KATE BUSH

My Commentary

First of all I am a big fan of Kate Bush and her music. When I was going through a particularly rough time in my life Kate's music really made me feel good. Since this is my favorite song page, again there were many Kate songs I had to leave off. To mention a few I could have used "Running Up That Hill", Army Dreamers" "Cloudbusting (-based on the Peter Reich book which is based on a true story) and The Sensual World. I choose Experiment IV for not only the music but the lyrics about what happens when someone creates something good and the military take it over for their own purposes, which the video clearly shows. This song sums up my feelings on this subject. Basically the song and video deals with the insidious way in which innocent research can be corrupted by malicious government/military officials and the fact that we may be tampering with things we cannot control.

KATE BUSH bounces back into action this week with a new single for EMI and the promise of a compilation LP and video next month. The single is called "Experiment IV" and is apparently about Kate's nightmare vision of a future where music usually a force for good, is harnessed by scientists as a weapon of destruction. Anyway, the video was directed by Kate herself and features two well-known character actors Peter Vaughan and Richard Vernon, plus two of the new wave of British comedians: Dawn French (from the Comic Strip) and Hugh Laurie (Saturday Live).

An old man (Vernon) enters a small shop called 'Music for Pleasure' which leads into a secret research lab. where he is met by a white-coated scientist (French) and taken to a small room filled with sound equipment controlled by another scientist (Laurie). They then go to see a military officer (Vernon) who shows them a file marked 'For the attention of Prof. Jerry Coe' and asks for 'a sound that can kill'.

The Prof. is visibly upset but proceeds to record various sounds which are then played back to a man strapped up in a chair with electrodes all over him. The sounds cause a ghostly apparition of a girl with long blonde hair (Kate) to be generated, who floats around the guy before transmogrifying into a nightmarish ghoul-like spectre. At this, the Prof. attempts to switch off the machine but the creature breaks out causing everyone to drop down dead (through fear, insanity ?). The military man is then seen being brought tea by a uniformed woman (Kate) who also transmutes into the creature - with the resulting demise of said officer. The film closes with the scene around the music shop being cordoned off and 'prohibited' signs being erected by a military man in a van. As the van drives off it stops to pick up a girl hitch-hiking (Kate) who turns to camera, winks and puts her finger to her mouth - still frame closes.

The special effects are good but not over-done and the 'creature' is a truly gruesome thing. The songs message comes across well in the video and the overall effect is quite disturbing. Yet the final shot leaves just a hint that Kate is also paying an acknowledgement to such films as 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. In addition, Kate seems to be suggesting that she/the creature will only be wreaking havoc on those who create evil and not on the innocent i.e. us - her audience, since she is taking us into her confidence with the wink and the shush gesture.

The fact that the Prof. is called Jerry Coe would seem an obvious pun on Jericho - whose walls came tumbling down at the sound of trumpets (if I have got my biblical facts right) - or does anyone know of a real Jerry Coe?

"'Experiment IV' originated in a story that Kate heard about a scientist in France who built a giant steam powered whistle to assess the effects of the sound. The effect was simple -- it killed him and a number of people in the surrounding area. That area had to be cordoned off and the public kept out until the device powering the whistle ran out of fuel.

The next happening was a nightmare, where scientists engaged in benign research into the effects of sound had their work perverted by the military, who wanted a sound that would kill.

This concept is, however, no fantasy. The 'sound cannon' has been chased by defense establishments across the world. A European version of the idea was indeed known as the 'Jericho Trumpet', after the Old Testament prophet's exploits with the walls of the celebrated city. There is current research both in the US and in the USSR on sonic waves and disturbance patterns to destroy property and kill people."

"I bet my mum's gonna give me a little toy" or"I get blasts from too many instruments"

I've been noticing a theme of science in the last few songs you had out. Cloudbusting was an experiment that went very well, but Experiment IV was one that want wrong. But in both cases the scientists were sympathetic characters, but they were frustrated and manipulated. Is that what you think about scientists?

"I don't think it's always what I think about scientists, but I think they are fascinating in that so often they're trying to create something that they consider positive, productive and very much something that would help mankind, but so often along the way those good intentions end up being used, particularly by other people, for completely the opposite reasons. Particularly experiments that end up being used by the military, things like the atom bomb. I can see that perhaps when the guy was originally playing with that idea, he had no idea where he'd end up, and that I'm sure that he wouldn't have the evil intentions in his head initially. He was so caught up, so obsessed with the pure level of the science that he didn't actually realize how it could be used."

What do you think about scientific experimentation? Are there limits to the things that people should be working on?

"I think that's very much part of the fascination, is that people have to do that, that's what human beings are about--discovering things, and perhaps the problem is that they're normally always connected by forces that do not have that same kind of creative curiosity. The consequences, that's the problem; the consequences are quite often hindsight, rather than on the way."

"I consider music a really positive force, it's something that is there to help people, to make them happy, to make them think. So many wonderful things, music therapy...It's a very positive energy and there's something incredibly beautiful about music. And the thought of people using sound in such a negative way--and there are definitely sonic experiments that go on, that are used by the military--it's so obscene. The irony of using something that's so beautiful, in a way, to actually kill people rather than help them, I find fascinating."

A lot of your songs and videos are filled with frightening or disquieting images. Are you an uneasy person?

"I think anyone that has any kind of creative outlet is uneasy, and that's what makes them need to express themselves. I think all human beings are uneasy on some level. How can you not be when we don't really know what we're doing here and what we're meant to do with it, it's the continual questioning going on."