FEATURE:
By the Cover of Darkness
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Janette Beckman
Kate Bush’s Interpretation of Lord of the Reedy River
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WHEN I did a feature…
about Kate Bush’s B-sides, rarer tracks and gems, I did look at Lord of the Reedy River then. I want to go into a bit more depth, as it is a cover version – I don’t think her interpretative qualities are highlighted enough! One of my favourite B-sides/covers is this pearl. It was recorded in May/June 1981 at Townhouse Studios, London as the B-side to Sat in Your Lap. That single is forty later in the year, so I felt it was important to discuss its very different-sounding B-side. This article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides more information:
“Song written by Donovan Leitch. Originally recorded by Donovan, it was released on his 1971 studio album 'H.M.S. Donovan'. Kate Bush covered the song on the B-side of her 1981 single Sat In Your Lap.
Kate about 'Lord Of The Reedy River'
I've always wanted to do one of his songs because I've admired his music and his voice for years. I decided to do this song and through a coincidence it started happening. Someone asked me what I was doing for the B side while we were watching a Crystal Gayle show on TV. I was telling them I was going to do this Donovan song and all of a sudden Crystal Gayle said "...and now my very special guest is Donovan" and you know we hadn't seen him on TV for years and years. It was really like it was right. (...) And he came into the studio and did some backing vocals which is really great because I've always wanted to work with him. (Sally James, Almost Legendary Pop Interviews, cop. 1981. ISBN 090600828X”.
I am a big fan of Kate Bush’s B-sides. I think it shows as much curiosity and variety as her studio tracks. I have argued why people do not play the B-sides. I know many have been put onto a remastered album that was released a few years back, but I think there is so much brilliance in her B-sides and covers – that is before you have even got to the music we are all much more familiar with! I love Lord of the Reedy River, as Bush’s voice sound so still and emotional. It is a beautiful performance without much backing at all. One places themselves by a river or out in the open air. One is powerless to let the song swim over them! I will draw things to a close in a bit. Before then, I want to source from an article on the Songs of Orgonon website regarding Lord of the Reedy River. Some interesting observations were made:
“And yet the song works as a unit of Bush’s Dreaming era. The sensuous, place-centered ethos of “Lord of the Reedy River” is the sort of thing Bush explores throughout her four albums we’ve read about. The mythical aspect of Bush’s work has never departed, nor has her tendency to explore complex subjects through a perspective of searing childlike simplicity (one of the most useful critical tools for exploring the endemic truths of myth). Simplicity isn’t inherently equivalent to reductivism — simple truths have fractal implications. Certainly “Lord of the Reedy River” is both unostentatious and unnerving. Creeping into the senses through such channels of voice and harmony is as erotic as folk songs get.
In keeping with Bush’s explorations of psychological emancipation, “Lord of the Reedy River” fits in with Bush’s recent musings on transformations and desire. Who amongst us doesn’t at some point get so horny they turn into a swan? (I’ve read your posts, Kate Bush Forums.) It’s a treatment of childhood fantasy as a realization of deep-rooted desires.
Bush niftily makes the song hers. She appears to be the only performer on the track, whose only instrumentation appears to be Bush’s Fairlight. Bush’s vocal is soft and throaty at once — she recorded it by the Townhouse’s disused swimming pool so her voice could “reflect” the water. Perhaps most crucial to the cover’s functionality is Bush’s change of pronouns from third person to first person — “she fell in love with a swan” becomes “I fell in love with a swan.” The result is Kate Bush singing about getting topped by a swan, the sort of surreal psychosexuality that appears in her later snowman-fucking song “Misty.” Nonetheless, Bush’s cover makes it feel like Leda’s story has come full circle, shaping her narrative into a love story of the sublime and the authorial presence of a woman”.
I will leave it there. I wanted to spotlight a Kate Bush song that not many people have heard. I think it is among her most beautiful and haunting vocal performances. It is a stunning thing and, if you have not heard it, go and check it out. Lord of the Reedy River demonstrates how broad Bush was as an artist (and still is). You listen to the song, close your eyes and imagine yourself with her…
IN a very special place.