FEATURE:
Present and Modern Love
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush and David Bowie
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I think I have written about…
PHOTO CREDIT: Mick Rock
Kate Bush and her relationship with David Bowie - and the effect he had on her music. Sadly, Bush and Bowie never worked together on any songs. It would have been magnificent to hear them come together for a piece of music! I have recently written about Kate Bush and Paul McCartney and how, through the years, the two have met. I hope that they get opportunity to collaborate before too long. One reason why I wanted to come back to David Bowie is because he was so important to her. Bush grew up around a lot of different music, and she had a wide array of tastes. When Bowie died in 2016, Bush paid brief but loving tribute to an artist that definitely impacted her music:
“David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him”.
I have a few more features to come that take from Tom Doyle’s new book, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. It is a fascinating new biography of the wonderful Kate Bush. I am going to write about early songs, Wuthering Heights, and a couple of other things before putting the book to bed. It is such a revealing read. There are a couple of chapters where Bowie is mentioned.
At an age where Bush wrote the magnificent The Man with the Child in His Eyes (that appeared on her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside), a then-thirteen-year-old in 1972 was lying in the bath listening to Bowie. His latest song, Starman was playing. Bowie, in 1972, was seen as a bit of a flop and one-hit wonder (for Space Oddity). Little did people know that he would soon become an icon and one of the most innovative and loved artists of his generation! For Bush, there was an instant appeal. As I have said before, David Bowie does not really get a lot of credit when it comes to Kate Bush and her music. Of course, Bush is an original and does not wear too many of her influences too heavily. I think that Bowie and his early music was hugely influential when it comes to a young Kate Bush (or Cathy as she was then) and her fearlessness and exploration. She would write about love, but there was something more ambitious, unusual and Bowie-esque in many of her songs. As it is just over fifty years since Bush saw Bowie on Top of the Pops – performing Starman on 6th July, 1972 -, I wanted to return to him. Of course, in January, we mark two sad occasions. On 8th January, it would have been Bowie’s seventy-sixth birthday. On 10th, it will be seven years since he died. Bowie’s influence is still being felt today. As Tom Doyle writes in his book, and as Bush wrote for a Bowie MOJO special in 2002, Bowie struck her as so theatrical and unusual. What was he wearing? Was it a dress?! “His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the sacred space reserved solely for my greatest love, Elton John”. I think seeing Bowie on her wall as a pin-up and icon was motivational.
I can imagine early songs and material on The Kick Inside being affected by Bowie and his career. By then (1977), Bowie was on a different plain and one of the most recognisable artists in the world. It is interesting that her two idols, John and Bowie, would not get along and have this odd relationship. It was the subject of space travel that caused friction. Bowie felt John’s 1972 song, Rocket Man (which Kate Bush covered), was a pale pastiche of 1969’s Space Oddity. John and Bowie did meet in Los Angeles, but not having much in common, it was a tense affair! If Bush was more influenced by Elton John’s music than David Bowie’s (maybe John’s affiliation and love of piano was a deciding factor), I feel she took a lot from Bowie in terms of his dress, stage manner and songwriting diversity and originality. Maybe a teenage Kate Bush was not engaged in the music rivalry and fall-out. An odd cold war between two very different artists, she could love them independently without choosing sides. A pivotal moment occurred on 3rd July, 1973. This was the final gig for one of one Bowie’s alter egos, Ziggy Stardust. Many might have assumed this was Bowie retiring from music, but it was him retiring this incarnation. A few weeks short of her fifteenth birthday, Bush was in attendance (with Del Palmer, her future boyfriend, band members and engineer). That gig was at the Hammersmith Odeon. I don’t think it is a coincidence that this was the venue Bush performed the final dates of her run of shows, The Tour of Life in 1979. It is also the place where she held her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn (which had been renamed the Eventim Apollo by that time).
A member of the Sex Pistols, Steve Jones, stole some of Bowie and his band’s equipment earlier than morning - no doubt encouraged and emboldened by alcohol. Nobody in the audience on 3rd July, 1973 were aware of the announcement Bowie would make regarding the death of Ziggy Stardust. This must have hit Bush hard, as I can see parallels in terms of the way both were seen as unusual. Even if you cannot compare them too heavily, Bowie was undeniably an important role model and artists for the teenage Bush. Unaware of what was the come next, she would have been crestfallen and deeply saddened to think that a musician she looked up to might not play again! Bowie was crying when he delivered the news – so too was Cathy Bush, not sure of what was happening. So many of Bush’s early songs and creative bursts were propelled by David Bowie. A song which made it into the studio in 1975 but was not released on an album, Humming, started in 1973. The year she fell for David Bowie and was at a historic gig, she opened the song with the words “Oh, Davy”. That song started life as Maybe. It was professionally recorded in ’75, yet Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour – who helped to discover Kate Bush and introduced her to producer Andrew Powell (who produced her first two album -, recorded it at East Wickham Farm, Bush’s family home, two years prior.
