FEATURE:
Her Own Kind of Carols
Kate Bush’s 1979 Christmas Special
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LOOKING ahead to…
PHOTO CREDIT: TV Times
the festive season, and there will be a couple of other Kate Bush-related things I am covering. I wanted to spend some time with her amazing BBC 1979 Christmas special (broadcast on 28th December). Called Kate, it is fascinating for a number of reasons. Prime among them is that the songs are not really Christmas-related. In fact, only one song, December Will Be Magic Again, is Christmas-themed. It was released as a single in 1980. Before coming to some features that have their say on a distinctly un-Christmas-like special that has all the oddity, beauty and standout moments one would expect from a Kate Bush T.V. special, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provide some details:
“'Kate' is the official name of a Christmas special that was broadcast on BBC television (UK) on 28 December 1979. It was recorded in October 1979 at the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, England with choreography by Anthony Van Laast. Part of the show - the sequence for The Wedding List - had been recorded at South London's Nunhead cemetery, a 19th-century Gothic cemetery with lots of imposing monuments to eminent citizens of that time. The special was a mixture of pre-filmed sequences, dramatic in-studio setpieces and a handful of straight performances behind the piano.
Track listing
The special consists of the following songs:
Here Comes The Flood (Peter Gabriel)
Another Day (with Peter Gabriel)
You can read this feature that lists all the songs Kate Bush performed for that Christmas special. Eclectic and colourful, we get a mix of emotions and styles through the show. Tracks were pre-recorded live so and perform to an empty audience I believe (the applause and cheers were added). It must have been quite an odd experience recording a Christmas set with few baubles, decorations, signs of the season etc. Regardless, I think of Kate as an essential Christmas broadcast. A wonderful and unique set that sees her sing with Peter Gabriel and premiere songs that would appear on Never for Ever (1980). For those who did not get a chance to see her during 1979’s The Tour of Life, it was a scaled-down and more modest version of that sort of set and experience. This 2020 article gives us some background and backdrop to the 1979 Christmas special:
“It’s been hard out there for Kate Bush fans. Since the genius “Queen of British Pop” retired from touring in 1979, public appearances have been few and far-between. She found the machinery of pop-stardom a hindrance to her process, and she’s been busy with other things, she says. “Every time I finish an album, I go into visual projects…. So I started to veer away from the thing of being a live performing artist, to one of being a recording artist with attached visuals.”
Fans are not entitled to her presence, but Kate Bush was sorely missed in the 35 years between her first tour and her 2014 “Before the Dawn” residency at London’s Hammersmith Apollo. Before returning to the stage, she kept herself in the public eye with elaborately costumed music videos, a format perfectly suited to her theatrical and cinematic ambitions. (Asked by an interviewer in 1980 what she wanted to do next, she answered, “Everything.”)
But then there’s the Kate Bush Christmas Special, “titled simply Kate on-screen,” writes Christine Pallon. The program, which “aired on the BBC on December 28th, 1979,” followed on the heels of the Tour of Life, the whirlwind debut concert series that promised, but did not deliver, so many more. “The Christmas special’s choreography borrows heavily from that tour. But where she sang live on the Tour of Life, she lip-syncs to pre-recorded tracks here and incorporates pre-recorded video segments. As a result, the Christmas special plays out more like a crazy, longform music video than a traditional stage show.”
Does Kate Bush sing Christmas songs? Does she sit on Santa’s lap? Does she mime, arms akimbo, before the yule log?
Does she lounge on a piano next to a Golden Age crooner?
C’mon…
Okay, she sings one Christmas song, “December Will Be Magic Again,” an original released as a UK single that year. The song pays earnest homage to traditional Christmas figures like Bing Crosby, Saint Nick, and Oscar Wilde before Kate turns into some kind of strange Santa-like being who drops down on “the white city” in a parachute to “cover the lovers.”
Otherwise, the Christmas Special draws on Bush’s first three albums. In addition to her entourage of dancers and backup lip-syncers, she also invites a special guest—Peter Gabriel, of course (who might just as well be called the male Kate Bush)—to sing his “Here Comes the Flood” and duet with her on the extremely downbeat “Another Day.”
Christmas spirit? Who needs it? This is Kate, answering the age-old question, Pallon writes, “what would happen if the BBC gave a Christmas special to an incredibly ambitious 21-year-old art rocker who also smokes a ton of weed?” See the full tracklist, with timestamps, just below. Enjoy, and Happy Kate Bush Christmas Special Day!”.
Like The Line, the Cross and the Curve of 1993, Kate is a minor entry in the Kate Bush cannon that divides people. It would have been interesting hearing her tackle some Christmas carols/songs in a more wintery setting. I feel the point was less about embracing Christmas; perhaps more about ensuring that she was featured on the Christmas schedule. So that her own music would be the priority. I will come now to a 2021 article from Far Out Magazine. They provided their own take on a fantastical and quite unusual live experience from Kate Bush in 1979:
“Featuring just one recognisably Christmassy song, it is a mind-bending theatrical odyssey that sees Bush perform a range of tracks from her first three albums, with a rendition of Erik Satie’s ‘Gymnopodie No. 3’ thrown in for good measure.
By the time Kate Bush sat down to write ‘December Will Be Magic Again,’ she was in the middle of recording her third album Never For Ever, a record which would land Bush such hit singles as ‘Babooshka’, ‘Breathing’, and ‘Army Dreamers’. Despite the tepid reception of her sophomore album Lionheart, she’d managed to win back her fans with her spectacular Tour Of Life concert tour, which was praised for its originality and spectacular visual appeal. Having been forced to turn down a slot supporting Fleetwood Mac on their Tusk tour, it was clear that Bush was in the midst of one of the busiest and most creatively rewarding periods of her life, and she wanted more.
