FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty
Track Nine: Houdini
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I almost at the end…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
of a run of Kate Bush features where I look at each of the ten tracks from her 1982 album, The Dreaming. The penultimate track is also my favourite of hers: the bewitching and beautiful Houdini. One reason why I love the song is because is ticks all the boxes when it comes to Kate Bush. Her vocal performance is sublime! From a gorgeous and soft sound one moment to a guttural the next. The composition is also fantastic. I especially love the strings used on the song (written and arranged by Dave Lawson and Andrew Powell). With brilliant production from Bush and some wonderful musical elements – a heavy percussive beat and some excellent bass -, it is a supreme song. Before the epic closer that is Get Out of My House, Houdini offers some of Bush’s best lyrics. The Dreaming is filled with wonderful lines but, in terms of visuals and image possibilities, there are no other tracks on the album as vivid and thrilling as Houdini I don’t think. The song appeared as the B-side of the single, Night of the Swallow. That single was released in Ireland only. On an album of absolute pearls, it is my favourite song and a standout. Before delving into the lyrics a bit more, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia collects interviews where Bush talked about the story of Houdini:
“The side most people know of Houdini is that of the escapologist, but he spent many years of his life exposing mediums and seances as frauds. His mother had died, and in trying to make contact through such spiritual people, he realized how much pain was being inflicted on people already in sorrow, people who would part with money just for the chance of a few words from a past loved one. I feel he must have believed in the possibility of contact after death, and perhaps in his own way, by weeding out the frauds, he hoped to find just one that could not be proven to be a fake. He and his wife made a decision that if one of them should die and try to make contact, the other would know it was truly them through a code that only the two of them knew.
His wife would often help him with his escapes. Before he was bound up and sealed away inside a tank or some dark box, she would give him a parting kiss, and as their lips met, she would pass him the key which he would later use to unlock the padlocks that chained him. After he died, Mrs. Houdini did visit many mediums, and tried to make contact for years, with no luck - until one day a medium called Mr. Ford informed her that Houdini had come through. She visited him and he told her that he had a message for her from Houdini, and he spoke the only words that meant for her the proof of her husband's presence. She was so convinced that she released an official statement to the fact that he had made contact with her through the medium, Ford.
It is such a beautiful and strange story that I thought I had very little to do, other than tell it like it was. But in fact it proved to be the most difficult lyric of all the songs and the most emotionally demanding. I was so aware of trying to do justice to the beauty of the subject, and trying to understand what it must have been like to have been in love with such an extraordinary man, and to have been loved by him. I worked for two or three nights just to find one line that was right. There were so many alternatives, but only a few were right for the song. Gradually it grew and began to piece together, and I found myself wrapped up in the feelings of the song - almost pining for Houdini. Singing the lead vocal was a matter of conjuring up that feeling again and as the clock whirrs and the song flashes back in time to when she watched him through the glass, he's on the other side under water, and she hangs on to his every breath. We both wait. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)
During his incredible lifetime Houdini took it upon himself to expose the whole spiritualist thing - you know, seances and mediums. And he found a lot them to be phoney, but before he died Houdini and his wife worked out a code, so that if he came back after his death his wife would know it was him by the code. So after his death his wife made several attempts to contact her dead husband, and on one occasion he did come through to her. I thought that was so beautiful - the idea that this man who had spent his life escaping from chains and ropes had actually managed to contact his wife. The image was so beautiful that I just had to write a song about it. ('The Dreaming'. Poppix (UK), Summer 1982)”.
Houdini is a remarkable song that once more shows the range of sounds and ideas Bush had for The Dreaming. Her talent as a producer is evident when it comes to the sound and ambition behind songs like this. I want to end by quoting a few lyrics. Given its story and how evocative Houdini is, it is no surprise there are some standout verses. The sexiness, love, trust and sense of drama and tension that you get from these lines is evident: “With a kiss/I'd pass the key/And feel your tongue/Teasing and receiving./With your spit/Still on my lip/You hit the water”. I love the way Bush delivers the lines and creates this scenery and set-up. You imagine you are there as part of a crowd watching Houdini about to do a trick and trying to escape! Like so many tracks on The Dreaming, Houdini went through various forms and takes. I particularly like the isolated vocal for this song that is available online. I would have loved to have seen a video for Houdini, as I can imagine Bush being phenomenal. Del Palmer would have played Houdini (her long-time friend and band member, he also engineered several of her albums; he appears as Houdini on the cover for The Dreaming). The best lyrics, to me, come close to the end: “Through the glass/I'd watch you breathe/("Not even eternity--")/Bound and drowned/And paler than you've ever been/("--will hold Houdini!")/With your life/The only thing in my mind--/We pull you from the water!”. I have one more track to go in my track-by-track of The Dreaming, ahead of its fortieth anniversary in September. Go and listen to the album and revel in songs like Houdini. It is a magnificent, and almost-sultry song that draws you in and casts its spell. It is another incredible cut from…
THE amazing Kate Bush.