FEATURE:
Something Like a Song
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional shot for 2011’s Director’s Cut
A Track from Each of Kate Bush’s Studio Albums That I Either Overlook or Have Gained a New Respect For
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IN this feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush promoting Hounds of Love at the London Planetarium on 9th September, 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
I am reminded of my recent run of pieces where I ranked the tracks on Kate Bush’s studio albums. I listen to all of her studio albums, though there is invariably one track from each that I have either overlooked or not listened to as much as I should – the underrated one that I have gained new respect for (it recently happened with In Search of Peter Pan from 1978’s Lionheart). As much as I love The Kick Inside and Hounds of Love, I have been listening back and realising that there is a song from each that has been slightly neglected. Maybe we have the same approach when we listen to albums or have a love for a particular artist. I guess one doesn’t necessarily listen to and love every track from every album - though there are tracks from Kate Bush’s albums I have gained new love for (and very much seen them in a new light0. Some might say that this would simply be me choosing the bottom-ranked song from my rankings list. That is not the case. It is not necessarily a song I considered to be less strong that has gained new significance. This rundown selects that single track (from each album) that I maybe like but have not heard much recently. There are also those that I dismissed or put aside I have come to become attached to. If you have your similar views regarding Kate Bush’s albums, it would be good to know what tracks you’d select. Here are my single songs from each of the ten studio albums that I have…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Tokyo, Japan in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images
LEFT to collect dust for too long.
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The Kick Inside: James and the Cold Gun
Release Date (Album): 17th February, 1978
Label: EMI
Producer: Andrew Powell
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 3
Song Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush in the first half of the Seventies and it became one of the songs performed by the KT Bush Band during their performances in the pub circuit in 1977. Brian Bath, member of the band, recalled later: " Rob got a dry ice machine from somewhere. We used that on stage for 'James And The Cold Gun' and it looked great. We had a bit of a show going! Kate did a costume change, she'd put on a bloomin' Western cowgirl dress for the second set! The theatrical thing was starting to get there." Del Palmer recalled: "She was just brilliant, she used to wear this big long white robe with coloured ribbons on or a long black dress with big flowers in her hair. She did the whole thing with the gun and [the audience] just loved it. She'd go around shooting people."
The song was recorded in the studio in 1977 and released on her debut album The Kick Inside. When she embarked on the Tour of Life in 1979, the live performance of 'James And The Cold Gun' used and enhanced elements of those original performances from 1977” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Lionheart: In Search of Peter Pan
Release Date (Album): 13th November, 1978
Label: EMI
Producers: Andrew Powell/Kate Bush (Assisted By)
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 6
Song Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush before her debut in 1978. When the album Lionheart was recorded, it was one of seven 'older' songs to be recorded. The song quotes the song 'When You Wish Upon A Star' from the classic Disney film Pinocchio.
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)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Never for Ever: Blow Away (For Bill)
Release Date (Album): 8th September, 1980
Label: EMI
Producers: Kate Bush/Jon Kelly
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 1
Song Information:
“So there's comfort for the guy in my band, as when he dies, he'll go "Hi, Jimi!" It's very tongue-in-cheek, but it's a great thought that if a musician dies, his soul will join all the other musicians and a poet will join all the Dylan Thomases and all that.
None of those people [who have had near-death experiences] are frightened by death anymore. It's almost something they're looking forward to. All of us have such a deep fear of death. It's the ultimate unknown, at the same time it's our ultimate purpose. That's what we're here for. So I thought this thing about the death-fear. I like to think I'm coming to terms with it, and other people are too. The song was really written after someone very special died.
Although the song had been formulating before and had to be written as a comfort to those people who are afraid of dying, there was also this idea of the music, energies in us that aren't physical: art, the love in people. It can't die, because where does it go? It seems really that music could carry on in radio form, radio waves... There are people who swear they can pick up symphonies from Chopin, Schubert. We're really transient, everything to do with us is transient, except for these non-physical things that we don't even control... (Kris Needs, 'Lassie'. Zigzag (UK), November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
The Dreaming: Night of the Swallow
Release Date (Album): 13th September, 1980
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 3
Song Information:
“Ever since I heard my first Irish pipe music it has been under my skin, and every time I hear the pipes, it's like someone tossing a stone in my emotional well, sending ripples down my spine. I've wanted to work with Irish music for years, but my writing has never really given me the opportunity of doing so until now. As soon as the song was written, I felt that a ceilidh band would be perfect for the choruses. The verses are about a lady who's trying to keep her man from accepting what seems to be an illegal job. He is a pilot and has been hired to fly some people into another country. No questions are to be asked, and she gets a bad feeling from the situation. But for him, the challenge is almost more exciting than the job itself, and he wants to fly away. As the fiddles, pipes and whistles start up in the choruses, he is explaining how it will be all right. He'll hide the plane high up in the clouds on a night with no moon, and he'll swoop over the water like a swallow.
Bill Whelan is the keyboard player with Planxty, and ever since Jay played me an album of theirs I have been a fan. I rang Bill and he tuned into the idea of the arrangement straight away. We sent him a cassette, and a few days later he phoned the studio and said, "Would you like to hear the arrangement I've written?"
I said I'd love to, but how?
"Well, Liam is with me now, and we could play it over the phone."
I thought how wonderful he was, and I heard him put down the phone and walk away. The cassette player started up. As the chorus began, so did this beautiful music - through the wonder of telephones it was coming live from Ireland, and it was very moving. We arranged that I would travel to Ireland with Jay and the multi-track tape, and that we would record in Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin. As the choruses began to grow, the evening drew on and the glasses of Guiness, slowly dropping in level, became like sand glasses to tell the passing of time. We missed our plane and worked through the night. By eight o'clock the next morning we were driving to the airport to return to London. I had a very precious tape tucked under my arm, and just as we were stepping onto the plane, I looked up into the sky and there were three swallows diving and chasing the flies. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Hounds of Love: The Morning Fog
Release Date (Album): 16th September, 1985
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 1
Song Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Seventh and last track of The Ninth Wave suite.
