FEATURE:
Two Souls Divided Through Time
50 Words for Snow’s Snowed in at Wheeler Street
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I want to do a couple of additional features…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow
about Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow, as the album turns nine on 21st November. This is the last studio album Bush has put out, and many wonder when she might put out her eleventh studio album. I am going to highlight a particular song from the album but, before then, it is worth remarking how incredible 2011 was for Bush. Aerial arrived in 2005, and that was her first album in twelve years. There was a six-year gap until Director’s Cut arrived in the summer of 2011, and many mused before then whether Aerial was a brief return before Bush retired. She put out Director’s Cut so that she could strip back and re-record tracks from two previous albums, The Sensual World, and The Red Shoes, that she wasn’t completely happy with. Because 50 Words for Snow is a wintery album, Bush had to release the album before the end of the year, so she set herself the challenge of getting two albums out quite quickly! In 1978, she released two albums – The Kick Inside, and Lionheart -, but I think 2011 was different as I sort of think of Bush being more on her on in 2011. I know that is not true, but it is clear she had her hands full, and I can imagine there were days when recording for Director’s Cut was overlapping with 50 Words for Snow!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for Director’s Cut (2011)/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)
She said in interviews how her head was all over the place as to which album she was promoting, and I think one of the reasons why she gave relatively few interviews for Director’s Cut is because she had another album coming and did not want to get confused which album she was promoting. Bush spoke with John Wilson to promote Director’s Cut in 2011, and she revealed how a ‘guest vocalist’ was coming for a new song – that is the artist and song I will come to soon. It is amazing that Kate Bush managed to put out two albums in a year; given the fact they are both so different, 50 Words for Snow is incredibly focused and unaffected by a heavy workload. Even though the album has seven tracks, the album lasts sixty-five minutes, and there is some of Bush’s most accomplished compositions throughout. I am coming to my focus soon but, before then, I want to mention reviews. Aerial got some phenomenal love in 2005 and, though Director’s Cut got more mixed feedback – as she was reworking older songs, there was always going to be people who felt it sacrilege or they would compare the old and new versions -, 50 Words for Snow got the most positive reviews since The Sensual World in 1989 – actually, one might need to go back to Hounds of Love in 1985 to compare the wave of affection she received!
There were very few who had a bad way to say about 50 Words for Snow. In their assessment, this is what The Guardian wrote:
“But in one sense, these peculiarities aren't really that peculiar, given that this is an album by Bush. She has form in releasing Christmas records, thanks to 1980's December Will Be Magic Again, on which she imagined herself falling softly from the sky on a winter's evening. She does it again here on opener Snowflake, although anyone looking for evidence of her artistic development might note that 30 years ago she employed her bug-eyed Heeeath-CLIFF! voice and plonking lyrical references to Bing Crosby and "old St Nicholas up the chimney" to conjure the requisite sense of wonder. Today, she gets there far more successfully using only a gently insistent piano figure, soft flurries of strings and percussion and the voice of her son Bertie.
No, the really peculiar thing is that 50 Words for Snow is the second album in little over six months from a woman who took six years to make its predecessor and 12 to make the one before that. If it's perhaps stretching it to say you can tell it's been made quickly – no one is ever going to call an album that features Lake Tahoe's operatic duet between a tenor and a counter-tenor a rough-and-ready lo-fi experience – it certainly feels more intuitive than, say, Aerial, on which a lot of time and effort had clearly been expended in the pursuit of effortlessness. For all the subtle beauty of the orchestrations, there's an organic, live feel, the sense of musicians huddled together in a room, not something that's happened on a Bush album before.
That aside, 50 Words for Snow is extraordinary business as usual for Bush, meaning it’s packed with the kind of ideas you can’t imagine anyone else in rock having. Taking notions that look entirely daft on paper and rendering them into astonishing music is very much Bush’s signature move. There’s something utterly inscrutable and unknowable about how she does it that has nothing to do with her famous aversion to publicity. Better not to worry, to just listen to an album that, like the weather it celebrates, gets under your skin and into your bones”.
Every Kate Bush album is very different but, on several of her albums, she sort of delivers a theme and suite of songs. Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave has a distinct context and concept, as does Aerial’s second disc, A Sky of Honey. Whereas that was more to do with the light and beauty of a single day, 50 Words for Snow changes the seasonal palette and sound direction – it is a colder album (in terms of themes), yet Aerial, and 50 Words for Snow allow for more space and less traditional song structures; both have a lot of weather and the outdoors being described - they are performed in a gorgeous and symphonic manner. When they reviewed the album, Pitchfork made some great observations:
“While much of 50 Words for Snow conjures a whited-out, dream-like state of disbelief, it's important to note that Bush does everything in her power to make all the shadowy phantoms here feel real. Her best music, this album included, has the effect of putting one in the kind of treasured, child-like space-- not so much innocent as open to imagination-- that never gets old. "I have a theory that there are parts of our mental worlds that are still based around the age between five and eight, and we just kind of pretend to be grown-up," she recently told The Independent.
PHOTO CREDIT: @thebeardbe/Unsplash
"Our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we're children, and if you're lucky enough to... hang onto who you are, you do have that at your core for the rest of your life." Snow isn't a blissful retreat to simpler times, though. It's fraught with endings, loss, quiet-- adult things. This is more than pure fantasy. When faced with her unlikely guest on "Misty", Bush pinches herself: "Should be a dream, but I'm not sleepy".
Each song on 50 Words for Snow has its own tale and quality, but I like the fact that the album features some very well-known people contributing vocals. Andy Fairweather-Low provides backing vocals on the album’s single, Wild Man, whereas Stephen Fry guests on 50 Words for Snow’s title track. The most prominent and high-profile person to appear on the album is Elton John on Snowed in at Wheeler Street. Kate Bush said the following about the track:
“The idea is that there are two lovers, two souls who keep on meeting up in different periods of time. So they meet in Ancient Rome and then they meet again walking through time. But each time something happens to tear them apart. (...) It’s like two old souls that keep on meeting up. (John Doran, 'A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed'. The Quietus, 2011)”.
I think Snowed in at Wheeler Street is one of the most underrated tracks on 50 Words for Snow, and Bush combines seamlessly with Elton John. It was a case of John not wanting to hear a demo or know much about the song before he turned up to record. I can imagine him arriving at Kate Bush’s house and the two of them delivering this very powerful song out together.
Bush has said how Elton John is one of her heroes and how she grew up listening to his music. John, in return, has been affected by Bush’s music. He attributes her duet with Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up, as a moment that saved his life, and the two are good friends – Bush attended Elton John’s wedding to David Furnish in 2014. She would have been considering working with Elton John for years, and I think Snowed in at Wheeler Street is a perfect song for them. John’s voice is lower than normal – something Bush really loved -, and the two share verses and take lead at alternate moments. I love the opening verse where the two are together: “Excuse me I'm sorry to bother you/But don't I know you?/There's just something about you/Haven't we met before?/We've been in love forever”. I like this story of two lovers missing one another through time and there being these near-misses. There are various vivid scenes where Bush and John see one another, but my favourite is the fourth verse (that Bush sings): “Then we met in '42/But we were on different sides/I hid you under my bed/But they took you away”. There are a lot of words and thoughts through the track. It would be easy for it to wander and lose its impact, but I think it keeps the listener immersed to the end.
IN THIS PHOTO: Sir Elton John/PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Gorman
The chorus where Bush and John sing together - “I don't want to lose you/I don't want to lose you/I don't want to lose you again” – is heartbreaking and impassioned, and it is a shame that Bush didn’t make a film for this song as her and John would have been great in it. Although there are some slightly less sharp and deep lyrics - “9/11 in New York/I took your photograph/I still have your smiling face in a heart-shaped frame” -, I do like the time-straddling element and whether they actually end up together. Snowed in at Wheeler Street is a typical Kate Bush song in terms of its imaginative and unconventional nature, and Bush’s piano is superb throughout the song – she must have been nervous to hear what John thought about her playing, given that he is so synonymous with the instrument! 50 Words for Snow mixes Chamber Pop and Jazz together; the songs stretch and allow the composition to grow more than we heard on some of her older albums. I really love how Bush was less slavish to traditional song length and there are these longer tracks on 50 Words for Snow. I think Elton John and her together is a highlight, and it was a partnership both of them would have been eager to do. I hope they get together again on future projects, as the chemistry is amazing! Before 50 Words for Snow’s ninth anniversary, I will do another song-specific feature – perhaps focusing on the title track and Stephen Fry’s part!
I want to bring in an interview from The Quietus, where Bush was asked about working with Elton John:
“Now, ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’ features the vocal talents of Sir Elton John and I was wondering, was the track written with him in mind?
KB: Yes. Absolutely
How long have you known him?
KB: Oooh. I’ve known him for a long time. He used to be one of my greatest musical heroes. He was such an inspiration to me when I was starting to write songs. I just adored him. I suppose at that time a lot of the well-known performers and writers were quite guitar based but he could play really hot piano. And I’ve always loved his stuff. I’ve always been a fan so I kind of wrote the song with him in mind. And I’m just blown away by his performance on it. Don’t you think it’s great?
Yeah, he really gives it his all.
KB: He sings with pure emotion.
It’s good to hear him belting it out. Back when you were 13 years old and practicing playing the organ in your parents’ house and just starting to write your own songs and lyrics, what was the Elton John album that inspired you?
KB: Well, I love them all and I worked my way through them but my absolute favourite was Madman Across The Water. I just loved that record. I loved the songs on it and the production. It’s a really beautiful album.
Now please correct me if I’m wrong but this song, in my mind at least, seems to hark back to ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ because it’s about a fantasy – almost idealised - lover.
KB: No it isn’t. It’s nothing to do with that at all. The idea is that there are two lovers, two souls who keep on meeting up in different periods of time. So they meet in Ancient Rome and then they meet again walking through time. But each time something happens to tear them apart.
So it’s more like a metaphysical love story between two spirits who span time by the occupation of different bodies?
KB: Yeah. It’s like two old souls that keep on meeting up”.
It is sort of a pity that this song was not part of the set for Bush’s residency, Before the Dawn, in 2014. Only one song from 50 Words for Snow was performed, Among Angels, and that was only included in the encore. I can appreciate how she wanted to focus on the conceptual sides from Hounds of Love, and Aerial, but I think people would have loved to have heard Kate Bush and Elton John duet on the stage for Snowed in at Wheeler Street! There is no telling whether there will be another Kate Bush album and whether it will be similar in terms of 50 Words for Snow when it comes to song structures and the overall sound. I really love 50 Words for Snow and there is not a weak song on the album. Among the highlights is the powerful and evocative Snowed in at Wheeler Street. It is a beautiful story of two old, lost souls…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush (from the book, KATE: Inside the Rainbow)
FROM two firm friends.