FEATURE:
Knowledge and Happiness
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982
Kate Bush’s Sat in Your Lap at Forty
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I may do another feature…
about Kate Bush’s Sat in Your Lap. There is a lot to spotlight and recommend. To me, it was a huge shift from what she produced with 1980’s Never for Ever. Perhaps it was Bush producing solo for the first time that meant she wasn’t as constrained. Maybe she felt the need to prove herself as a producer with a first single from The Dreaming that was different to anything that came before. On an album that has some accessible moments alongside a lot of experimentation, I feel Sat in Your Lap fits in the middle. It has an unusual edge and a peculiarity that mixes with something direct and easily digestible. I love the sheer energy and drive of the track. As it turns forty on 21st June, I wanted to celebrate one of Bush’s greatest singles. Arriving over a year before The Dreaming came out (13th September, 1982), this was nothing like her previous singles of 1980, December Will Be Magic Again and Army Dreamers (Babooshka and Breathing were also released that year). This is a more intense, hypnotic and percussive-heavy song that gave people a glimpse into what direction Bush was taking for The Dreaming. I am focusing, today, more on the video. Before getting to it, here is some information from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, where Bush discusses the inspiration behind Sat in Your Lap:
“ I already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after I'd been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare. I now had a verse and a tune to go over it but only a few lyrics like "I see the people working", "I want to be a lawyer,'' and "I want to be a scholar,'' so the rest of the lyrics became "na-na-na"' or words that happened to come into my head. I had some chords for the chorus with the idea of a vocal being ad-libbed later. The rhythm box and piano were put down, and then we recorded the backing vocals. "Some say that knowledge is...'' Next we put down the lead vocal in the verses and spent a few minutes getting some lines worked out before recording the chorus voice. I saw this vocal being sung from high on a hill on a windy day. The fool on the hill, the king of the castle... "I must admit, just when I think I'm king."
The idea of the demos was to try and put everything down as quickly as possible. Next came the brass. The CS80 is still my favourite synthesizer next to the Fairlight, and as it was all that was available at the time, I started to find a brass sound. In minutes I found a brass section starting to happen, and I worked out an arrangement. We put the brass down and we were ready to mix the demo.
I was never to get that CS80 brass to sound the same again - it's always the way. At The Townhouse the same approach was taken to record the master of the track. We put down a track of the rhythm box to be replaced by drums, recording the piano at the same time. As I was producing, I would ask the engineer to put the piano sound on tape so I could refer to that for required changes. This was the quickest of all the tracks to be completed, and was also one of the few songs to remain contained on one twenty-four track tape instead of two! (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)
'Sat In Your Lap' is very much a search for knowledge. And about the kind of people who really want to have knowledge but can't be bothered to do the things that they should in order to get it. So they're sitting there saying how nice it would be to have this or to do that without really desiring to do the things it takes you to get it. And also the more you learn the more ignorant you realize you are and that you get over one wall to find an even bigger one. [Laughs] (Interview by J.J. Jackson for MTV, 1985)”.
I love the vocals and sounds on the single (Paddy Bush – bamboo sticks, backing vocals, Preston Heyman – drums, bamboo sticks, Jimmy Bain – bass guitar, Geoff Downes – CMI trumpet section, Stewart Arnold – backing vocals, Ian Bairnson – backing vocals, Gary Hurst – backing vocals), but the video is one that really stands out. Directed by Brian Wiseman, the visual representation of Bush’s music was also evolving and becoming more experimental and bolder. Not to say that her videos pre-Sat in Your Lap lack flair and cinema. I think Army Dreamers and Breathing marked a big step from the simpler videos on The Kick Inside and Lionheart. Frenetic, mad and beautiful, it was filmed quite quickly at Abbey Road Studios. Going back to the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, and we get some insight into the remarkable and memorable video:
“According to Kate, "The video was filmed over two days, one part at a video studio, the other at the audio studios. The former provided the quick, easy technical sides to be performed, the latter provided the space and presence. The large parquet floor was to be a feature, and Abbey Road's past, full of dancing and singing spirits, was to be conjured up in the present day by tapping feet to the sound of jungle drums - only to be turned into past again through the wonder of video-tape. The shots were sorted into a logical order: all long shots were audio studio, all others were video studio.
A storyboard was drawn up and was very closely worked to, being hung on the wall on days of shootings. The editing was a long, difficult job, as it was comprised of many sections which had to be edited together (just like the big musical one). The editor worked all day and into the next morning with great skill and patience, and only when someone told us did we find out it had been his birthday and he'd worked it all away. One of the exciting things about making the video was the "accessories" we used, such as the lovely costumes and props. The jerk-jacket which we used in 'Army Dreamers' was used again for a short sequence, and although there's a silver wire, it feels like flying. Out of the harness and into the light of a timeless tunnel, as a little magician's box springs to life and the room is filled with laser and skaters".
We celebrate album anniversaries, yet singles get less love when they approach anniversaries. To release the first single over a year before The Dreaming came out could have been quite risky. Clearly, Bush felt an immediacy with Sat in Your Lap and she wanted people to hear it. In 1981, there would have been a degree of expectation for Bush to keep the ball rolling and not leave too large a gap between singles. I think Sat in Your Lap might have struggled in the charts if it was released a couple of years earlier. Hitting number-eleven in the U.K., it arrived in a year where albums from Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, The Human League and Grace Jones were ruling. I especially love the video because it is a lot of fun and lodges in the mind. It was the firs visual sign that The Dreaming was going to be like nothing she had created before. I will put out one or two more features about Sat in Your Lap head of its fortieth anniversary on 21st June (though the Kate Bush website says the release date was 22nd June). I love everything on The Dreaming, though I think there is something very special and important about its first single (it was the most successful of the three singles released in the U.K. (the others being The Dreaming (forty-eight) and There Goes a Tenner (ninety-three). I was eager to give another salute to…
ONE of Kate Bush’s very best songs.