FEATURE:
Before Lifting the Needle…
IN THOS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn
Ranking Kate Bush’s Best Album End of Side A's/Start of Side B's
_________
THIS Kate Bush feature…
is back to an album rankings. Whereas before I have ranked her best album openers and closers, I don’t recall ever looking at the middle of the album. The best side A ends and side B starts. I think that Bush’s albums really succeed and speak when the tracks are in the right order. How hugely important sequencing is. I do feel like many people overlook this. I have celebrated her great album openers. How she can leave some superb tracks as closers. Now, and hoping I have not repeated myself, I am thinking about the end of the first side and the start of the second. I know that Aerial is a double album so has more than two sides, so I am just concentrating on the A and B side. The same for 50 Words for Snow. Although not a double album, it has two vinyl. It may seem obvious or like Hounds of Love would win. However, we are talking about two specific tracks. The way you end that first side before lifting up the needle to flip the vinyl. What greets you when you drop it back down. Fans will have their own opinions. It has been good to explore her discography for this feature and consider which albums are best when it comes to keeping you hooked. Finishing up the A side with a great track and keeping that momentum going. Maybe one or two albums not great in that respect, though most of them have strong cuts that mean you are exciting to hear what happens when you flip the vinyl. Here is my opinions as to the best side A-ending/side B-opening combinations. It would be good to…
HEAR your thoughts.
_____________
TEN
DIRECTOR’S CUT (2011): Lily (A)/(B) Deeper Understanding
This is harder to rank as Director’s Cut was re-recorded songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Many debate whether the originals are better or the reworked versions. In the case of Director’s Cut, there are a few songs I prefer to the original versions. Lily closed side A. I think that the version on The Red Shoes is stronger. However, the 2011 recording is really interesting and we get to hear Bush’s slightly older voice giving new life and meaning to the song. How she stripped it down and reworked this song. You have to give her credit for that. I hope that it means more people connect with the song and maybe go and listen to The Red Shoes. I feel Director’s Cut gets written off and is never viewed highly when critics rank Bush’s studio albums. Her ninth is not her strongest, though it has a few real gems that need to be celebrated and mentioned.
One of the most controversial reworkings on Director’s Cut is Deeper Understanding. The original is brilliant because it was futuristic when it came to seeing how technology would take over. With stronger production and a more effective vocal on The Sensual World, I am not sure whether Bush should have revisited the song in 2011. She also released the song as a single. The impact of the lyrics not as deep and effective then. The video is also quite weird and messy. Not her finest directing outing. It is a shame. I would have loved to have seen another song from the album released as a single. Maybe Lily or Never Be Mine. I would relish seeing videos for either of those songs.
NINE
THE DREAMING (1982): Leave It Open (A)/(B)The Dreaming
This is a case of sequencing perhaps not being perfect. Closing the first side of The Dreaming is the brilliant Leave It Open. One of the standouts, this was a period when Bush was experimenting more. Producing solo for the first time, I love all the levels and layers on Leave It Open. Another song – alongside Sat in Your Lap – about knowledge and the mind, it is fascinating reading what Bush said about Leave It Open:
“Like cups, we are filled up and emptied with feelings, emotions – vessels breathing in, breathing out. This song is about being open and shut to stimuli at the right times. Often we have closed minds and open mouths when perhaps we should have open minds and shut mouths.
This was the first demo to be recorded, and we used a Revox and the few effects such as a guitar chorus pedal and an analogue delay system. We tried to give the track an Eastern flavour and the finished demo certainly had a distinctive mood.
There are lots of different vocal parts, each portraying a separate character and therefore each demanding an individual sound. When a lot of vocals are being used in contrast rather than “as one”, more emphasis has to go on distinguishing between the different voices, especially if the vocals are coming from one person.
To help the separation we used the effects we had. When we mastered the track, a lot more electronic effects and different kinds of echoes were used, helping to place the vocals and give a greater sense of perspective. Every person who came into the studio was given the “end backing vocals test” to guess what is being sung at the end of the song.
“How many words is it?”
“Five.”
“Does it begin with a ‘W’?”
It is very difficult to guess, but it can be done, especially when you know what the song is about.
I would love to know your answers.
