FEATURE:
In Order of Brilliance…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Hounds of Love (1985) cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Ranking Kate Bush’s Studio Album Title Tracks
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THIS is another idea…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Lionheart (1978) cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
that I don’t think I have done before. I have ranked her album tracks before, though I don’t think I have only ranked the album title tracks. In this rundown, I am including Oh England My Lionheart as a title track – even though the album is called Lionheart. Her third studio album – aside from 2011’s Director’s Cut – is the only one without a title track. I am not sure why Never for Ever (1980) does not have a title cut. There was a song of that name recorded prior to the Never for Ever album, though it was never used. I am going to rank the remaining eight title tracks, in order of their strength and longevity. They are all terrific tracks, though there are a few that stand out and are stronger. Here is my ordering of Kate Bush’s…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: Ken McKay
MAGNIFICENT title tracks.
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8. Oh England My Lionheart
Album Release Date: 13th November, 1978
Producer: Andrew Powell (assisted by Kate Bush)
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away, you know, "ah, the wonderful England'' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like "I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just a exploration of that. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
7. The Red Shoes
Album Release Date: 2nd November, 1993
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her seventh album The Red Shoes. Also released as a single by EMI Records in the UK on 4 April 1994. Lead track of the movie The Line, The Cross and the Curve, which was presented on film festival at the time of the single's release.
Formats
'The Red Shoes' was released in the UK as a 7" single, a cassette single and two different CD-singles. The 7" single and cassette single feature the B-side track You Want Alchemy. CD-single 1 added 'Cloudbusting (Video Mix)' and This Woman's Work, and CD-single 2, released one week after the other formats, features Shoedance (see below), together with the single remix of The Big Sky and the 12" version of Running Up That Hill.
Versions
There are three versions of 'The Red Shoes': the album version, which was also used on the single released, and 'Shoedance', which is a 10 minute remix by Karl Blagan of 'The Red Shoes', featuring excerpts from dialogue from the movie The Line, The Cross & The Curve. Finally, there's the version from Bush's album Director's Cut in 2011” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
6. The Dreaming
Album Release Date: 13th September, 1982
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“We started with the drums, working to a basic Linn drum machine pattern, making them sound as tribal and deep as possible. This song had to try and convey the wide open bush, the Aborigines - it had to roll around in mud and dirt, try to become a part of the earth. "Earthy" was the word used most to explain the sounds. There was a flood of imagery sitting waiting to be painted into the song. The Aborigines move away as the digging machines move in, mining for ore and plutonium. Their sacred grounds are destroyed and their beliefs in Dreamtime grow blurred through the influence of civilization and alcohol. Beautiful people from a most ancient race are found lying in the roads and gutters. Thank God the young Australians can see what's happening.
The piano plays sparse chords, just to mark every few bars and the chord changes. With the help of one of Nick Launay's magic sounds, the piano became wide and deep, effected to the point of becoming voices in a choir. The wide open space is painted on the tape, and it's time to paint the sound that connects the humans to the earth, the dijeridu. The dijeridu took the place of the bass guitar and formed a constant drone, a hypnotic sound that seems to travel in circles.
None of us had met Rolf (Harris) before and we were very excited at the idea of working with him. He arrived with his daughter, a friend and an armful of dijeridus. He is a very warm man, full of smiles and interesting stories. I explained the subject matter of the song and we sat down and listened to the basic track a couple of times to get the feel. He picked up a dijeridu, placing one end of it right next to my ear and the other at his lips, and began to play.
I've never experienced a sound quite like it before. It was like a swarm of tiny velvet bees circling down the shaft of the dijeridu and dancing around in my ear. It made me laugh, but there was something very strange about it, something of an age a long, long time ago.
Women are never supposed to play a dijeridu, according to Aboriginal laws; in fact there is a dijeridu used for special ceremonies, and if this was ever looked upon by a woman before the ceremony could take place, she was taken away and killed, so it's not surprising that the laws were rarely disobeyed. After the ceremony, the instrument became worthless, its purpose over. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
5. 50 Words for Snow
Album Release Date: 21st November, 2011
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: Fish People
Track Information:
“Years ago I think I must have heard this idea that there were 50 words for snow in this, ah, Eskimo Land! And I just thought it was such a great idea to have so many words about one thing. It is a myth - although, as you say it may hold true in a different language - but it was just a play on the idea, that if they had that many words for snow, did we? If you start actually thinking about snow in all of its forms you can imagine that there are an awful lot of words about it. Just in our immediate language we have words like hail, slush, sleet, settling… So this was a way to try and take it into a more imaginative world. And I really wanted Stephen to read this because I wanted to have someone who had an incredibly beautiful voice but also someone with a real sense of authority when he said things. So the idea was that the words would get progressively more silly really but even when they were silly there was this idea that they would have been important, to still carry weight. And I really, really wanted him to do it and it was fantastic that he could do it. (...) I just briefly explained to him the idea of the song, more or less what I said to you really. I just said it’s our idea of 50 Words For Snow. Stephen is a lovely man but he is also an extraordinary person and an incredible actor amongst his many other talents. So really it was just trying to get the right tone which was the only thing we had to work on. He just came into the studio and we just worked through the words. And he works very quickly because he’s such an able performer. (...) I think faloop'njoompoola is one of my favourites. [laughs] (John Doran, 'A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed'. The Quietus, 2011)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
4. The Sensual World
Album Release Date: 17th October, 1989
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“The song is about someone from a book who steps out from this very black and white 2-D world into the real world. The immediate impressions was the sensuality of this world - the fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual - you know... the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand - the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that's an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. But I'm sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing. (...) I love the sound of church bells. I think they are extraordinary - such a sound of celebration. The bells were put there because originally the lyrics of the song were taken from the book Ulysses by James Joyce, the words at the end of the book by Molly Bloom, but we couldn't get permission to use the words. I tried for a long time - probably about a year - and they wouldn't let me use them, so I had to create something that sounded like those original word, had the same rhythm, the same kind of feel but obviously not being able to use them. It all kind of turned in to a pastiche of it and that's why the book character, Molly Bloom, then steps out into the real world and becomes one of us. (Roger Scott, Interview. Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
3. Aerial
Album Release Date: 7th November, 2005
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“Versions
There is only one studio version of this song.
A live version appears on the album Before The Dawn.
Performances
The song was performed live as part of Kate's Before The Dawn shows in London, 2014.
Credits
Drums: Steve Sanger
Bass: Del Palmer
Guitars: Dan McIntosh
Keyboards: Kate
Percussion: Bosco D’Oliveira” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
2. The Kick Inside
Album Release Date: 17th February, 1978
Producer: Andrew Powell
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“The song The Kick Inside, the title track, was inspired by a traditional folk song and it was an area that I wanted to explore because it's one that is really untouched and that is one of incest. There are so many songs about love, but they are always on such an obvious level. This song is about a brother and a sister who are in love, and the sister becomes pregnant by her brother. And because it is so taboo and unheard of, she kills herself in order to preserve her brother's name in the family. The actual song is in fact the suicide note. The sister is saying 'I'm doing it for you' and 'Don't worry, I'll come back to you someday.' (Self Portrait, 1978)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
1. Hounds of Love
Album Release Date: 16th September, 1985
Producer: Kate Bush
Label: EMI
Track Information:
“When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)
In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?
Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.
But why not "three steps"?
It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia