FEATURE:
Be That Movie Queen
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in London, 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Kate Bush and How T.V. Shows and Films Use Her Music
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WHERE to begin when it comes…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional shot for 2005’s Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
to the subject of Kate Bush and the adulation she has received over the past year or so! Even though a lot of them has come from award nominations, updates on her website, and the reissue of her lyrics book, How to Be Invisible, quite a bit of it started with the Netflix series, Stranger Things. I am not going to go into it again - as I have discussed it more than enough! Suffice to say, it helped get Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) to number one. In the process, it introduced her music to a new generation. It was acclaim in the U.S. that was especially humbling and overdue. This artist perhaps not as respected and known as much there as in the U.K., it does feel as though things have changed in that respect. That was confirmed and cemented as Bush was finally (on the fourth time of asking!) inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. A big honour that should have happened last year, this iconic genius has finally ‘cracked’ America. She never wanted that, but I think it is more to do with the country adopting her music and embracing it in a way that was not done all that connivingly before. Hounds of Love (1985), The Sensual World (1989), The Red Shoes (1993), and Aerial (2005) are albums that were noted and did quite well, but she has always fared much better in Europe.
Kate Bush’s music being used on T.V. shows and films is not a new thing. She has been heard on the small and big screens for decades now. In fact, This Woman’s Work first appeared in the film, She’s Having a Baby, in 1988 – a year before it appeared on The Sensual World album. There has been a smattering of placements and known songs popping up. Whilst filmmakers have not exactly employed the deep cuts when it comes to Bush’s music scoring their scenes, at least using some of the bigger hits gets her music to new people. One song that has appeared in a few shows and films is This Woman’s Work. I recently wrote how it featured at the end of The Mother. That film stars Jennifer Lopez in the titular role. It is played to render emotion and evoke a sense of pride and fulfilment. The original song was intended to be told from the father’s perspective. Sometimes immature and not taking responsibility, he had to face his wife breaching and their baby being at risk. It is that kind of emotional weight that was not really explored in other songs. I can appreciate how others have taken it more literally and related it to a mother. This Woman’s Work is one of Kate Bush’s most moving and evocative songs. It really does suit quite a few possibilities. In fact, The Daily Beast reacted to The Mother using This Woman’s Work: the end of a long and growing line that are perhaps distilling the song’s essence and importance. You can emphasise with some of Coleman Splide’s anger, though I think that it is a good thing that this classic is being heard and shared:
“If you’ve not yet experienced the phenomenon of music supervisors plopping Kate Bush’s “This Woman’s Work” into a piece of visual media that you’re watching, then you either have hobbies that don’t include mindlessly staring at a screen all day (good for you!), or you haven’t yet seen The Mother (a curse unto your firstborn). At this point, “This Woman’s Work” is starting to veer on, well, any song on the Suicide Squad or Guardians of the Galaxy soundtracks in terms of sheer overuse.
It’s kind of like when a lot of us cried watching that one gay episode of The Last of Us, before the most annoying people online cropped up to say, “Stop weaponizing Max Richter’s ‘On the Nature of Daylight.’” Since its release in 2004, Richter’s song appeared in notable moments in The Last of Us, Arrival, Shutter Island, and several other films and television shows as well. I don’t really have much of an ear for recognizing the repetition of a sappy orchestral piece, but I certainly do for a bravura vocal performance from one Kate Bush. And I fear that too many music supervisors are misunderstanding the intention behind “This Woman’s Work” and using it as a slapdash form of emotional exploitation.
IN THIS PHOTO: Jennifer Lopez in The Mother/PHOTO CREDIT: Netflix
“This Woman’s Work” was written by Bush for John Hughes’ 1988 film, She’s Having a Baby. The song is introduced in a pivotal moment during the film, which is by-and-large a romantic comedy—until the titular baby that she’s having comes a-knockin’, and the movie suddenly takes on a very real gravity. In a hospital waiting room, Jake (Kevin Bacon) reflects upon his relationship with his wife Kristy (Elizabeth McGovern), whose health is in danger during labor, when their child reaches the breech position. Jake understands that he could lose Kristy, their child, or the both of them, and he can’t even be near them in this moment. As he waits for news, a flashback montage of his life with Kristy plays, set to “This Woman’s Work.”
It sounds almost a bit corny—and distinctly ’80s—but the scene is incredibly effective in its context. That’s especially true, considering that this was the first time audiences ever heard “This Woman’s Work;” it was written by Bush about experiencing a crisis during childbirth, from the man’s point of view. The video for the song made these details a bit murkier, so it could resonate with a larger audience, but the crux of the song’s meaning stays the same. Put simply: If you’re going to use “This Woman’s Work” in a film or television show, it should stay far away from the thin line between sentimental and hokey.
In the past five years alone, I’ve seen two shocking and unforgettable debasements of “This Woman’s Work,” which were equally appalling, but for different reasons. The first was in the second season premiere of The Handmaid’s Tale, where a group of 50 or so handmaids are sent to a barren, dystopian version of Fenway Park and made to climb up to gallows, where they think they are about to be hung under the glare of stadium lights. As nooses are put around their necks, that Bush’s memorable warble sings out. “I know you have a little life in you yet/ I know you have a lot of strength left,” she croons, while the handmaids, who have had their mouths muffled, silently exchange glances and tearfully try to accept their fate.
