FEATURE:
The Snow Is Coming…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s Director’s Cut
Kate Bush in 2011
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I feel like I have discussed Kate Bush and the fact…
that 1978 and 2011 have parallels. Both years saw her release two albums. In 1978, it was her debut album, The Kick Inside, and its follow-up, Lionheart. In 2011, she put out Director’s Cut…then came 50 Words for Snow. I am writing this feature because Director’s Cut turns ten next month. It is an album where Bush reworked songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. I think that, if anything, Bush was a little more pushed in 2011 than 1978. She put out two albums within about six months of one another! Although 1978 was a frantic years where she barely had chance to rest, I think that there is something about Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow that is more complex and hard work. The former is an album where she had to rework old songs. That may sound simply, yet it is not as simple as doing a new version of those songs. Bush stripped back the tracks and reworked them. It was almost like doing a new album from scratch. There are those who question whether it was necessary to rework those songs and put out Director’s Cut. I think that any Kate Bush album is a great thing and, if Director’s Cut was not essential and among her best, it was a chance for her to correct songs that she felt were not at their best originally. Bush also set up her Fish People label at the time. Director’s Cut arrived on that label and EMI – who had released every album prior to Director’s Cut. It was obviously important to get Director’s Cut out and sort of deal with ‘old’ material before putting anything new into the world.
I am going to bring in a review for Director’s Cut and an interview before moving onto 50 Words for Snow. On Director’s Cut, Bush didn’t have that many other musicians playing with her. Her brother, Paddy, was there as you’d expect. Her other half, Danny McIntosh, was also there, as was Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker and her son, Albert McIntosh. A few other people were involved. Compare that to 1993’s The Red Shoes or even 2005’s Aerial and it is a smaller crew. I guess the main thing was re-recording the vocals and having a slightly stripped-back sound. Even so, it would have taken a while to make sure the songs sounded as she had hoped. After all, releasing an album where certain songs are ‘improved’ would have been futile if she were not satisfied with the results. Nobody was really expecting a couple of albums from Bush six years after the double album, Aerial. It is clear that she had new music brewing, though she also wanted to clear the decks and redo some songs that she was not entirely happy with. I have speculated whether you could do the same with songs from even earlier in her career. It is unlikely, although I would be interested to hear how she re-versioned some songs from Never for Ever or The Dreaming! Although some felt that it was a bit sacrilegious redoing some great songs from two of her previous albums, Director’s Cut received a lot of praise.
This is what AllMusic observed in their review:
“During her early career, Kate Bush released albums regularly despite her reputation as a perfectionist in the studio. Her first five were released within seven years. After The Hounds of Love in 1985, however, the breaks between got longer: The Sensual World appeared in 1989 and The Red Shoes in 1993. Then, nothing before Aerial, a double album issued in 2005. It's taken six more years to get The Director's Cut, an album whose material isn't new, though its presentation is. Four of this set's 11 tracks first appeared on The Sensual World, while the other seven come from The Red Shoes. Bush's reasons for re-recording these songs is a mystery. She does have her own world-class recording studio, and given the sounds here, she's kept up with technology. Some of these songs are merely tweaked, and pleasantly so, while others are radically altered. The two most glaring examples are "Flower of the Mountain" (previously known as "The Sensual World") and "This Woman's Work." The former intended to use Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's novel Ulysses as its lyric; Bush was refused permission by his estate. That decision was eventually reversed; hence she re-recorded the originally intended lyrics. And while the arrangement is similar, there are added layers of synth and percussion. Her voice is absent the wails and hiccupy gasps of her youthful incarnation.
These have been replaced by somewhat huskier, even more luxuriant and elegant tones. On the latter song, the arrangement of a full band and Michael Nyman's strings are replaced by a sparse, reverbed electric piano which pans between speakers. This skeletal arrangement frames Bush's more prominent vocal which has grown into these lyrics and inhabits them in full: their regrets, disappointments, and heartbreaks with real acceptance. She lets that voice rip on "Lilly," supported by a tougher, punchier bassline, skittering guitar efx, and a hypnotic drum loop. Bush's son Bertie makes an appearance as the voice of the computer (with Auto-Tune) on "Deeper Understanding." On "RubberBand Girl," Bush pays homage to the Rolling Stones' opening riff from "Street Fighting Man" in all its garagey glory (which one suspects was always there and has now been uncovered). The experience of The Director's Cut, encountering all this familiar material in its new dressing, is more than occasionally unsettling, but simultaneously, it is deeply engaging and satisfying”.
Before coming to 50 Words for Snow, I want to source from an interview Bush conducted in 2011. Speaking with Interview Magazine, she explained why she wanted to take Director’s Cut on:
“EHRLICH: It’s funny. I’d think revisiting those songs would almost be like looking at old photographs or reading old love letters from a long time ago, because as a songwriter, the emotions that you’re tapping into are the most primal, raw, and immediate ones. Was it strange to step into the emotional clothing you had worn 20 years ago and see how it fit and wonder, Who is this person?
BUSH: Yeah, it was. At first, it was quite difficult, and, at a couple of points, I nearly gave up the whole process. I found that by just slightly lowering the key of most of the songs, suddenly it kind of gave me a way in, because my voice is just lower now. So that helped me to step back into it. And although they were old songs, it all started to feel very much like a new process and, in a lot of ways, ended up feeling like I was just making a new album—it’s just that the material was already written. When I listen to it now, it feels like a new record to me.
EHRLICH: Why did you decide to re-record existing material rather than do something new, or just release the old versions remixed, or whatever?
BUSH: Well, I really didn’t see it as a substitute for a greatest hits package, but it was something I’d wanted to do for a few years. I guess I just kind of felt like there were songs on those two albums [The Sensual World and The Red Shoes (1993)] that were quite interesting but that they could really benefit from having new life breathed into them. I don’t really listen to my old stuff, but on occasion, I would either hear a track on the radio or a friend might play me one, and there was generally a bit of an edgy sound to it, which was mainly due to the digital equipment that we were using, which was state of the art at the time—and I think everyone felt pressured to be working that way. But I still remain a huge fan of analog. So there were elements of the production that I felt were either a little bit dated or a bit cluttered. So what I wanted to do was empty them out and let the songs breathe more”.
Not only is Director’s Cut coming up for its tenth anniversary; it is almost a decade since Kate Bush put out 50 Words for Snow. In November 2011, we were not ready for a second Bush album in a year! She knew that she wanted to put out her second album of that year before the end of the winter as she would have had to have held it back to the following winter otherwise – what with the snowy themes, it wouldn’t have sounded right to put it out in the spring! Though she could have released it early in 2012, I think that she knew from the start that she wanted these two albums out in 2011. The first album entirely released on her Fish People label, she had no timescales or any big input from EMI. A completely different entity to Director’s Cut, Bush would have been working on both albums alongside one another. There was this overlap where she had material for her tenth studio album; at the same time, she was putting the final touches on Director’s Cut. I can only imagine the scenes in the Bush household as 50 Words for Snow was coming together! It must have been tense trying to get everything ready for release. Whereas Director’s Cut was quite bare because the songs were intended to be a bit less cluttered than they were on the original albums, 50 Words for Snow had a deceptive bareness. I think the compositions are gorgeous and beautiful, yet they are also quite intricate and full at the same time. Again, to switch headspace and moods so quickly is quite a skill - and it must have proven tricky!
In terms of personnel, things were fairly tight again. The only returning musician – apart from her son and other half – was Steve Gadd on percussion. I wonder whether Paddy Bush would have been offered a part? I suppose 50 Words for Snow’s sound and reliance on guitar, piano and percussion meant that there was not a lot for him to do! I think that 50 Words for Snow is one of Bush’s best albums. It received huge critical kudos. Maybe the experience of stripping songs for Director’s Cut naturally led Bush to create something fairly similar for her next album. In this review, The Guardian were keen to show some love:
“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.
Meanwhile, Fry's is merely the latest unlikely guest appearance – Bush has previously employed Lenny Henry, Rolf Harris (twice) and the late animal imitator Percy Edwards, the latter to make sheep noises on the title track of 1982's The Dreaming. Equally, Fairweather Low is not the first person called upon to pretend to be someone else on a Bush album, although she usually takes that upon herself, doing impersonations to prove the point: Elvis on Aerial's King of the Mountain, a gorblimey bank robber on There Goes a Tenner. Finally, in song at least, Bush has always displayed a remarkably omnivorous sexual appetite: long before the Yeti and old Snow Balls showed up, her lustful gaze had variously fixed on Adolf Hitler, a baby and Harry Houdini.
