FEATURE:
Oh, Here I Go, Don't Let Me Go…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in the video for Hounds of Love/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Hounds of Love’s Bewitching and Fascinating Title Track
__________
IN this part…
of four new features I am writing about Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love (after MOJO recently dived into the album for their new edition), I am coming back to the stunning title track. To many, Hounds of Love is the finest track from the album of the same name. Maybe The Ninth Wave (the conceptual second side of the album) is more accomplished and impressive; many feel Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is better (and more successful). To me, Hounds of Love is one of the very best song Kate Bush ever released. Her was the first video that she directed too, and I love what she did with it! Coming to the MOJO feature on Hounds of Love, and they talk about songs like the title cut as being Pop…but not as we know it. I am going to expand on something writer Andrew Male observed about the incredible Hounds of Love. Before getting there, let’s read some interviews from Kate Bush where she discussed the origins of the spectacular title track:
“['Hounds Of Love'] is really about someone who is afraid of being caught by the hounds that are chasing him. I wonder if everyone is perhaps ruled by fear, and afraid of getting into relationships on some level or another. They can involve pain, confusion and responsibilities, and I think a lot of people are particularly scared of responsibility. Maybe the being involved isn't as horrific as your imagination can build it up to being - perhaps these baying hounds are really friendly. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)
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)”.
Lyrically, as Andrew Male observes, Hounds of Love starts out like a short story. “Told in the first person, about a child convinced she is being hunted by dogs who, like an image from a medieval bestiary, embody the imagined pain and responsibility of romantic love”. I love how Bush was seen by many as a Pop artist in 1985, yet her music is complex and cannot be easily defined. What I love most about songs like Hounds of Love is how they are accessible and easy-to-love, but they are also detailed, intelligent and can be interpreted in different ways. It is Pop, I guess, as the song is popular. Compare Hounds of Love’s title track with anything else that was being released at the time. Released as a single on 24th February, 1986, Bush’s contemporaries were not doing what she was! It reached number eight in the U.K. and featured drums by Charlie Morgan and Stuart Elliott and cello from Jonathan Williams. It is addition of instruments like the cello that lends this unique edge and sophistication. Many define 1980s Pop with being about synthesisers and drum machines. Bush was using this too, but she could elevate and distinguish her songs with something more elegant, classical, and unexpected. Andrew Male, for MOJO, looked at the different phrases and lyrical references. The fact that she opened with dialogue from the 1957 horror film, Night of the Demon (directed by Jacques Tourneur), shows that this is a more cinematic song.
Male asserted that Bush recontextualised this ghostly and urgent piece of film dialogue as she saw love (through this song) as a “runic malediction”. She was fleeing from these hounds of love. One can almost imagine physical beings! Although the video does not show a monster or animals chasing Bush and her lover, you feel that something lurks in the dark. Bush’s own dogs, Bonnie and Clyde, can be seen on the cover of Hounds of Love (the album). I always think of them when hearing the title track though, in the photograph, they are asleep as Bush gives a relaxed look to camera. In the song, she imagines something far more sinister. In the lyrics, Bush does employ violence and harrowing images to enforce this message: “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”. Bush sings about being a coward and never knowing what’s good for her. We get these images of something coming through the trees, chasing Bush. Among the hounds of love, whether physical or mental, Bush/the heroine feels safe arms around her. The listener can see Hounds of Love as a horror setting or drama where Bush, as a young woman, is being hounded by dogs and chased by spirits and something demonic. Throughout Hounds of Love, you get songs that reference horror and dark psychology. Maybe you picture this woman wrestling with anxiety, doubts, fears, and past experiences of love.
In the MOJO feature, Andrew Male continues: “Gradually, subtly, these two strands, the childlike fear and the feral invocation, begin to merge…”. I like how there is this childlike aspect together with something more grown-up and relatable (to me). It is spellbinding Pop music. Bush’s vocals change from terrified to erotic. She sort of submits to love and passion. We almost feel her grow through the song. From a child scared by visions and things racing through the trees and coming at her in the night; then, this fleeing and stepping into the water. Maybe a baptism, rebirth or unshackling of her fears and psychological terrors, what emerges is this more lustful and braver woman who seems like the heroine on the album cover: someone more relaxed, passionate, and comfortable. Of course, there is no correlation between Bush’s cover and the title track’s hounds. I just get that connection in my head. I never really thought to think about Hounds of Love as this artistic and deep Pop song that had all these different interpretations and possibilities. It is so catchy and easy to hear, you do not necessarily dig deep or stop and unpick it – so thanks to MOJO for opening that particular avenue! That is the beauty of Kate Bush. Songs reveal new layers and possibilities all of these years later! A brilliant title track that I feel should have been a number one, it also boasts a phenomenal video. Bush’s direction and presentation of the track is fascinating. It is like you are watching something pulled from the big screen. I first heard Hounds of Love as a child, and I have loved the song ever since. It is one of the reasons I have pursued and adored her music since. It is clear that there are…
NO songwriters quite like her.