It’s absolute torture to watch. It’s cruel to the point of viewer manipulation, pure trauma porn from a show that made its name by trading in the stuff. And Bush’s song, once a tender examination on the fragility of life, transforms into a vicious ordnance, stripped of any meaning to give viewers a psychological beating.
Somehow, this scene being a big fake out, where no one actually dies, only makes it feel more ruthless. I was so angry with The Handmaid’s Tale after that episode, so upset that its writers and music supervisors thought that no one would call them on their bullshit, that I never watched another frame of the show. Was I paying for Hulu at the time, meaning my viewership, or lack thereof, would have any effect on their metrics and margins? No. But I like to think I stuck it to them.
IN THIS PHOTO: Tom Hanks in A Man Called Otto/PHOTO CREDIT: Niko Tavernise/Searchlight Pictures
The second shrewd use of “This Woman’s Work” came just as recently as this year, in A Man Called Otto. That Tom Hanks clunker is already a deeply narratively confused film, and it doesn’t help that Otto has no conceivable idea where to start, when it comes to sprinkling in stirring resonance throughout the movie. However, the one thing going for this entry is that it has the good sense to mimic how the song was used in She’s Having a Baby (though if you’ve got to imitate a scene that already worked much better, you’re already juggling bigger problems than deciding what song to slap over it.)
In Otto, Bush’s song scores a flashback, where a young Otto (played by Hanks’ real 27-year-old son, Truman) and his pregnant wife are in a bus crash. The destruction is intercut with present-day Otto preparing a suicide attempt, which he doesn’t ultimately go through with. Obviously, neither of these things are comical. But the way in which the film presents them in conjunction has a similar air to that scene in The Handmaid’s Tale—you just can’t believe the lengths that someone went to, just to get you to cry.
You see, writers and music supervisors think that if we cry, we’ll be blinded by our own physical emotions. The simple biological act of moisture forming in our tear ducts turns us into vegetables. If we get choked up, we’ll automatically assume that correlates to a movie or a television show being good. That’s not the case! Sometimes, it’s just overwhelming. Other times, I’m crying with laughter; there is nothing quite so funny as seeing a bus twirl through the air in slow motion, set to Kate Bush wailing. At that point, the use of “This Woman’s Work” becomes a parody, and you’re basically asking me to giggle”.
There might be an argument to suggest that a song like This Woman’s Work is an easy go-to regarding evoking emotion and tenderness – but does it really do the song justice and get the meaning behind its lyrics? I think that it is only a good thing that Kate Bush’s music is used in films and on T.V. She has to prove and sign off on any use of her music, so she will know how it is being used. I remember Hallelujah (originally recorded by Leonard Cohen, but most famously covered by Jeff Buckley) being used on a lot of stuff years ago. Jeff Buckley’s version. It seemed like you could not get away from the song! It was used with seemingly every emotional or tragic moment on film and T.V.! We won’t have the same sort of overuse with This Woman’s Work, but maybe there is an argument to made to suggest that there are other Bush songs that could be used instead. It is always amazing to hear Kate Bush’s music heard, but if the same song comes up as an easy hit of emotion or reaction, then perhaps that does risk too narrowly defining her worth! Appropriately, this woman’s work is vast and full of treasures. It sort of takes me back to radio stations and the fact that they largely play only a few songs of hers – with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) played more than any. I can see why singles might be favoured to deep cuts, though there does appear to be this homogenised representation of Kate Bush that you do not get with other artists.
The only way that you can get a full and proper appreciation of an artist is exploring their entire body of work! Not to say that there should be an uptake in Kate Bush songs being used in films and T.V. shows, but if filmmakers are thinking of her, then go a bit deeper. It is a more original angle, and you do not risk the same track being recycled. I don’t think we will see Running Up That (A Deal with God) feature too much, as it had such a remarkable success of the back of Stranger Things. Perhaps This Woman’s Work will continue to appear on the screen, but it would be awesome if we got to hear some lesser-known Bush songs in films or shows. Maybe even a single not overly-used, such as Babooshka or King of the Mountain. The success Bush has enjoyed in 2022 and this year is not only down to the use of her music on shows and through films. it is to do with her legacy and endless relevance. It is an easy and effective way of opening eyes to her extraordinary music and what she means. Rather than stick to the tried and tested, there is a world of Kate Bush music that would perfectly work on shows and films. It might get people to dive into her albums and not only listen to the hits. In turn, it might encourage radio stations to be a little less concise and restrictive regarding the Bush songs they play. The Mother has put This Woman’s Work in focus. Who knows which Kate Bush song will be on the screen, and whether it is a huge film or a T.V. series. It is flattering and validating that people want to use Kate Bush’s music for their films/shows. It proves (if it wasn’t fact already!) that she is…
SO remarkable and loved.