FEATURE:
Unbelievable!
PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush’s Wow at Forty-Four
_________
I have written about this song many times before…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing during The Tour of Life in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Still/Redferns/Getty
but, as it was released on 9th March, 1979, I wanted to look ahead to the forty-fourth anniversary. Wow was the second single from Kate Bush’s second studio album, Lionheart. Perhaps the defining track from that album, I am going to look at Wow fairly soon again, as there is another anniversary coming up. The Tour of Life (Bush’s only tour) started on 2nd April, 1979. Wow was featured in the third act/part of the set, and I think that it is one of Bush’s most important and underrated singles. I do not hear the song on the radio as much as you’d think. It did get to number fourteen in the U.K. Lionheart’s first single, Hammer Horror, only got to forty-four. I often wonder why Wow was not considered as the first single. Maybe there was a feeling Hammer Horror was a bolder departure from the songs and sounds of The Kick Inside (her debut album). Released in October 1978, Hammer Horror did sound very different. Maybe Bush and EMI wanted to send out that message and indication she was not to be easily predicted. Although Wow is an incredible track, maybe it sounds more similar to songs on The Kick Inside than Hammer Horror. There is greater accessibility to Wow. A finer chorus and a something that elevates the track beyond most others in her catalogue, the supreme Wow still sound amazing to this day. It was subjected to parody and ridicule by some – Faith Brown did so in 1980 -, but one cannot deny the hypotonic and timeless quality of this track.
Inspired by Pink Floyd, Bush wanted to write something spacey when it came to Wow. This was an older song that was written before The Kick Inside came out, and I often wonder what would have been if it was included on her debut. In terms of inspiration, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia has sourced an example where Bush spoke about the background and inspiration behind one of her most famous songs:
“'Wow' is a song about the music business, not just rock music but show business in general, including acting and theatre. People say that the music business is about ripoffs, the rat race, competition, strain, people trying to cut you down, and so on, and though that's all there, there's also the magic. It was sparked off when I sat down to try and write a Pink Floyd song, something spacey; Though I'm not surprised no-one has picked that up, it's not really recognisable as that, in the same way as people haven't noticed that 'Kite' is a Bob Marley song, and 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake' is a Patti Smith song. When I wrote it I didn't envisage performing it - the performance when it happened was an interpretation of the words I'd already written. I first made up the visuals in a hotel room in New Zealand, when I had half an hour to make up a routine and prepare for a TV show. I sat down and listened to the song through once, and the whirling seemed to fit the music. Those who were at the last concert of the tour at Hammersmith must have noticed a frogman appear through the dry ice it was one of the crew's many last night 'pranks' and was really amazing. I'd have liked to have had it in every show. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Summer 1979)”.
Kate Bush did find some of her videos hitting issues. Experiment IV (released as a single from her 1986 greatest hits collection, The Whole Story) was banned from Top of the Pops, as it was deemed too violent for the pre-watershed slot. In Wow, the video shows Bush patting her bottom while singing "he's too busy hitting the Vaseline". Vaseline was once defined as a personal sexual lubricant, so that got the song into trouble. I love the cheekiness of the song. Bush’s vocals are superb throughout. This was a track where she did so many takes to get the vocal right. Like an actor getting the right take, Bush was quite precise when it came to this song. I am not sure why she was pretty obsessed when it came to her vocals here, but it paid off! The song has received some ribbing and fonder comedic affection – Steve Coogan performed it live as Alan Partridge -, but it is a classic! I think it is still quite underrated. When it comes to Bush songs played on the radio, Wow does not get the same exposure as others. I think it is the song many associate with Lionheart. As that album is forty-five in November, I hope Wow compels many to check out the album it came from. It is a remarkable song that turns forty-four on 9th March. So many lines stick in the mind. I love the theatrics and emotion Bush’s puts into her vocals when she sings “Ooh, yeah, you're amazing!/We think you're incredible/You say we're fantastic/But still we don't head the bill”. Performing the song through The Tour of Life (April-May 1979), and on an ABBA T.V. special in Switzerland in April 1979, one cannot listen to Wow without singing along! I love the Keef (Keith McMillan) video, and the hooky and wonderful chorus. It is another song that proves Kate Bush was and is…
A true music genius.