Big Stripey Lie Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Theresa_Gionoffrio 

Cover art for Big Stripey Lie lyrics by Kate Bush

I wonder if KB is referring to Sylvia Plath's 'Tulips' in Big Stripey Lie... ?

The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat... 'Tulips' by Sylvia Plath, 1965

Oh my God it's a jungle in here You've got wild animals loose in here...

The 'wild animals' could represent a jungle of flowers, their gaping petals stretched out, "opening like the mouth of some great African cat"... Indeed, maybe the song has a clinical setting, like visiting a patient in an acute psychiatric unit... A Black-eyed Susan and A Black-eyed dog of depression... The 'big stripey lie moving Like a wavy line' could even refer to an electrocardiogram... The 'Don't want to hurt you' could represent the concern of a friend, relative or psychiatric nurse. It sounds desperate and frightening in the song because it is being heard by a desperate and frightened patient... Psychotic, Paranoid and Sunburnt...

KB: "[Big Stripey Lie] took on the shape of wandering into someone's emotional world which is jungle-like and 'wild'."

One Flew East and One Flew West And One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest...