMT
THE TRADE OF THE TIDE by Katherine Buell Nye
A roll — and a curling roar, A swish — and the shifting sands, And now on the glistening shore Lie treasures from many lands.
A wilted flower tip From the island, out in the bay, And the hull of a whittled ship Lost by some child at play.
A pebble that came from the deep, Where scarlet sea-flowers bloom And green, scaly mermaidens sleep In the cool of a coral room.
From a land of ice and snow. From a land of tangled glades. From west of the sun's dying glow And from east of dawn's opal shades,
From mountains towering high, From plains that are low and wide, These wares of the earth we buy In the ceaseless trade of the tide.
The Smith College monthly, Volume 21, Smith College, 1913.
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Post by gothicaljordan on Jul 20, 2010 2:05:41 GMT
Hmm, I really don't want to get too much into the metaphorical aspects of this song (although TRUST ME, I could ). I would like to say that this song makes me cry EVERY SINGLE FRICKING TIME. I once sat and listened to it nonstop on a 3 hour plane ride, as a sort of test, and it still didn't get old, and it still made me tear up each time (and confused the poor guy next to me on the plane). I think it's the combination of the beautiful simplicity of the piano, Kate's voice, and the fact that she did it for her mother. As an homage, and her way of coping. It's truly lovely. It almost feels to me like this song is some sort of peek into some private place in Kate's heart and soul. Now I feel like listening to it, so excuse me, I need to go grab some tissues
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