FEATURE:
You're Not Beaten Yet…
The Beautiful Unity of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush on Don't Give Up
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THERE is this long and interesting…
friendship between Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel. There are a few Kate Bush anniversaries in October. One of them relates to the song she sung with Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up. From his 1986 album, So, the song was released on 27th October (even though, on Kate Bush’s website, the date is listed as 6th for some reason), this it spent eleven weeks in the U.K. top seventy-five chart in 1986, peaking at number nine. In 1987, the song won Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. Here is some more detail about a perfect pairing between two musical innovators:
“The second single to be taken from Peter’s fifth solo album So, Don’t Give Up sees Peter dueting with Kate Bush, and was released on 27 October 1986.
Written by Peter Gabriel, the song was produced by Daniel Lanois and Peter and engineered by Kevin Killen and Lanois and features the guest vocals of Kate Bush. Bush had previously provided vocals for the tracks Games Without Frontiers and No Self Control on Peter’s third solo album.
The song was inspired by a Dorothea Lange photograph, but was also informed by the high levels of unemployment under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher of the 1980s, as Peter told the NME at the time of the release of So:
“The catalyst for ‘Don’t Give Up’ was a photograph I saw by Dorothea Lange, inscribed ‘In This Proud Land’, which showed the dust-bowl conditions during the Great Depression in America. Without a climate of self-esteem it’s impossible to function”
The cover was designed by Peter Saville and Brett Wickens for Peter Saville Associates, with photography by Trevor Key.
The single first charted in the UK on 1 November 1986, peaked at 9 and stayed in the Top75 for 11 weeks. In the USA the single reached #72 on the Hot 100 on 25 April 1987 and stayed on the chart for six weeks.
The accompanying video for Don’t Give Up was directed by Godley and Creme.
Originally, Peter had Dolly Parton in mind to sing the duet of Don’t Give Up. In 2011 he told The Quietus:
“Because there was [a] reference point of American roots music in it when I first wrote it, it was suggested that Dolly Parton sing on it. But Dolly turned it down… and I’m glad she did because what Kate did on it is brilliant. It’s an odd song, a number of people have written to me and said they didn’t commit suicide because they had that song on repeat and obviously you don’t think about things like that when you’re writing them. But obviously a lot of the power of the song came from the way that Kate sings it”.
Bush and Gabriel had this friendship long before 1986. Bush appeared on several Peter Gabriel songs, including Games Without Frontiers (from his eponymous 1980 album). The two performed together for Bush’s 1979 Christmas special. Although Gabriel never appeared on a Kate Bush album, he was instrumental when it came to her love of technology an experimenting more on her albums. Gabriel opened Bush’s eyes to the Fairlight CMI, and I can see the experimentation and less conventional sounds of 1982’s The Dreaming owe a nod to Gabriel. Bush’s decision to build her own studio for Hounds of Love (1985) was also partly influenced by Gabriel recording at Ashcombe House in Somerset (he rented the property between 1978 and 1987 as his family home and converted the house's barn into his home studio, where he recorded three of his albums, including 1982’s Peter Gabriel, commonly known as 4). Gabriel was the one who accidentally let slip that Bush had a child. Gabriel let that cat out of the bag almost five years (in 2003) after Bertie was born. I always wonder why Gabriel has not appeared on a Kate Bush album as they are good friends. I’d like to think that, if Bush ever did record another album, then he would be in the mix in some form. The fullest collaboration between the two, Don’t Give Up is a song that is so emotional, inspiring, and strong. It seems relevant to many now as we go through such a tough and unsure time. Recorded in 1985 – at a time when Bush was at the peak of her powers recording and releasing Hounds of Love -, I think it is the vocal differences and unity that makes the song so enduring and potent.
Gabriel’s delivery is raw and has a certain gruffness. It is vulnerable and pained, yet there is this resilience and hope that comes through. Bush’s is tender and caring. Playing the part of a wife, she is almost maternal in her embrace and warmth. The two together are a perfect combination! Again, it makes me sad the two have not done another duet on a studio album. One only needs to hear their rendition of Roy Harper’s Another Day from Bush’s Christmas special to realise that there is this incredible and natural chemistry and connection between them. It is not only the vocals that hit hard. Gabriel’s words are so stirring: “Though I saw it all around/Never thought I could be affected/Thought that we'd be the last to go/It is so strange the way things turn/Drove the night toward my home/The place that I was born, on the lakeside/As daylight broke, I saw the earth/The trees had burned down to the ground”. An empowering, sobering and hugely moving song that celebrates its anniversary next month, I wanted to revisit Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s sublime and entrancing duet. It has helped so many people. Elton John claims the song helped save his life when he was in the grip of drug addiction. Countless others owe their safety, sobriety, and salvation to a mesmeric song. Although it was written by Peter Gabriel, I especially love Kate Bush’s vocals and role on the song. Listening to Don’t Give Up now, and it could not have been sung by anyone else! There is no doubting that it is…
ONE of the most moving songs ever.