So, when she was invited to host her own TV Christmas special in 1979, she jumped at the chance. Directed by Roy Norton, the 45-minute performance saw Bush bring the theatricality of her stage show to the small screen, offering her suburban-bound teenage fans the chance to see her in action. From the moment she jumps into the frame, dressed like some chiffon-clad bat, it’s clear Bush has no intention of offering us any of the wholesomeness of the Morecambe and Wise Christmas specials – rather her intention is to thrill us into submission.
Surreal and heartwarming in equal measure, Kate: Kate Bush Christmas Special 1979 is a wonder to behold. As well as containing some hilariously overblown choreography, (including the moment in ‘Them Heavy People’ when one of Bush’s dancers breaks a glass bottle over her head) it also features a couple of amazing cameos, including one by Peter Gabriel”.
I wonder if Kate will ever get a DVD release of an HD remaster. I still don’t think we get the sort of love aimed at the T.V. special as it deserved. It is a rare occasion where we get this complete live set from Kate Bush on film! Apart from this, one has to search YouTube and other sites to witness her very much in her element. There are a lot of highlights from the 1979 special. Alongside her performance of December Will Be Magic Again, Bush performing with Peter Gabriel on Another Day is another spine-tingling highlight. The Cut discussed a magnificent entry in the Kate Bush annals. Something I would urge people check out if they have not watched it:
“It all starts innocently. A heavenly pitch fills the room as green cartoon hands and red text animate the screen. Is this the voice of an angel? As the titles fade out and the stage lights come on, we see Kate dangling from the ceiling — not as the Christmas cherub we first envisioned, but as a gothic bat rising from the abyss, clad in black sequins and plush feathers. As the opening salvo of “Violin” comes to a close I begin to wonder if this was actually meant to be a Halloween show. (After all, parts of the taped performance were filmed in a South London cemetery).
The next 40 minutes of Kate’s festive fever dream veer from the chaotic to the surreal to the just downright horny. In one scene, Kate, only 21 at the time, looks everything like the Victorian ideal of the virtuous woman as she plays an emotional andante called “Symphony in Blue” at the piano. Her figure shimmers in a sparkling silver cardigan and emerald-green skirt. But just as we settle into the moment, Kate peers at the camera, a twinkle in her charcoal-lined eyes, and seductively chirps, “The more I think about sex, the better it gets.” Not exactly the family-friendly content you’d expect from a holiday show!
I’ve watched this special dozens of times since I discovered it on YouTube years ago. I had always been a Kate Bush fan. Many of the artists I grew up listening to — like Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Big Boi — had cited her as a musical influence. But I didn’t fully start to appreciate her dazzling panache until I entered my 30s. Like many women, I found myself exhausted from trying to “have it all” and stretching myself to meet everyone else’s expectations. And here was Kate, a total unapologetic weirdo, being celebrated and revered for letting her freak flag fly. She’s written songs about menstruation and embarking on a steamy love affair with a snowman (so hot, in fact, that he melts). Her maniacal style of pouring tea, as captured in a 1989 BBC interview, has been made into a meme, as has footage of her rather unappetizing vegetarian cooking. And every year fans across the globe gather in parks dressed in flowing red gowns to recreate dance moves from her iconic “Wuthering Heights” music video. Her authenticity is the reason she’s cultivated such a devoted fan base and why her music still resonates after all these years.
The 1979 Christmas special is also significant because in many ways, it’s Kate’s departing gift to fans — a bow atop a year that would mark the end of her concert career for the next three decades. Like anything with the notoriously private singer, the more information I try to find on this special, the more questions I ultimately end up having. Why, for instance, did Kate think it was appropriate to perform a murder-suicide ballad for a holiday show? Who at the BBC approved this to go on air? How does she pop out of a garbage can so effortlessly in skin-tight leather pants? And does she even know what a Christmas special is? Do we?
But this is why I keep coming back to the Kate Bush Christmas special, year after year. The desire to conform to the cookie-cutter — and completely unattainable — Christmas ideal unleashes my inner control freak, but I never stop to ask myself why I want this version of the holidays in the first place.
Even her one Christmas song is a wink to this idea. In “December Will Be Magic Again,” she sings with childlike yearning for the idyllic Christmas. “The white city, she is so beautiful, upon the black-soot-icicled roofs,” Kate coos. It’s a beautiful image, the dusting of pure white snow, falling like the haze of nostalgia to cover the tarnished memories we’d rather forget. But Kate knows it’s a pipe dream. And she gives us permission to let it all go.
Her Christmas special feels especially relevant this year, as normal has never felt more out of reach. It would be easy to give into a collective sense of despair as we enter an uncertain winter. But when I watch Kate roll around on the floor, fake blood dripping from her lips as she gleefully shoots a hole into the chest of her lover’s murderer, I am embraced by the warm comfort that things will be okay. Even if this holiday isn’t what we envisioned, it doesn’t make it any less special — all we need is to give ourselves the space to get a little weird”.
The majestic and, at other times, unusual Kate is something that is essential viewing. Think of it more than a normal T.V. special than a Christmas one and it makes more sense. Fusing studio albums songs, some Peter Gabriel performances, alongside a couple of rarer tracks – Ran Tan Waltz and the as-yet-unreleased December Will Be Magic Again – and you have this wonderfully interesting performance. I do hope there is an HD/4K version of Kate at some point. I think that it is a live special that…
EVERYONE needs to watch.