“There are darknesses in life and there are lights; you are one of the lights.”
IMAGINATION NIGHTMARES
WATER
&
How KATE BUSH & THE NINTH WAVE Became the Soundtrack of the Phantasmagoria
Nightmares & the Human Mind
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We are experts at frightening ourselves.
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The night journey through trauma is:
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Psychologically draining
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Spiritually exhausting
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Morning becomes coveted light.
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Dracula, like the suite, explores:
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The interior nightmare
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The soul under siege
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The longing for restoration
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When Running Up That Hill surged back into cultural consciousness through Stranger Things, it did more than soundtrack for a scene.
It became salvation.
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The Origin
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Released in 1985, Hounds of Love is widely regarded as Kate Bush’s seminal album.
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The second side features an epic song suite titled The Ninth Wave.
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It tells the story of a woman lost at sea, enduring a night of psychological and spiritual nightmares as she waits for rescue.
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The concept side unfolds like a mythic odyssey, cinematic in scope and emotional depth.
“And they're absolutely terrified, and they're completely alone at the mercy of their imagination, which again, I personally find such a terrifying thing, the power of one’s own imagination being let loose on something like that.”
--Kate Bush on And Dream of Sheep, (Richard Skinner, ‘Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love’. BBC Radio 1, 26 January 1992)
‘WAVE AFTER WAVE,
EACH MIGHTIER THAN THE LAST
TILL LAST,
A NINTH ONE GATHERING HALF
THE DEEP,
AND FULL OF VOICES,
SLOWLY ROSE AND PLUNGED
ROARING,
AND ALL THE WAVE WAS IN FLAME.’ –
‘The Coming of Arthur’
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Theatrical Impact
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Kate described the suite as “a movie playing out” in her mind.
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In 2016, she staged the piece during her Before the Dawn concerts.
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In many ways, the imagination she exhibited, invited me to step into a world that brought mythos and pathos to the stage
The References are Not Accidental
They are Reverential
These are not samples.
They are not borrowed gestures.
They are paeans.
The Ninth Wave could not be further from Dracula in subject matter.
Yet it helped define my Dracula.
