FEATURE:
“That Cloud, That Cloud/Looks Like Ireland!”
The Development and Brilliance of Kate Bush’s The Big Sky
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NOT that I need a reason…
but there are a few that has motivated me to write this feature. Not only, as I have said, is Hounds of Love approaching its thirty-fifth anniversary – in September -, but I am fascinated in the idea of Kate Bush’s singles and why many of them did not chart higher. I will not go into too much depth – as I have already written about this topic – but The Big Sky is a classic case of a fantastic single not getting its just dues. As Hounds of Love reached the top spot in the album charts, I wonder why the singles did not do better. Running Up That Hill hit number-three, and none of the singles after that hit as high. Cloudbusting went to twenty; Hounds of Love reached sixteen, whilst The Big Sky only got to thirty-seven. Maybe it was a sense that, as The Big Sky was the fourth single from Hounds of Love, people knew the song and it was familiar and people did not feel the need to get the single. It is a shame because, even now, not that many people select The Big Sky as a highlight of Hounds of Love. I saw a social media post on BBC Radio 6 Music that asked what people’s favourite track from Hounds of Love was – it was connected to as rebroadcast of a Richard Skinner interview with Kate Bush where she discussed Hounds of Love.
Lots of people selected the album’s second side, The Ninth Wave, and that is a fascinating result; I will need to reexplore that in the coming weeks. When it came to the singles on the first side (and Mother Stands for Comfort), The Big Sky was rarely picked! Maybe few people have heard it on the radio – I have not heard it played in many years -, and, to me, the song is the best thing from a wonderous album! With fantastic B-sides, Not This Time, and The Morning Fog (on the 12" only), The Big Sky deserved a lot more love and chart success than it received when it was released on 28th April, 1986. There is so much to unpack when it comes to The Big Sky. Directed by Bush herself, it was filmed on 19th March at Elstree Film Studios. The visuals for the video are spectacular! This was a period when Kate Bush was delivering these incredible, cinematic videos, and this was Bush’s second directorial outing follow Hounds of Love. She had already adopted her own style but, in terms of concepts, the two videos are very different. For The Big Sky, we see Bush adopt a variety of guises as she watches the skies and the clouds passing by. From a sailor/pirate to her wearing a cool jumpsuit, there is an eclectic and large cast that dances and moves alongside her, including air pilots and Superman! The video is a real feast, and we see a studio audience in the video that consisted of fans/followers of the HomeGround fanzine that was operating at the time – two coaches took the fans to set, where they would appear in a fantastic video!
The Big Sky is a track that took a long time to get together. Not to say everything on Hounds of Love was completed quickly, but there were no songs that took as long to realise and coalesce as The Big Sky. Listen to the finished version and it is a big song. The chorus is uplifting and swelling, and there is a lot going on. I get a feeling the lyrics came together quicker than the rest of the song, which must have started life very differently. As a side note: grab a copy of the HomeGround book and you can read about the shoot of the video and how much fun (and hard work at times) it was to put together, and the number of people involved! I wish there were demos online of the songs from Hounds of Love, as it would be illuminating to see how the song began and what the first few versions sounded like. Maybe Bush did not record too many takes prior to entering the studio, and it as just a case of her working through the song in stages at home. Listening to The Big Sky, and it is not a surprise that it took a lot of negotiation, experimentation and time to realise. Although the song’s musicians – including her brother Paddy Bush on didgeridoo – help realise this incredible vision, I think it is Bush herself that delivers the most stunning results.
Her vocal performance on the song is one of her all-time finest, and the final seconds – where she delivers these incredible screams – is exhilarating! You hear the song and cannot imagine any stress: Bush sounds completely free, organic, and fresh. Bush has talked about the song a number of times, and it is clear that The Big Sky was a problem child of Hounds of Love. This articles from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia sources a couple of interviews where Bush talked about The Big Sky’s issues:
“'The Big Sky' was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I'm writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)
'The Big Sky' gave me terrible trouble, really, just as a song. I mean, you definitely do have relationships with some songs, and we had a lot of trouble getting on together and it was just one of those songs that kept changing - at one point every week - and, um...It was just a matter of trying to pin it down. Because it's not often that I've written a song like that: when you come up with something that can literally take you to so many different tangents, so many different forms of the same song, that you just end up not knowing where you are with it”.
In September, Hounds of Love will get a lot of honour and coverage to celebrate thirty-five years. Although a lot of focus will be on the biggest singles – Running Up That Hill, and Cloudbusting -, and the brilliant second side, The Ninth Wave, I feel The Big Sky deserves some fresh investigation. It is a brilliant Pop song, and I feel it is the jewel of Hounds of Love. Even though the song did not chart too high in 1986, that is no reflection on its quality and appeal. I do feel more radio stations need to play the track as, when Hounds of Love’s songs are featured on radio, it is often Hounds of Love, Running Up That Hill/Running Up That (A Deal with God), and Cloudbusting that are played – maybe And Dream of Sheep gets played from The Ninth Wave, but what about Waking the Witch, Jig of Life, or Hello Earth?! It is a shame that Bush’s most-celebrated and treasured album is defined by a few songs, and gems such as The Big Sky rarely make it onto playlists. From its gleeful and hugely memorable video, to the rumbling chorus and those brilliant screams at the end, The Big Sky is in my top-five Kate Bush songs, and I wanted to write about as it is overlooked. I feel many people should check out the song before Hounds of Love’s anniversary. I am glad Bush stuck with the song and didn’t scrap it, as she could easily have brought Under the Ivy (the B-side for Running Up That Hill) in as track three. Even though Under the Ivy is quite tender and passionate, and The Big Sky keeps the momentum rolling before the more haunted and tense Mother Stands for Comfort, Bush was in no small supply of great tracks at that time! The Big Sky might have started as a stormy and cloudy struggle, but it ended up a warm, bright and…
BRILLIANT masterpiece of a song.