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”.
Bush did not provide that much press for Director’s Cut. I guess, as the album is her reworking older songs, there was not to much to say regarding the songs’ origins and meaning – as we all pretty much knew all of that already. That was not the case with 50 Words for Snow. Between radio interviews and press chats, Bush was very generous with her time! I suppose, as she had put out two albums in a year, she was eager to discuss her latest work. In 2014, The Quietus published a 2011 interview where John Doran chatted with her about 50 Words for Snow:
“So Aerial is full of images of clear skies, still water, warm days and it’s full of the bustle of family life and an easy domesticity. 50 Words For Snow is a similarly beautiful album but there is a chill to it - it lacks the warmth of its predecessor. I wondered if it represented another switch from an autobiographical to a narrative song writing approach?
KB: Yeah, I think it’s much more a kind of narrative story-telling piece. I think one of the things I was playing with on the first three tracks was trying to allow the song structure to evolve the story telling process itself; so that it’s not just squashed into three or four minutes, so I could just let the story unfold.
I’ve only heard the album today so I can’t say I’m completely aware of every nuance but I have picked out a few narrative strands. Would it be fair enough to say that it starts with a birth and ends with a death?
KB: No, not at all. Not to my mind anyway. It may start with a birth but it’s the birth of a snowflake which takes its journey from the clouds to the ground or to this person’s hand. But it’s not really a conceptual piece; it’s more that the songs are loosely held together with this thread of snow.
Fair play. Now some of your fans may have been dismayed to read that there were only seven songs on the album but they should be reassured at this point that the album is 65 minutes long, which makes for fairly long tracks. How long did it take you to write these songs and in the course of writing them did you discard a lot of material?
KB: This has been quite an easy record to make actually and it’s been quite a quick process. And it’s been a lot of fun to make because the process was uninterrupted. What was really nice for me was I did it straight off the back of Director’s Cut, which was a really intense record to make. When I finished it I went straight into making this so I was very much still in that focussed space; still in that kind of studio mentality. And also there was a sense of elation that suddenly I was working from scratch and writing songs from scratch and the freedom that comes with that.
Had you always wanted to do 50 Words For Snow or were you just on a roll after Director’s Cut?
KB: No, they were both records that I’d wanted to do for some time. But obviously I had to get Director’s Cut done before I could start this one... Well, I guess I could have waited until next year but this record had to come out at this time of year, it isn’t the sort of thing I could have put it out in the summer obviously.
Did the snow theme come from an epiphany or a particular grain or idea? Was there one particular day when you happened to be in the snow…
KB: No. I don’t think there was much snow going on through the writing of this… it was more to do with my memories of snow I suppose and the exploration of the images that come with it.
Have you worked with Andy Fairweather Low before, the [Amen Corner] vocalist who presumably plays the role of the hirsute gentleman of the mountains?
KB: [laughing] Hirsute? Well, no, Andy doesn’t play the hirsute beastie, he’s one of the people on the expedition into the Himalayas. But I think that Andy just has one of the greatest voices. I just love his voice. When I wrote the song I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get Andy to sing on this song because he sounds great.’ Which I think he does. He’s just got a fantastic voice.
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?
I love the way out of the fifty words that you come up with for snow, without a bit of digging round I wouldn’t have been able to tell you which words were real, which were made up, which were partially true and which were obscure, archaic or foreign. I know that the whole idea of Eskimos having 50 words for snow is false but at the same time I do know that the Sami people of Lapland do actually have hundreds of words for snow. But from your point of view where did the idea for such a beautiful and weird song come from?
KB: Well, I’m really pleased you like it. 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?
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
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 will leave things there. I was thinking about Kate Bush and 2011 because, on 5th April, Director’s Cut’s Deeper Understanding turned ten. Releasing only one singe from each album (Wild Man was the single from 50 Words for Snow), Bush was keen for people to listen to the albums as a whole – she also only put out one single, King of the Mountain, from 2005’s Aerial. Props to her for not only putting out two albums in 2011; both albums are terrific and completely different – perhaps not something one can say about her two albums from 1978. Although nobody could have predicted it, Kate Bush fans were treated to…
TWO brilliant records in one year!