FEATURE:
“Ah. You’re a Fine Woman, Kate!”
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
Kate Bush’s Aerial at Nineteen
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NOVEMBER is a busy month…
for Kate Bush albums and anniversaries. Aerial is one of her finest and most celebrated albums. It was released on 7th November, 2005. This is the first of two anniversary features around its release. Celebrating nineteen years of a masterpiece. Kate Bush fans will be aware this was her first studio albums after 1993’s The Red Shoes. Many had given up hope we would ever get another Kate Bush album. Even though there was talk and tease much earlier than 2005, you never know for sure until the announcement is made. Bush had her son Bertie in 1998. She was writing earlier than that for Aerial, though having a son and looking after him definitely took priority. However, him coming into her life pretty much established the mood and drive behind the album I think. Whether you get a song like Bertie dedicated to him or others that are inspired and influenced by family, new joy and horizons, Bertie is very much at the heart. In the second feature around Aerial, I will go more into the songs and the reception the album received. I want to explain the origins of the album and the domestic. Family and hospitality. Bertie was born in July 1998. Creative endeavours were very much on the backfoot. Bush and her partner Dan McIntosh were consumed by their love for Bertie. Motherhood is so integral to Aerial and so entwined within the songs. Bush, in some less meaningful sense, always considered her songs to be like her children. At least something that she could nurture, protect and grow in her own image. Not wanting them to be rushed or harmed. When Bertie came along, I think that her work ethic and drive turned from the studio to the home. However, Bertie’s existence opened her mind and heart to an album very different to anything she had ever created. Her mind and imagination exploring new vistas. The same revelation we got with Hounds of Love in 1985. Because Bush was more rested in 1983 and 1984, surrounded by home and the country, she could write in a far less anxious and supressed way. Think about Aerial and the years before it came out. I can picture Bush writing songs in 2003 or 2004. Bertie, five or six, running around or in the garden. Bush thinking about him and his joy! Maybe A Sky of Honey, the conceptual suite that makes up the second part of the album, Bush thinking about the idyllic family situation and setting. People forget Aerial is a double album.
Kate Bush is not someone who made a big deal of her son’s birth. In terms of being a celebrity and contacting the press. She was this normal mum who talked to mums of Bertie’s friends, but there was not this sense that she was this superstar. Living quite a normal life. Rather than focus on the music, I wanted to look more at the press, importance of home and family and the seeds of Aerial. Her relationship with the press had changed by 2005. The fact she was still being seen as recluse. That annoying word that does not apply to Kate Bush! However, you do get the sense that family and home definitely motivated Aerial and gave it this real energy, magic and beauty. Speaking with Canada’s National Post in promotion of the album, there are some interesting observations:
“Interviews with the famously reclusive singer are about as common as five-leaf clovers, but on the phone she comes across as warm, enthusiastic, even effusive. The woman who has been responsible for some of the past three decades' most downright scary pop music is clearly in a very good mood. Releasing Aerial has removed an albatross from her shoulders; the fact that it has received almost uniform praise has particularly pleased her.
According to Bush, she was concerned that the public "might feel it was a bit anticlimactic when the actual record appeared, after such a build-up ... It feels like people have responded on a really direct level with the work."
While Aerial's first disc, subtitled A Sea of Honey, has moments of darkness, its companion, A Sky of Honey, is an almost unambiguously upbeat suite of songs about artistic creation, nature, the sublime and freedom. "I'm actually very happy," she says. "It's not that I particularly set out to write something positive; I think it's just the way it came out."
Becoming a mother may have slowed the album's progress, but it has certainly buoyed Bush's spirits; in the Renaissance-flavoured Bertie, she sings about how her son brings her "so much joy." Perhaps the most arresting moment on the two discs is a moment of unrestrained happiness in the epic title track. Bush performs a laughing duo with a bird: It twitters in melodic bursts, and the singer titters expansively, as if to imitate or outdo it. The effect resembles jazz players trading solos. Bush laughs at the suggestion.
"I suppose it was a bit like a duel," she says.
"I was also trying to draw a comparison between the two languages -- it struck me that laughter has got this sort of connection [with] the shapes and patterns and songs of birdsong."
Bush is not often renowned for her sense of humour, although the occasionally campy sensibility of her earlier videos offset her perceived seriousness. The promo for King of the Mountain, Aerial's first single and a powerfully moody song, is overtly humorous: It shows the journey of Elvis's animated white body suit from Graceland to the Arctic, to reunite the King, who has been living there in tabloid-fantasy seclusion. On a musical level, new song Pi finds her singing about a character who is obsessed with the number's calculation; in the refrain, she sings it to over 100 decimal places, with a gentle sensuality. The result is impressive, but also undoubtedly barmy.
"Sometimes, early on," Bush recalls, "when I was playing that to friends, they really liked it, but when they got to the end, they'd laugh. I thought that was really nice. I think that there's always room for humour in music. It's something that always takes itself so seriously, which I think is a bit of a shame."
As much as Bush is keen to speak about certain aspects of her life, she's also quick to distance herself from strictly autobiographical readings of her work, especially when she's almost always singing from the point of view of imaginary characters or historical figures. In conversation, she will occasionally, but subtly, leave certain topics under wraps.
