Ahhh you are done with the appetizers. The real album begins from this point onward. The next song, A Coral Room, is possibly her best work as a lyricist.
And now on to what this album is all about. Starting with a personal, metaforically beautiful and remeniscent song about the family house and her deceased mother. From that point onward we go to part two of the doublealbum as elsewhere mentioned. I guess you will not attack it in one go? May I then suggest to split it into three parts: Epilogue (an intro to) - Prologue - An Architect's Dream, as the first. Then followed by A Painter's Link - Sunset - Aerial Tal - Somewhere In Between, as the second part. Then the finale with Nocturn - Aerial? These breaks come quite naturally. The second part consist of two songs and two interludes. I can't wait...❤
Such a fantastic song. It was rumoured at the time that it would be the albums second single, but a second single never happened. Love the fuzzy and kinda wonky sounding synths on this especially.
I love the sound of this track and Kate's rather eccentric vocal. Is she trying to sound like an old person in the verses with her discordant jumps in pitch - it's certainly a very deliberate affectation that she abandons in the choruses. Jeanne d'Arc is a character that Kate has been interested in since she was a teenager, when she wrote a song called Where Are the Lionhearts? which contains verse where she describes looking on the mirror and seeing Jeanne. The maid of Orléans first came to prominence at the age of 19, was always a controversial figure of precocious intellect and personal courage, who was ultimately punished for wearing a man's armour by being burnt at the stake. Thankfully, not a fate that befell Kate, at least not literally, but I think she felt that she was treated differently in the music business and the media because she was a woman, and therefore either sexually objectified or intellectually patronised by contemporary critics and journalists. Certainly she never really seemed to enjoy interviews, and wasn't interested in playing the game of being a pop star. More than 30 years between her two Jeanne dArc songs, so she's thought about her a lot. I'm so glad you're reacting to Aerial. You haven't waited 12 years since finishing the red shoes, so you may not fully appreciate the near hysterical excitement of anticipation her fans felt when a double album was announced in 2005. I really love it, and think it's up there with Hounds of Love. Although that's not a universal consensus, they're simply wrong. I think you must be on to the Coral Room next, which is one of her most personal songs, at the piano as you might expect, but it also has a sweeping cinematic quality, and is gorgeously played and sung. Them you are onto Disc 2, a Sea of Honey. It's another song cycle, like The Ninth Wave on Hounds of Love, so ideally taken in a single sitting. The songs describe the passage of an idyllic summer's day and night, slowly building to a thrilling and euphoric climax - you feel like you've been at an all night rave and done some acid by the time the sun comes up; and there's also a terrible pun on ariel, as in television ariel, as opposed to the sprite that embodies the wonders of the Isle in Shakespeare's The Tempest, which gives the album it's name. Kids today, they barely know what a television ariel is! Oops, there goes a tenner!
Hi matt and yep this is about Joan of Arc. Enjoyed your joke, but of course the greatest Joan of Arc joke is from 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:" "Ted, who was Joan of Arc?" "Noah's wife." But as to the song while it is not very high on my personal list of Kate songs, I do have to say that I enjoy the live version of it from 'Before the Dawn' much, much more. And I guess it is also a good example of something that Tori Amos once said about her. Observing just how many Kate Bush songs have one word titles, she said that even though you never really know what she is going to do with them, she uses the freedom of that one word title to often end up almost inventing a new music language. I do like the lyric about Joan never wearing a ring on her finger - she famously won a court case after an attempt was made to have her marry a local peasant, but then she also never became a cloistered "bride of Christ" married to him as it were, and then again one the charges laid against her at her trial was that she had suppressed her femininity and thereby was guilty of blasphemy (some things only change by degree for independent women). Thanks again.
Hahaha, that's the reference I was making too! Jane Wiedlin plays Joan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. But I had forgotten about that "Noah's Wife" exchange, so funny. And cheers for all the info as usual, Tommy.
Still wrapping my head around this album. It's all new to me.
This one and 50 words for snow are the only albums that had to grow on me. I was an instant fan of all the rest.
The live version of Joanni on Before the Dawn is very good.
Such a great album. My favorite. Pity you can't just sit back and soak it all in a once.
Ahhh you are done with the appetizers. The real album begins from this point onward. The next song, A Coral Room, is possibly her best work as a lyricist.
