FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Lionheart at Forty-Five
Ranking the Tracks
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IN the middle of a blitz and flurry…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from the Lionheart photo session/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz/PHOTO CONCEPT: John Carder Bush
of Kate Bush anniversary features, I am concentrating on an album that turns forty-five on 13th November. Kate Bush’s second studio album, it followed hotly on the heels of her hugely successful debut, The Kick Inside. Lionheart is a terrific album that deserves more praise. I am going to do another feature about it before its forty-fifth anniversary. Like I have done with other Kate Bush albums coming up for their anniversary, I am interested in doing a tracks ranking feature. Some might feel a top three from Lionheart would be obvious, though you can’t always predict that! I did rank the tracks a while ago. My opinion has changed since then. Below are the ten songs from Kate Bush’s second studio album…
IN order of their superiority.
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TEN: Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake
Position on the Album: 4
Standout Lyric: “Emma's been run out on/She's breaking down/In so many places/Stuck in low gear/Because of her fears”
“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her second album Lionheart, the song was written a few years before. According to Kate, it was written as a 'Patti Smith song'.
Versions
There are two officially released versions of 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake': the album version and the live version from Hammersmith Odeon, which appears on the On Stage EP. However, a demo version from 1977 has also surfaced and was released on various bootleg cd's.
Performances
Kate performed 'Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake' on the Leo Sayer Show on 17 November 1978 and on the 1979 Christmas special. The song was also included in the setlist of the Tour of Life”
NINE: In Search of Peter Pan
Position on the Album: 2
Standout Lyric: “He's got a photo/Of his hero/He keeps it under his pillow/But I've got a pin-up/From/a newspaper/Of Peter Pan/I found it in a locket/I hide it in my pocket”
“There's a song on [Lionheart] called 'In Search Of Peter Pan' and it's sorta about childhood. And the book itself is an absolutely amazing observation on paternal attitudes and the relationships between the parents - how it's reflected on the children. And I think it's a really heavy subject, you know, how a young innocence mind can be just controlled, manipulated, and they don't necessarily want it to happen that way. And it's really just a song about that. (Lionheart promo cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)”
EIGHT: Oh England My Lionheart
Position on the Album: 5
Standout Lyric: “Oh England, my Lionheart!/Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park/You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames/That old river poet that never, ever ends”
“It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away, you know, "ah, the wonderful England'' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like "I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just a exploration of that. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)
A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy. It's very classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and it's done ... almost madrigally, you know. I dare say a lot of people will think that it's just a load of old slush but it's just an area that I think it's good to cover. Everything I do is very English and I think that's one reason I've broken through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing. (Harry Doherty, Enigma Variations. Melody Maker, November 1978)”
SEVEN: Full House
Position on the Album: 6
Standout Lyric: “My silly pride/Digging the knife in/She loves to come for her ride”
“Song written by Kate Bush in 1978. One of three new songs - along with Coffee Homeground and Symphony In Blue - written for the album Lionheart. The lyric seems to be autobiographical, an insight into psychological struggles she was encountering, with paranoia and self-doubt. The song was also released as the B-side of the single Wow.
Performances
Kate performed 'Full House' during the Tour of Life live shows in 1979.
Kate about 'Fullhouse'
'Fullhouse' was probably quite autobiographical, you know: Talking about how hard I find it to cope with all the feelings I get, from paranoia, pressure, anger, that sort of thing. (Colin Irwin, Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside. Melody Maker (UK), 10 October 1980)”
SIX: Hammer Horror
Position on the Album: 10
Standout Lyric: “They've got the stars for the gallant hearts/I'm the replacement for your part/But all I want to do is forget/You, friend”
“The song is not about, as many think, Hammer Horror films. It is about an actor and his friend. His friend is playing the lead in a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a part he's been reading all his life, waiting for the chance to play it. He's finally got the big break he's always wanted, and he is the star. After many rehearsals he dies accidentally, and the friend is asked to take the role over, which, because his own career is at stake, he does. The dead man comes back to haunt him because he doesn't want him to have the part, believing he's taken away the only chance he ever wanted in life. And the actor is saying, "Leave me alone, because it wasn't my fault - I have to take this part, but I'm wondering if it's the right thing to do because the ghost is not going to leave me alone and is really freaking me out. Every time I look round a corner he's there, he never disappears."
