FEATURE:
The Alternative Closer to The Sensual World
IN THIS PHOTO: The back cover of Kate Bush’s 1989 album, The Sensual World/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s Walk Straight Down the Middle
___________
WHEN ranking the tracks from…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins
Kate Bush’s 1989 album, The Sensual World, recently, I put Walk Straight Down the Middle near the bottom. I think that it is great, though not quite as good as the other tracks. It is a song that was recorded very quickly but, that said, it is one that deserves more acclaim. I am doing some features around The Sensual World, as the album turns thirty-two on 17th October (though some sources say 16th October). Before carrying on, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides some more information about Walk Straight Down the Middle:
“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released as the B-side of the single The Sensual World. Also included as a bonus track on the tape and CD versions of the album The Sensual World. The track was based on an old backing track, originally intended as a B-side. Kate quickly wrote the lyrics and recorded the synth overdubs and vocals in a single day, using the next day for final overdubs and mixing. It was the last track to be finished for the album, created in just over 24 hours.
In 2013, 'Walk Straight Down The Middle' appeared on the B-side of the 10" single for Running Up That Hill 2012 Remix.
Cover versions
'Walk Straight Down The Middle' was covered by Matches.
Kate about 'Walk Straight Down The Middle'
It's a bit less worked on than the other tracks. It's about try not to get caught up in extremes. My mother was down the garden when the funny bits at the end were being played. She rushed in and said she'd heard some peacocks in the garden! How sweet! I can't take the song seriously now. ('Love Trust and Hitler'. Tracks (UK), November 1989)
I fancied being Captain Beefheart at that point, and it just came to me: standing out, calling for help in the middle. It just went, "BBRRRROOOOAAAAAAAAA''. It's the idea of how our fear are sometimes holding us back, and yet there's really no need to be frightened. Like 'The Fog', being scared because the water's deep, you could be drowned; but actually if you put your feet down the bottom's there and it's only waist high, so what's the problem? Just get on with it: that's what I'm trying to tell myself.
'Walk Straight Down The Middle' came together very quickly. It's about following either of two extremes, when you really want to plough this path straight down the middle. Rather than "WAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH": being thrown from one end of the spectrum to the other. I'd like to think of myself as holding the centre, whereas in fact I'm - "WAAARRRRGGGGHHHH" - taking off all the time. (Len Brown, 'In The Realm Of The Senses'. NME (UK), 7 October 1989)”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I really like Walk Straight Down the Middle. This Woman’s Work is a better album closer, though there is much to love about Walk Straight Down the Middle. The musicians on the track (drums: Charlie Morgan, bass: Eberhard Weber, synthesizer: Kate Bush) are amazing. It is a song that adds something extra to The Sensual World. Lyrically, there are so many lines that jump out. The first verse has an element of urgency and fear: “Can't move my arms/Can't move my legs/Can't say no/I can't say yes/Can't help myself/I need your help”. I think The Sensual World is an album where Bush’s lyrics are more emotional and personal than ever. Even though she has said she writes about characters more than about herself, it is hard to look beyond some of the lyrics – feeling that they are about someone else. There are some very moving lines: “But he thought he was gonna die/But he didn't/And she thought that she just couldn't cope/But she did/And we thought it would be so hard/But it wasn't, it wasn't easy, though”. Ahead of The Sensual World’s anniversary, I wanted to shed some light on a track that many Kate Bush fans might not be aware of. There is so much beauty and richness through The Sensual World. Like any Kate Bush album, the variety and depth is amazing!
I am going to end by returning to that 1989 NME interview with Len Brown. I feel Walk Straight Down the Middle signifies a slight change of direction in terms of sound/lyrical themes. Although Hounds of Love had plenty of passion, the interview notes how there was a break away from the more erotic songs she was producing early in her career:
“Having begun her career on The Kick Insider singing lines like, "Oh I need it oh oh feel it feel it my love" and "feeling of sticky love inside", and then gone on inLionheart to write a lyric like "the more I think of sex the better it gets", her reluctance to get too sensual, too fruity a decade later may seem a little strange.
But as Bush has increasingly gained control over the presentation of her music and her image during this period, stepping back from early marketing attempts to titillate (God, how they worked!) these reservations are understandable.
She claims The Sensual World contains the most "positive female energy" in her work to date and compositions like 'This Woman's Work' tend to enforce that idea.
"I think it's to do with me coming to terms with myself on different levels. In some ways, like on Hounds of Love, it was important for me to get across the sense of power in the songs that I'd associated with male energy and music. But I didn't feel that this time and I was very much wanting to express myself as a woman in my music rather than as a woman wanting to sound as powerful as a man”.
I shall end there. One of Bush’s hidden or more overlooked gems, there is so much to investigate and pour over regarding Walk Straight Down the Middle. It is a track that I have grown to love the more I hear it. It is a track that proves Kate Bush is…
ONE of the greatest songwriters ever.