From wikipedia:

Trinity was the first test of technology for a nuclear weapon. It was conducted by the United States on 16 July 1945, at a location 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, on what is now White Sands Missile Range, headquartered near Alamogordo. Trinity was a test of an implosion-design plutonium bomb. The Fat Man bomb, using the same conceptual design, was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, a few weeks later. The detonation was equivalent to the explosion of around 20 kilotons of TNT and is usually considered as the beginning of the Atomic Age…At the time of detonation, the surrounding mountains were illuminated “brighter than daytime” for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported as “being as hot as an oven” at the base camp. The observed colors of the illumination ranged from purple to green and eventually to white. The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers. The shock wave was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12 km) in height. As Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the demonstration, he later said that a line from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita came to mind:

I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.

(more…)

I fell in love with Rinfy the gypsy.
He said when I grew up he’d marry me,
Carry me away on his steed.

“Don’t worry, my baby!
Don’t die, my funny little darling!
I’m going away for a little while,
And shouldn’t be gone for very long.”

Ooh, then I really fell for Geoffrey, our gardener.
He said he’d marry me, too.
Oh, and I believed him, just like a fool.

“Don’t worry, my honey!
Don’t die, my funny little doll!
I’m going away for a little while.
Shouldn’t be gone for very long.”
(Ooh, long, long, long…)

Playing canasta in c-cold rooms,
Playing canasta in cold rooms,
Playing canasta upstairs, downstairs,
And in my lover’s…ooh…

I met a boy who took me upstairs,
Then took me in his arms and told me
I comforted him, uh-huh.

“Don’t worry, my dear,
Don’t cry, you weird little stranger.
I’m going away.
You probably won’t ever see me again.”

Oh, yes, I know, I’m always falling,
Gazing at hazy goldfish in your swimming eyes.
How could I not lie there with you?

“Don’t worry, my darling!
Don’t die, my silly little baby!
I’m going away for a little while,
And shouldn’t be gone for very long.”
(Ooh, long, long, long!)

Playing canasta in c-cold rooms,
Playing canasta in cold rooms,
Playing canasta upstairs, downstairs,
And in my lover’s…ooh…

© KaTe Bush

The quality of these songs are surprisingly good and I’m quite pleased…you can never have too much KaTe to pump through your speakers. And for some of us, even the quality isn’t enough to break the deal. I’ve got some with absolutely horrid sound quality, but no matter. It’s KaTe and that’s all that matters.

I wish I remembered where I found the file so I could post the link here, but I closed the tab too quickly.

Wait a minute. I’ve found it: The Ultimate Bootlegger’s Experience

Butterfly Kisses

Wuthering Heights (TotP 16.02.78)

The Man With The Child In His Eyes (SNL 09.12.78)

Them Heavy People (SNL 09.12.78)

Under the Ivy (Abbey Road 03.86)

Breathing (Comic Relief 04.04.86)

Do Bears (Comic Relief (04.04.86)

Running Up That Hill (Amnesty International 28.03.87)

Moving (Budokan Tokyo 06.78)

The Long and Winding Road (Japan 1978)

She’s Leaving Home (Japan 1978)

Room for the Life (Germany 05.79)

Strange Phenomena (Germany 05.79)

Violin (Germany 05.79)

In The Warm Room (Germany 05.79)

Kite (Germany 05.79)

Wuthering Heights (Germany 05.79)

The song I’m really searching out is So You Want Alchemy, but I’ll take a bootleg and thank you.

I’ve spent eighteen years of my life disliking this album to the point of insanity. There’s no good reason I can offer for this, no excuses, nothing tangible. I just didn’t like Never for Ever (circa 1980) and could have lived without it for the rest of my life. In fact, I have lived without it for quite a few years; oh, it’s been in my collection and there are a couple of songs I do like quite a lot, but NfE was never the first, second, or last KaTe album I ever chose to play. I thought of it as an aberration, an odd little detour taken before she got back on track and released Hounds of Love (1985)…yes, I know The Dreaming (1982) came between these two, but I didn’t like that one for a long time, either, save just a couple of songs (does this sound familiar?)

I’m not sure what got stuck in my craw a week ago, but I absolutely had to listen to Never for Ever. I haven’t stopped since, at least in my car and I recognize the obsession I now have for it. Obsession is definitely not too strong a word, either. For the time being, this is the only KaTe music I want to hear. Over and over and over, to the exclusion of even Rinfy the Gypsy (you weird little stranger), but not including Rocket Man (on a mixed CD with which I am also currently obsessed, but that’s another story).

I’ve got all sorts of jumbled thoughts regarding NfE being the only album KaTe could have done before The Dreaming, which many consider to be her finest work. NfE, I believe, gives the listener a good idea of where she’s going musically, but simply can’t because of limitations created by not having her own studio where she would later create incredible sounds and effects for the songs that would act as our very own passport to carry us over and even more deeply into her world, vis a vis Hounds of Love and Aerial (2005). The Sensual World and The Red Shoes are, in my opinion, pedestrian albums lacking the raw power of the three albums preceding them and the one following. There’s no one song in particular on NfE to which I can point and say, “That’s the launching pad for KaTe’s trajectory, without question,” however; each of the ten tracks on NfE play a bit in that trajectory leading to The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, and finally, Aerial, even Night Scented Stock (where there are no words, just that magnificent voice ooh-ooh-oohing and la-la-lahing without the aid of any instrument that I can discern). I’m not even sure explaining the parts each plays would be possible, at least not today. This is definitely something I’d like to explore a bit further, so consider this to be continued.

Aside from all that, the album cover itself is definitely the most interesting of all eight studio albums KaTe’s released. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

All We Ever Look For

Just look at your father

And you’ll see how you took after him.

Me, I’m just another

Like my brothers

Of my mother’s genes.

All they ever want for you

Are the things they didn’t do.

All they ever wanted–a little clue.

All they ever wanted–the truth.

All they ever wanted–a little bit of you.

All they ever wanted,

But they never did get.

The whims that we’re weeping for

Our parents would be beaten for

Leave the breast

And then the rest

And then regret you ever left.

All we’re ever looking for

Is another open door.

All we ever look for–another womb.

All we ever look for–our own tomb.

All we ever look for–ooh, la lune.

All we ever look for–a little bit of you, too.

All we ever look for,

But we never do score.

All we ever look for–a god.

All we ever look for–ooh, a drug.

All we ever look for–a great big hug.

All we ever look for–a little bit of you.

All we ever look for–a little bit of you, too.

All we ever look for,

But we never do score.

I’m still quite unclear as to how this 13-year-old KaTe song remained totally undetected by my radar until just last week…I’ve been searching up and down and sideways for it and have even pressed a couple of factory-mates into the same search. Our luck so far has been nil.

I’ve found it mentioned on many a site and many a site has the song’s lyrics. When I read the lyrics, it seemed very, very vaguely familiar, but I can chalk that up to no more than the opening lines of the song: one had been used in a previous song and another was to be used in a later song.

Can I find it for download?

Absolutely not.

This time of year is understandably difficult for me and will only continue through May, until the anniversary of my dad’s death passes for the second time. And as I did then, I’ve put myself on a pretty much exclusive aural diet of KaTe Bush, because…well, because. That’s for another post, methinks.

Although I’ve been giving some serious thought to trawling through the Strange Cousin Susan archives from spring 2006 and reposting them, I don’t think I will. It’s more than a little maudlin and would prove of no great value to me, nor to anyone else, although I’m of the mind some of my best writing was done then.

Here. Instead of that, let me reminisce very briefly on an exchange I had with my father the week before he died. He was lying in his bed, pretty much dead and gone but for the shouting, when he called me in. “Mickey Glitter, I need to write a sales order. Can you get me the form?”

This short scene plays over and over in my head and has for almost two years now. This, and a handful of other such times were the last I saw of my dad as I’d known him for thirty-five years. And as such, they are precious to me like almost nothing else in my life is. They are more precious to me than the Rolex watch, the Antarctic certificates, the Navy ribbons…certainly, memories are not tangible; they cannot be held or worn or looked at. They are, as KaTe’s song says, moments time has given as a gift to those who will survive.

But they are much more than that…no one can ever take them away and so I’ll have them for a lifetime. The watch may break. It may get lost or stolen. The pictures may be damaged somehow. The memories, although their clarity may fade over time, will always be in my head. The good memories of that last week continue to comfort me. The bad memories of that last week continue to haunt me. But regardless of comforting or haunting, I never want to lose them.

Some moments that I’ve had

Some moments of pleasure

I think about us lying

Lying on a beach somewhere

I think about us diving

Diving off a rock, into another moment

The case of George the Wipe

Oh God I can’t stop laughing

This sense of humour of mine

It isn’t funny at all

Oh but we sit up all night

Talking about it

Just being alive

It can really hurt

And these moments given

Are a gift from time

On a balcony in New York

It’s just started to snow

He meets us at the lift

Like Douglas Fairbanks

Waving his walking stick

But he isn’t well at all

The buildings of New York

Look just like mountains through the snow

Just being alive

It can really hurt

And these moments given

Are a gift from time

Just let us try

To give these moments back

To those we love

To those who will survive

And I can hear my mother saying

“Every old sock meets an old shoe”

Isn’t that a great saying?

“Every old sock meets an old shoe”

Here come the Hills of Time

Hey there Maureen,

Hey there Bubba,

Dancing down the aisle of a plane,

‘S Murph, playing his guitar refrain,

Hey there Teddy,

Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road,

Hey there Michael,

Do you really love me?

Hey there Bill,

Could you turn the lights up?

©1993 Kate Bush Music Ltd.

There’s something incredibly sexy hearing KaTe sing, “I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife.” It’s my favorite line in the song and only in this version. I could actually live without Elton John’s original, as long as I still had this.

Rocket Man
John/Taupin

She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it’s cold as hell
And there’s no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don’t understand
It’s just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man

And I think it’s gonna be a long long time…