Well, that's really meant to be the rescue of the whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and weight comes light. You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the morning, and it's meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting from the rest of dense, darkness of the previous track. And although it doesn't say so, in my mind this was the song where they were rescued, where they get pulled out of the water. And it's very much a song of seeing perspective, of really, you know, of being so grateful for everything that you have, that you're never grateful of in ordinary life because you just abuse it totally. And it was also meant to be one of those kind of "thank you and goodnight" songs. You know, the little finale where everyone does a little dance and then the bow and then they leave the stage. [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
The Sensual World: Reaching Out
Release Date (Album): 17th October, 1989
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 2
Song Information:
“That was really quick, really straightforward. A walk in the park did that one for me. I really needed one more song to kind of lift the album. I was a bit worried that it was all sort of dark and down. I'd been getting into walks at that time, and just came back and sat at the piano and wrote it, words and all. I had this lovely conversation with someone around the time I was about to start writing it. They were talking about this star that exploded. I thought it was such fantastic imagery. The song was taking the whole idea of how we cling onto things that change - we're always trying to not let things change. I thought it was such a lovely image of people reaching up for a star, and this star explodes. Where's it gone? It seemed to sum it all up really. That's kind of about how you can't hold on to anything because everything is always changing and we all have such a terrible need to hold onto stuff and to keep it exactly how it is, because this is nice and we don't want it to change. But sometimes even if things aren't nice, people don't want them to change. And things do. Just look at the natural balance of things: how if you reach out for something, chances are it will pull away. And when things reach out for you, the chances are you will pull away. You know everything ebbs and flows, and you know the moon is full and then it's gone: it's just the balance of things. (...) We did a really straightforward treatment on the track; did the piano to a clicktrack, got Charlie Morgan [Elton john's drummer] to come in and do the drums, Del did the bass, and Michael Nyman came in to do the strings. I told him it had to have a sense of uplifting, and I really like his stuff - the rawness of his strings. It's a bit like a fuzzbox touch - quite 'punk'. I find that very attractive - he wrote it very quickly. I was very pleased. (Tony Horkins, 'What Katie Did Next'. International Musician, December 1989)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
The Red Shoes: You're the One
Release Date (Album): 2nd November, 1993
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 2
Song Information:
“Drums: Stuart Elliott
Bass: John Giblin
Guitar: Jeff Beck
Hammond: Gary Brooker
Vocals: Trio Bulgarka
Fender Rhodes, keyboards: Kate – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Kate about 'The Red Shoes'
I've been very affected by these last two years. They've been incredibly intense years for me. Maybe not on a work level, but a lot has happened to me. I feel I've learnt a lot – and, yes, I think [my next album] is going to be quite different… I hope the people that are waiting for it feel it's worth the wait. (BBC Radio 1 interview, 14 December 1991)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Aerial: Bertie
Release Date (Album): 7th November, 2005
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 3
Song Information:
“He's such a big part of my life so, you know, he's a very big part of my work. It's such a great thing, being able to spend as much time with him as I can. And, you know, he won't be young for very long. And already he's starting to grow up and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out on that, that I spent as much time with his as I could.
So, the idea was that he would come first, and then the record would come next, which is also one reasons why it's taken a long time (laughs). It always takes me a long time anyway, but trying to fit that in around the edges that were left over from the time that I wanted to spend with him.
It's a wonderful thing, having such a lovely son. Really, you know with a song like that, you could never be special enough from my point of view, and I wanted to try and give it an arrangement that wasn't terribly obvious, so I went for the sort of early music... (Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 3 November 2005)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Director’s Cut: Song of Solomon
Release Date (Album): 16th May, 2011
Labels: Fish People/EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 2
Song Information:
“Director's Cut
Ninth album by Kate Bush, released by Fish People on 16 May 2011. The album was written, composed and produced by Kate. It is made up of songs from her earlier albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes which have been remixed and restructured, three of which were re-recorded completely. All the lead vocals on the album and some of the backing vocals have been entirely re-recorded, with some of the songs transposed to a lower key to accommodate Bush's matured voice. Additionally, the drum tracks have been reconceived and re-recorded – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Credits (1993)
Percussion: Charlie Morgan, Stuart Elliott
Guitar: Danny McIntosh
Vocals: Trio Bulgarka
Fender Rhodes, Keyboards, Piano: Kate
Credits (2011)
Drums: Steve Gadd
Bass: John Giblin
Guitars: Dan McIntosh
Keyboards: Kate
Vocals: Trio Bulgarka
Backing vocals: Kate
Gabriel: David Crofts
Marion: Kate
Toll: Remi Butler” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
50 Words for Snow: Snowed in at Wheeler Street
Release Date (Album): 21st November, 2011
Label: Fish People
Producer: Kate Bush
Album Chart Position (U.K.): 3
Song Information:
“Kate about 'Snowed In At Wheeler Street'
The idea is that there are two lovers, two souls who keep on meeting up in different periods of time. So they meet in Ancient Rome and then they meet again walking through time. But each time something happens to tear them apart. (...) It’s like two old souls that keep on meeting up. (John Doran, 'A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed'. The Quietus, 2011)
Credits
Featured vocal: Elton John
Drums: Steve Gadd
Bass: John Giblin
Guitars: Dan McIntosh
Piano, keyboards: Kate” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia