FEATURE:
It's Been Such a Long Week
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during a trip to Japan in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
Kate Bush’s In Search of Peter Pan
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I have used various features…
to explore and examine underrated Kate Bush songs. I wanted to look at a track that is from, perhaps, her most underrated album. Lionheart was released late in 1978, mere months after her debut album, The Kick Inside. I love Lionheart, and there are songs from the album that hardly ever get played. In Search of Peter Pan is one such example. I am going to come to an article that looks closely at In Search of Peter Pan. I feel it is an undervalued track that is far stronger than it has been given credit for. Before moving on, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides us a quote from Bush about In Search of Peter Pan:
“There's a song on [Lionheart] called 'In Search Of Peter Pan' and it's sorta about childhood. And the book itself is an absolutely amazing observation on paternal attitudes and the relationships between the parents - how it's reflected on the children. And I think it's a really heavy subject, you know, how a young innocence mind can be just controlled, manipulated, and they don't necessarily want it to happen that way. And it's really just a song about that. (Lionheart promo cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)”.
Apart from singles like Wow, I am not sure how many people are conscious of Lionheart. The Kick Inside gets defined by its singles; the same is true of Lionheart. Bush’s second studio album has many fine moments. I especially love the opening lyrics: “It's been such a long week/So much crying/I no longer see a future/I've been told when I get older/That I'll understand it all/But I'm not sure if I want to/Running into her arms/At the school gates/She whispers that I'm a poor kid/And Granny takes me on her knee/She tells me I'm too sensitive/She makes me sad/She makes me feel like an old man/She makes me feel like an old man”. This article analyses In Search of Peter Pan. Whilst there are criticisms, there are some interesting observations:
“Of course we have to talk about the song’s titular character. Peter Pan is effectively popular culture’s favorite anthropomorphization of adolescence. As he will never grow up, he embodies childhood as an endless state which actively revolts against growing up. Given that Bush had been writing fairly adolescent songs not too far back, it’s clear to see why she’d use Pan as a touchstone. Yet her path differs from Pan’s: in the chorus, she declares her desire to grow up and “find Peter Pan” (perhaps as some kind of star sailor) and escape from the trap of adult life.
The departure from Peter Pan is that Bush states that she will become an adult instead of just flying to Neverland. Part of being an adult to Bush is being able to enjoy childlike things. More pertinently, as a child you believe you will hold onto childish things forever, and as an adult she holds onto this belief. The culture of children is an important part of Bush’s ethos — it presents an alternative to the tedium of adulthood. She’s never let go of childhood as an ideal, letting it play a role in her work as late as Aerial.
“In Search of Peter Pan” has no shortage of adolescent agony. At the start of the song, Bush has given up and declared that she “no longer see[s]” a future. Throughout the song she sings about a child whose life has been derailed by adult interference, taking the game right out of it. Modes of escape are flights of fancy, whether it be the singer’s friend Dennis who fancies himself beautiful (a queer part of the song) or flying away to be Peter Pan. Fantasy is a refuge for Bush: when in doubt, remember your inner fantasist”.
I have a lot of love for In Search of Peter Pan. The second track on Lionheart – after the majestic Symphony in Blue -, the song has the unenviable job of being sandwiched between the two best tracks on the album (Wow is the third track). Never a B-side or a song that gets discussed too much that positively, it is definitely worth spending time with a great cut. I love the innocence and child-like nature of the lyrics, in addition to the closing words from Pinocchio: “When you wish upon a star/Makes no difference who you are/When you wish upon a star/Your dreams come true”. One of the gems from the brilliant Lionheart, In Search of Peter Pan is a track that…
DESERVES much more love.