"My life and my work are very interlocked," she says. "That's partly why I like to keep my private life private. I don't really see myself as a celebrity, but more as a sort of mitre." Not a bishop's hat, that is, but a joint, which forms a corner in a building; Bush sees herself as joining people together, including her family and her recurring cast of musicians, who appear from album to album. Mitres tend to be unobtrusive, and Aerial's stealthily rhythmic song How to Be Invisible, has often been read in terms of Bush's own desire for privacy. It features a recipe for invisibility, which involves "hem of anorak," "stem of wallflower" and "hair of doormat" -- all references, as Bush notes, to "geeks," who are "literally absorbed into the wallpaper”.
Unfortunately, it was her long-term friend and collaborator Peter Gabriel who revealed Kate Bush had a son. In a 2000 interview, he revealed she was a mother. The press went into overdrive! Rather than respect her privacy and mind their own business, there were headlines around this secret son. This big mystery. Bush described in insulting tones as isolated, reclusive, weird, hiding or shunning showbusiness! In fact, Bush was making music but was prioritising motherhood. She was never ‘in showbusiness’. Someone who never wanted fame, she was keeping private and did not want to welcome in headlines or the tabloids. As Graeme Thomson explains in his biography of Kate Bush, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, it is noted how the tabloids had this vision of Kate Bush and the music was irrelevant. She was incorrectly labelled as a recluse or weirdo. This has not changed radically today! Bush was growing more tired of the press. By 1993’s The Red Shoes you could see how it was getting to her. Think about the last T.V. interview she gave, with Michael Aspel, and how insulting and lurid that is. A car-crash! You can understand, with a new album out, how she was at best wary of the press. At worst she saw them as a poisonous and hugely negative force. Aerial changed the way she promoted albums. You kind of think of The Red Shoes about being concerned with loss and separation. Bush losing her mother and breaking up with Del Palmer. Losing friends and going through a very hard time. Aerial is the opposite: about new life, purpose and new family. Perhaps in a more giving headspace in terms of her time, she was doing things on her own terms.
In 1991, she famously kicked a tabloid snapper when she was photographed coming out of a play. In 1993, there was a challenging and combative interview with Chrissey Illy. The articles about Bush’s son were particularly intrusive and violated any sense of privacy and decency. Speculation and scandal. Bush came out and made a statement to her fan club addressing these inaccurate articles. She explained how she was having fun being a mum and was working on a new album. It is important to consider why she retreated from music shortly after 1993. Part of it was the media and that pressure and intrusion into her private life. As she was working on a new album and preparing to come back to the fore, she was facing the same sort of violation and horror she got in the 1990s. Truly, Kate Bush could never get respect or peace! Regardless, stories from the people who worked with Kate Bush on Aerial tell of the mood and warm environment at her home. I love the informality and family vibe. The same sort that her mother used to provide at East Wickham Farm when Bush was younger. Musicians and those who worked with Bush were struck by her hospitality, cheerfulness and true attentiveness. I think about Aerial as this album informed by domesticity and the mood at home. This warm, wonderful and really welcoming environment. Bush was not only producer and the artist. She was also the host. Tea was always on hand! Ensuring her musicians were fuelled with tea, Peter Erskine – who played percussion on several tracks – recalls that there was always a brew on the go. Bush making sure that everyone was seen to! There was this joke between Del Palmer – the engineer and player on the album (and Bush’s former boyfriend and long-term friend) - and John Giblin (who played bass). They adopted this accent of a British actor and would say “Ah. You’re a fine woman, Kate”. It was almost this mantra. Even though EMI’s Tony Wadsworth kept in contact, she did not play him any of the album. There is this false story (that she was asked about by Tom Doyle in 2005) that she made a cake for him and saying she was going to play him some music. Privacy and secrecy about the album was paramount.
Even so, that idea of there being this warm vibe and new spirt around her home was noticed by musicians and the press. Bush always on hand with tea. This very nice environment. I think that there was new trust with the record label. I am going to address this in a future feature. About how Bush pushed away from EMI eventually. However, in 2005, she was in this space where she was more open to their updates and queries. Again, in another feature, I will address how promotion changed from 2005. Bush was not seen in public or a T.V. studio. Her interviews were conducted at her home or via phone. She was very much open to people coming to her but, because of continued press nonsense and insult, something has been broken. She no longer would do things how she used to or was expected to do. Regardless, I think this new approach worked wonders. Being in this stable and familiar environment, she could talk about her album in a much more relaxed way. Some very long interviews from 2005. Tom Doyle enjoying four hours with Bush. Mark Radcliffe getting this long interview. I feel Bush, as mother and creator of one of her best albums, was in a new phase. In her forties, her priorities had changed. Not enduring the same sort of brutal promotional circuit, she was instead creating this balance between music and family. I am going to go into the album and how Aerial resonated with critics in the second anniversary feature. However, on 7th November, 2005, we got this album from Kate Bush. Her first in twelve years. It was a monumental moment. People not sure how good it would be or whether it would be worth the wait. It was very much worth the wait! Whether truly driven by her son, family and home, you cannot deny that Bush was much happier. Spotlighting growth and new joy rather than loss (even though there are moments on Aerial that are slightly heartbroken). Up there with her best work, the majestic Aerial still sounds amazing nineteen years later. If you have never heard Bush’s eighth studio album then you must…
HEAR it now.