From here, Bush would work with Gilmour and he would help ensure that she was brought into the studio to record her debut album (one cannot forget the fact that Ricky Hopper tipped Gilmour off to Bush’s abilities and emerging talent). By the time Humming/Maybe got rid of the ‘Davy’ reference in 1975, it is clear that she was speaking about David Bowie. He compelled her to write, even if he was not necessarily at its heart. In terms of the sound and overall vibe, Tom Doyle notes that it is probably closer to Elton John than Bowie. Regardless, Bowie’s genius and unconventional look and music impinged on Bush’s own creativity and ambitions. The 1975 Bowie-nodding song was played on Radio 1 in 1979 but, aside from that, it is not widely known. Bush included it on The Other Sides, and it is one of the great ‘lost’ tracks. There were a couple of times where Bush and Bowie. Although they sadly never got to the studio, there were encounters. Although the date is not known for sure, when recording at Abbey Road Studios in the 1980s – possible whilst working on Never for Ever (1980) -, Bush saw Bowie in another room and said a shy ‘hello’. Having to leave the room and collect her breath, it shows the magnetism and importance he played! Such a huge artist as Bush was by then, she was humbled and awed by Bowie. I think, right through the 1980s, she was looking at his past and present work for guidance. There were aspects of Bowie that definitely resonated and were absorbed into her consciousness. Even if the two are very different artists, Bowie’s reinventions, the fact he made every album different, and explored uncharted territory and subjects is something you can detect in Bush’s work.
PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
In 1994, at the Flowers East gallery in Hackney, the two crossed paths again. It is unclear how this meeting went and whether there was much interaction, but I can imagine Bush was still struck by Bowie, even if they were both at different points of her career. This was a year after she released The Red Shoes (and would not release another studio album until 2005); Bowie put out the patchy The Buddha of Suburbia in November 1993. This private event at the gallery saw celebrities contribute their own artwork, of which Bush offered two sea-themed works. The following morning from the event, Bowie and Brian Eno appeared at the gallery and were interviewed for GMTV. Bowie actually loved Bush’s pieces. He intended to make a bid, but something happened and he didn’t. Bush’s artwork sort of referenced her 1985 masterpiece, The Ninth Wave. From Hounds of Love, perhaps Bowie got the connection or was a fan of someone being lost at sea. In 1976, Bowie starred in the film, The Man Who Fell to Earth. In it, Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) is an alien who has come to Earth in search of water to save his home planet. Aided by lawyer Oliver Farnsworth (Buck Henry), Thomas uses his knowledge of advanced technology to create profitable inventions. Was Buh influenced by that film when thinking of The Ninth Wave (where a heroine is adrift in the ocean and is rescued after a turbulent night struggling to stay afloat)? Bowie and Bush met several times in the years after, and she had become more accustomed and could compose herself enough to chat! Finding Bowie pleasant and friendly, you can see why she was moved and shocked by his death in 2016.
Bush and Bowie had a few connections. Bowie collaborated with the late great Lindsay Kemp. Undoubtedly someone who brought something out of Bowie when it came to his personas and artistic direction, he has a similar impact on Bush years later. In a 1982 interview with Electronics & Music Maker, she said this about Kemp: “Once I'd left school I tried to get into a dance school full-time, but no one would accept me as I had no qualifications in ballet. I had almost given up the idea of using dance as an extension of my music, until I met Lindsay Kemp, and that really did change so many of my ideas. He was the first person to actually give me some lessons in movement. I realized there was so much potential with using movement in songs, and I wanted to get a basic technique in order to be able to express myself fully. Lindsay has his own style - it's more like mime - and although he studied in many ballet schools and is technically qualified as a dancer, his classes and style are much more to do with letting go what's inside and expressing that. It doesn't matter if you haven't perfect technique”. I have probably missed a few other Bush-Bowie connections, but I was struck when reading Tom Doyle’s Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush and the Bowie sections. From her eyes being opened by Space Oddity and Ziggy Stardust, through to their meetings and the fact he clearly moved, I wanted to write about…
A much-missed master and innovator.