And now on to what this album is all about. Starting with a personal, metaforically beautiful and remeniscent song about the family house and her deceased mother. From that point onward we go to part two of the doublealbum as elsewhere mentioned. I guess you will not attack it in one go? May I then suggest to split it into three parts: Epilogue (an intro to) - Prologue - An Architect's Dream, as the first. Then followed by A Painter's Link - Sunset - Aerial Tal - Somewhere In Between, as the second part. Then the finale with Nocturn - Aerial? These breaks come quite naturally.
The second part consist of two songs and two interludes.
I can't wait...❤
One of my favs! Must react to the live version 😊
Such a fantastic song. It was rumoured at the time that it would be the albums second single, but a second single never happened. Love the fuzzy and kinda wonky sounding synths on this especially.
You got it Matt ! Joanni = Joan of Arc. Cheers !
Dude, now that you've heard all her music, you need to go back and listen with headphones. Pink Floyd and Kate Bush require headphones 😉
I love the sound of this track and Kate's rather eccentric vocal. Is she trying to sound like an old person in the verses with her discordant jumps in pitch - it's certainly a very deliberate affectation that she abandons in the choruses.
Jeanne d'Arc is a character that Kate has been interested in since she was a teenager, when she wrote a song called Where Are the Lionhearts? which contains verse where she describes looking on the mirror and seeing Jeanne. The maid of Orléans first came to prominence at the age of 19, was always a controversial figure of precocious intellect and personal courage, who was ultimately punished for wearing a man's armour by being burnt at the stake. Thankfully, not a fate that befell Kate, at least not literally, but I think she felt that she was treated differently in the music business and the media because she was a woman, and therefore either sexually objectified or intellectually patronised by contemporary critics and journalists. Certainly she never really seemed to enjoy interviews, and wasn't interested in playing the game of being a pop star. More than 30 years between her two Jeanne dArc songs, so she's thought about her a lot.
I'm so glad you're reacting to Aerial. You haven't waited 12 years since finishing the red shoes, so you may not fully appreciate the near hysterical excitement of anticipation her fans felt when a double album was announced in 2005. I really love it, and think it's up there with Hounds of Love. Although that's not a universal consensus, they're simply wrong.
I think you must be on to the Coral Room next, which is one of her most personal songs, at the piano as you might expect, but it also has a sweeping cinematic quality, and is gorgeously played and sung.
Them you are onto Disc 2, a Sea of Honey. It's another song cycle, like The Ninth Wave on Hounds of Love, so ideally taken in a single sitting. The songs describe the passage of an idyllic summer's day and night, slowly building to a thrilling and euphoric climax - you feel like you've been at an all night rave and done some acid by the time the sun comes up; and there's also a terrible pun on ariel, as in television ariel, as opposed to the sprite that embodies the wonders of the Isle in Shakespeare's The Tempest, which gives the album it's name. Kids today, they barely know what a television ariel is! Oops, there goes a tenner!
Hi matt and yep this is about Joan of Arc. Enjoyed your joke, but of course the greatest Joan of Arc joke is from 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure:"
"Ted, who was Joan of Arc?"
"Noah's wife."
But as to the song while it is not very high on my personal list of Kate songs, I do have to say that I enjoy the live version of it from 'Before the Dawn' much, much more. And I guess it is also a good example of something that Tori Amos once said about her. Observing just how many Kate Bush songs have one word titles, she said that even though you never really know what she is going to do with them, she uses the freedom of that one word title to often end up almost inventing a new music language.
I do like the lyric about Joan never wearing a ring on her finger - she famously won a court case after an attempt was made to have her marry a local peasant, but then she also never became a cloistered "bride of Christ" married to him as it were, and then again one the charges laid against her at her trial was that she had suppressed her femininity and thereby was guilty of blasphemy (some things only change by degree for independent women).
Thanks again.
Hahaha, that's the reference I was making too! Jane Wiedlin plays Joan in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. But I had forgotten about that "Noah's Wife" exchange, so funny. And cheers for all the info as usual, Tommy.
Yes, this is certainly Jean d'Arc that is the subject of this song. Once again, Kate takes an unusual subject and creates beauty from it.
Not my favourite Bush era, yet always original 😊, especially the final part of the song 👌