The song was inspired by seeing James Cagney playing the part of Lon Chaney playing the hunchback - he was an actor in an actor in an actor, rather like Chinese boxes, and that's what I was trying to create. (Kate Bush Club Newsletter, November 1979)”
FIVE: Wow
Position on the Album: 3
Standout Lyric: “He'll never make the screen/He'll never make the 'Sweeney'/Be that movie queen/He's too busy hitting the Vaseline”
“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)”
FOUR: In the Warm Room
Position on the Album: 7
Standout Lyric: “In the warm room/She prepares to go to bed/She'll let you watch her undress/Go places where/Your fingers long to linger”
“Performances
Kate was asked to perform on the children's TV programme Ask Aspel, where she wanted to present the new song 'In The Warm Room', but the BBC felt this song was too explicitly sexual, so she opted for Kashka From Baghdad instead. As a result, there are no televised performances of 'In The Warm Room'. The song, however, was performed during the Tour of Life and one of these performances ended up in the Live In Germany TV special.
Kate about 'In The Warm Room'
I'm always getting accused of being a feminist. Really I do write a lot of my songs for men, actually. In fact, 'In The Warm Room' is written for men because there are so many songs for women about wonderful men that come up and chat you up when you're in the disco and I thought it would be nice to write a song for men about this amazing female. And I think that I am probably female-oriented with my songs because I'm a female and have very female emotions but I do try to aim a lot of the psychology, if you like, at men. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”
THREE: Coffee Homeground
Position on the Album: 9
Standout Lyric: “Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna - in the coffee/And you won't get me with your aresenic - in the pot of tea/And you won't get me in a hole to rot - with your hemlock/On the rocks”
“Song written by Kate Bush while in the USA in May 1978. It was one of only three songs newly written for the album Lionheart - along with Full House and Symphony In Blue.
Cover versions
'Coffee Homeground' was covered by Kat Devlin and Mouse.
Kate about 'Coffee Homeground'
['Coffee Homeground'] was in fact inspired directly from a cab driver that I met who was in fact a bit nutty. And it's just a song about someone who thinks they're being poisoned by another person, they think that there's Belladonna in their tea and that whenever they offer them something to eat, it's got poisen in it. And it's just a humorous aspect of paranoia really and we sort of done it in a Brechtian style, the old sort of German [vibe] to try and bring across the humour side of it. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)“
TWO: Kashka from Baghdad
Position on the Album: 8
Standout Lyric: ”They never go for walks/Maybe it's because/The moon's not bright enough/There's light in love, you see”
Background Detail (https://www.katebushencyclopedia.com/kashka-from-baghdad):
“Performances
Kate performed 'Kashka From Baghdad' live on the piano on Ask Aspel, a TV show broadcast by the BBC in 1978. The song was also included in the setlist for the Tour of Life.
Cover versions
'Kashka From Baghdad' was covered by the Plunging Necklines.
Kate about 'Kashka From Baghdad'
That actually came from a very strange American Detective series that I caught a couple of years ago, and there was a musical theme that they kept putting in. And they had an old house, in this particular thing, and it was just a very moody, pretty awful serious thing. And it just inspired the idea of this old house somewhere in Canada or America with two people in it that no-one knew anything about. And being a sorta small town, everybody wanted to know what everybody what else was up to. And these particular people in this house had a very private thing happening. (Personal Call, BBC Radio 1, 1979)”
ONE: Symphony in Blue
Position on the Album: 1
Standout Lyric: “When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in/Go blowing my mind on God: The light in the dark, with the neon arms/The meek He seeks, the beast He calms/The head of the good soul department”.
“Song written by Kate Bush in 1978, released on her second album Lionheart. It was one of three newly written songs for the album, along with Coffee Homeground and Full House. It is believed that the lyric of the song is an attempt at describing Kate's own belief system. The descriptions of God, sex and the colour blue seem to be inspired by reading about Wilhelm Reich's theory in A Book Of Dreams.
Formats
'Symphony In Blue' was released as a single in Canada and Japan. In Canada, the B-side was Hammer Horror; in Japan it was Fullhouse.
Performances
Kate performed 'Symphony In Blue' during the live shows of the Tour of Life. The song also appeared in the 1979 Christmas special”