FEATURE:
Running with the Hounds of Love
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush captured in 1985 during the Hounds of Love video shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s Ultimate, Defining Title Track
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I ran a feature not too long ago…
when I ranked Kate Bush’s title tracks. I decided, perhaps unsurprisingly, that Hounds of Love got the top honour. Although Hounds of Love is not my favourite Kate Bush album (that is 1978’s The Kick Inside), there is something about her 1985 masterpiece that means it is most people’s favourite albums of hers. Inspired and hugely impressive. At the peak of her game as a songwriter, musician, singer and producer, I can appreciate why many people consider this to be the defining Kate Bush album. I feel a title track is often the song that is the theme or standout of an album. Not always the strongest track, I guess it is the artist trying to distil the album’s themes and meaning into a song. Bush in particular has produced some incredible and varied title tracks. Although Hounds of Love is split into two – the singles on the first side and the suite, The Ninth Wave, on the second -, I kind of think of Hounds of Love as the defining cut on the album. If one wanted a clear image and sound of the album, I would point them in the direct of the eponymous song. I shall talk about the video in a minute (which Kate Bush directed) but, as the single turns thirty-six on 24th February, I wanted to explore it from a different angle. This is the one single (from four) released off Hounds of Love that underperformed.
Running Up That Hill reached number three in the U.K. It was released in August 1985 – a month before Hounds of Love came out. Arguably, there was this excitement and anticipation of an album that propelled the single up the charts. Cloudbusting came out a month after the album release and reached twenty. The Big Sky only got to thirty-seven. I am generally surprised that the singles did not fare better. Although the album was a huge chart and commercial success and penetrated the U.S. market – Kate Bush became a much bigger name there from 1985 -, I am stunned a single like Hounds of Love did not get into the top ten. The fact that the U.K. B-side was The Handsome Cabin Boy, rather than another album track like Waking the Witch or And Dream of Sheep, might account for a slightly low placing. One reason why I think Hounds of Love is the ultimate Kate Bush title track is because the video was the first she directed. She would also direct the video for The Big Sky (and several videos after that). I love that one can see Bush’s love of horror/suspense director Alfred Hitchcock in the video. Influenced by his film, The 39 Steps, 'Hitchcock' also features in the promotion (a nod to the director's famous cameo appearances in his movies).
I have some more thoughts and points about the song but, first, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia sources interviews where Bush talked about the inspiration behind one of the most important tracks from her most popular and revered album:
“The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case th hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)
When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)
In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?
Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.
But why not "three steps"?
It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)”.
Most definitely a song that should be in everyone’s list of Kate Bush’s best twenty, Hounds of Love is a song that stands out on an album not short of highlights! The video is cinematic and incredible. I love the colour palette and Bush’s confidence as a director first time around. I hear Hounds of Love played a lot on the radio, as it is a song that has connected with so many people. One of most powerful, sweeping and punchy compositions on Hounds of Love (Jonathan Williams’ cello is especially memorable), it also features some of Bush’s most captivating and astonishing lyrics. She stops you in your tracks with these lines: “I found a fox/Caught by dogs./He let me take him in my hands/His little heart/It beats so fast/And I'm ashamed of running away”. Almost thirty-six years after the single came out, I wanted to spotlight one of Kate Bush’s greatest moments. Hounds of Love’s title track still sounds so potent and moving! It is a song that catches you and grabs the heart. With an exceptional video and lyrics that are among her best, no wonder Hounds of Love is played so much. It is a song that I…
NEVER tire of.