A title track many considered to be her weakest, The Dreaming did divide people when it came out. Released as a single that reached forty-eight in the U.K., many were put off by Bush adopting an Australian accent. Perhaps a little too inaccessible and un-commercial to make an impact, the politics behind the song were also questioned. Whether Kate Bush was qualified to discuss the destruction of Aboriginal homelands by white Australians in their quest for weapons-grade uranium. The fact that the song features Rolf Harris also leaves a bit of a black mark:
“Well, years ago my brother bought ‘Sun Arise’ [by Rolf Harris] and I loved it, it was such a beautiful song. And ever since then I’ve wanted to create something which had that feel of Australia within it. I loved the sound of the traditional aboriginal instruments, and as I grew older, I became much more aware of the actual situation which existed in Australia between the white Australian and the aborigines, who were being wiped out by man’s greed for uranium. Digging up their sacred grounds, just to get plutonium, and eventually make weapons out of it. And I just feel that it’s so wrong: this beautiful culture being destroyed just so that we can build weapons which maybe one day will destroy everything, including us. We should be learning from the aborigines, they’re such a fascinating race. And Australia – there’s something very beautiful about that country.
EIGHT
NEVER FOR EVER (1980): Egypt (A)/(B) The Wedding List
This might be one case of less than brilliant sequencing. I think that Never for Ever is one of Kate Bush’s best albums. However, one of its lesser songs, Egypt, ends side A. I think that a song like All We Ever Look For or The Infant Kiss would have been a stronger way to finish the first side. However, Egypt is a good song. It is one that I like a lot but again divides critics. One of the overlooked tracks from Bush’s early career, we do to listen to it more. This is what Kate Bush said about Egypt and the story behind it:
“The song is very much about someone who has not gone there thinking about Egypt, going: “Oh, Egypt! It’s so romantic… the pyramids!” Then in the breaks, there’s meant to be the reality of Egypt, the conflict. It’s meant to be how blindly we see some things – “Oh, what a beautiful world”, you know, when there’s shit and sewers all around you.
One of Kate Bush’s best songs period opens the second side of Never for Ever. Maybe similar in tone and nature to James and the Cold Gun, The Wedding List is much finer. It is a terrifically clever song about a bride who goes on a rampage after her husband-to-be is shot at the altar. It is a song of revenge. One of the highlights from Kate Bush’s 1979 Christmas special, I think it warranted the chance to be released as a single. It would have got a high chart placing for sure. I do think that this deep cut is one of her very best creations. In this interview, Kate Bush talked more about revenge and The Wedding List:
“Revenge is so powerful and futile in the situation in the song. Instead of just one person being killed, it’s three: her husband, the guy who did it – who was right on top of the wedding list with the silver plates – and her, because when she’s done it, there’s nothing left. All her ambition and purpose has all gone into that one guy. She’s dead, there’s nothing there.
SEVEN
LIONHEART (1978): Oh Enbgland My Lionheart (A)/(B) Fullhouse
Kate Bush’s second studio album does not have the same strength as her debut when it comes to the end of side A and the start of side B. However, it is still exceptional. With Oh England My Lionheart being a sort of unofficial and almost-title track taking us to the end of the first side, it is a strong and beautiful thing. A song that she performed for 1979’s The Tour of Life, this is a track that needs to be played more. Many think of Kate Bush as being quintessentially English. Even though she is half-Irish, her Englishness is often brought up. Even if she distanced herself from Oh England My Lionheart in years after Lionheart was released, around the time the album came out, she was talking about it as one of her favourites. You can see why. Parodied by Pamela Stephenson on Not the Nine O’Clock News and written by Peter Brewis, this is what Kate Bush said of the stunning Oh England My Lionheart:
“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.
Fullhouse was partly autobiographical. Kate Bush said how it was hard for her to cope with feelings of fear, paranoia and anger. Maybe her getting everything out of her system, it is unsurprising that she was putting this into songs. With two albums released in 1978 and endless promotion, you get a real feeling of how Kate Bush was battling against stress and fatigue. Expected to write new material when she had little time. One of the new songs written for Lionheart, Fullhouse is a standout from the album. Though many critics feel it is one of the weaker numbers. Though for some reason the song has been renamed as Full House, I do prefer the original spelling. A song that deserves more love and is a great example of Kate Bush’s songwriting excellence, it is a brilliant way of opening the second side of Lionheart.
SIX
THE SENSUAL WORLD (1989): Heads We’re Dancing (A)/(B) Deeper Understanding
Many people do not know about Heads We’re Dancing. I do really love the song, though I can understand some people might have found it less appealing or instantly connectable as other tracks through The Sensual World. However, Heads We’re Dancing is a brilliant song to end side A of Bush’s sixth studio album. An underrated jewel that Bush discussed for a 1989 interview:
“It’s a very dark idea, but it’s the idea of this girl who goes to a big ball; very expensive, romantic, exciting, and it’s 1939, before the war starts. And this guy, very charming, very sweet-spoken, comes up and asks her to dance but he does it by throwing a coin and he says, “If the coin lands with heads facing up, then we dance!” Even that’s a very attractive ‘come on’, isn’t it? And the idea is that she enjoys his company and dances with him and, days later, she sees in the paper who it is, and she is hit with this absolute horror – absolute horror. What could be worse? To have been so close to the man… she could have tried to kill him… she could have tried to change history, had she known at that point what was actually happening. And I think Hitler is a person who fooled so many people. He fooled nations of people. And I don’t think you can blame those people for being fooled, and maybe it’s these very charming people… maybe evil is not always in the guise you expect it to be.
A track not selected as a single first time around but was when it was re-recorded for 2011’s Director’s Cut, Deeper Understanding is another of Bush’s standout songs. Talking about the pull of technology and how it has power of it, this was prescient and spookily forward-thinking. Bush predicting how technology would dominate our lives. Here is some interview archive, where Bush discussed Deeper Understanding:
“Yes, it is emotional disconnection, but then it’s very muchconnection,but in a way that you would never expect. And that kind of emotion should really come from the human instinctive force, and in this particular case it’s coming from a computer. I really liked the idea of playing with the whole imagery of computers being so cold, so unfeeling. Actually what is happening in the song is that this person conjures up this program that is almost like a visitation of angels. They are suddenly given so much love by this computer – it’s like, you know, just love. There was no other choice. Who else could embody the visitation of angels but the Trio Bulgarka? [laughs]
John Diliberto, ‘Kate Bush’s Theater Of The Senses’. Musician, February 1990”.
FIVE
THE KICK INSIDE (1978): Wuthering Heights (A)/(B) James and the Cold Gun
There is no denying how strong The Kick Inside Is. Opening with Moving and ending with the title track, it also boasts a brilliant end to the first side and start of the second. For all the tracklisting and details (what made up the side A and B (C and D for some albums), I have referred to Discogs. This is a single album but one filled with huge intent and unique brilliance. The teenage Kate Bush putting out an album in 1978 unlike anything around it. Perhaps one of the best incidents of album sequencing, we end that first side of the vinyl with the debut single, Wuthering Heights. It could have been the album lead-off track or second or third. Instead, it is the sixth track. Meaning you get this recognisable and very strong end to side A. It is also preceded by The Man with the Child in His Eyes. So both U.K. singles ending the first side. That beautiful duo on side A that means the listener is in a trance before lifting up the needle.
Opening the second side of the vinyl is a song that was considered as the first single for The Kick Inside, James and the Cold Gun. Often seen as one of the most conventional and ‘radio-friendly’ songs on the album, it is a contrast to Wuthering Heights. It provides a rush of energy and rawness. After that, there are love songs and numbers with a different energy. I do admire the sequencing on The Kick Inside. The strongest tracks are well-positioned to create the biggest impact. Even if James and the Cold Gun is not the most admired or strongest track on the album, it does mean you get a rush and something more accessible to open side B – after the strange and beguiling Wuthering Heights. It is a great partnership that means you are hooked as you go through the second half of the album. A song that is often overlooked and rarely played, I feel it is a great one. A track Bush was honing whilst playing with the KT Bush Band in 1977, it ensures that those buying and hearing The Kick Inside in 1978 (and now) had two golden tracks either side of the needle lift.
FOUR
50 WORDS FOR SNOW (2011): Lake Tahoe (A)/(B) Misty
Kate Bush’s latest studio album is seven tracks. Longer songs that allow for more space and light. Tracks that unfold and unfurl. More Chamber Jazz/Pop than conventional Pop or Art Rock, it was a new direction for Kate Bush. I also think that the sequencing on the album is perfect. 50 Words for Snow perfectly organised. We end side A with the wonderful Lake Tahoe. It is one of my absolute favourite songs from 50 Words for Snow. I would love to see a full-length animation for this song. It would be filled with some potent and memorable imagery. This is what Kate Bush said about the dark and haunting Lake Tahoe:
“It was because a friend told me about the story that goes with Lake Tahoe so it had to be set there. Apparently people occasionally see a woman who fell into the lake in the Victorian era who rises up and then disappears again. It is an incredibly cold lake so the idea, as I understand it, is that she fell in and is still kind of preserved. Do you know what I mean?
John Doran, ‘A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed’. The Quietus, 2011”.
Flipping to side B of 50 Words for Snow, after the hypnotic Lake Tahoe, we then get the epic Misty. A song that some people do not like, this is a bit of a cheat, I’ll confess! I would put this as number one when it comes to the best side A-ending/side B-opening combinations, but technically Misty is side B. It is 13:32, so it takes up that entire side, so it has no competition. However, it is a truly special song that does not get the credit it warrants. Another song that I would love to see animated in its entirety, this is what Kate Bush said about the sublime and magical Misty:
“It’s a silly idea. But I hope that what has happened is that there’s almost a sense of tenderness. I think it’s quite a dark song. And so I hope that I’ve made it work. But in a lot of ways it shouldn’t because… It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, the idea of the snowman visiting this woman and climbing into bed with her.
But I took him as a purely symbolic snowman, it was about…
No John, he’s REAL (laughs).
THREE
THE RED SHOES (1993): Lily (A)/(B)The Red Shoes
Although it is one of her most opinion-dividing albums, 1993’s The Red Shoes does have its share of exceptional songs. The most obvious example of an album that could have been re-sequenced to make it stronger, it does have a weak second half. However, two stunning tracks are in the middle. Ending side A with Lily, you get this rousing and driving song that was the track Bush opened Before the Dawn with. She also re-recorded it for Director’s Cut. I think that the 1993 recording is the best. Here is a bit of background to the song:
“The song is devoted to Lily Cornford, a noted spiritual healer in London with whom Bush became close friends in the 1990s.
“She was one of those very rare people who are intelligent, intuitive and kind,” Kate has said of Cornford, who believed in mental colour healing—a process whereby patients would be restored to health by seeing various hues. “I was really moved by Lily and impressed with her strength and knowledge, so it led to a song – which she thought was hilarious”.
Keeping the momentum going, The Red Shoes opens its side B with the sublime title track. The Red Shoes was also released as a single by EMI Records in the U.K. on 4th April, 1994. It was the lead track of the movie The Line, the Cross, and the Curve, which was presented on film festival at the time of the single’s release. I think that this is one of the strongest side B-opening songs. There is not a load of information out there about the track. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia gives us some more information about the various releases of The Red Shoes’ title track:
“There are three versions of ‘The Red Shoes’: the album version, which was also used on the single released, and ‘Shoedance’, which is a 10 minute remix by Karl Blagan of ‘The Red Shoes’, featuring excerpts from dialogue from the movie The Line, The Cross & The Curve. Finally, there’s the version from Bush’s album Director’s Cut in 2011”.
TWO
HOUNDS OF LOVE (1985): Cloudbusting (A)/(B) And Dream of Sheep
Kate Bush’s most acclaimed and known album is perfect when it came to tracklisting and the sequencing. Opening with Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and ending with The Morning Fog, you can’t really fault it! The end of side A and start of side B have no faults. But is this duo of songs the strongest when compared to other others?! Cloudbusting ends side A wonderfully. A successful single and one of her most loved songs, it was another with a really interesting and compelling story:
“‘Cloudbusting’ is a track that was very much inspired by a book calledA Book Of Dreams. This book is written through a child’s eyes, looking at his father and how much his father means to him in his world – he’s everything. his father has a machine that can make it rain, amongst many other things, and there’s a wonderful sense of magic as he and his father make it rain together on this machine. The book is full of imagery of an innocent child and yet it’s being written by a sad adult, which gives it a strange kind of personal intimacy and magic that is quite extraordinary. The song is really about how much that father meant to the son and how much he misses him now he’s gone.
Starting side B of one of the best albums ever is And Dream of Sheep. It begins the concept suite, The Ninth Wave. Bush actually recorded a live video for this song that was used in the 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. One of the best songs on Hounds of Love and this emotional and beautiful moment from Kate Bush, it means that we have two genius songs that form the middle of a masterpiece:
“[The Ninth Wave] is about someone who is in the water alone for the night. ‘And Dream Of Sheep’ is about them fighting sleep. They’re very tired and they’ve been in the water waiting for someone to come and get them, and it’s starting to get dark and it doesn’t look like anyone’s coming and they want to go to sleep. They know that if they go to sleep in the water they could turn over and drown, so they’re trying to keep awake; but they can’t help it, they eventually fall asleep – which takes us into the second song. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)”.
ONE
AERIAL (2005): Mrs. Bartolozzi (A)/(B)How to Be Invisible
Perhaps my favourite side A end and side B opener comes from Aerial. The entrancing and dreaming Mrs. Bartolozzi is a song I feel would have made a perfect single. I am taking the tracklisting on Aerial from the 2005 oriignal release when it comes to what ends side A and starts side B. I think it did change when the album was reissued. It is interesting reading what Kate Bush said about Mrs. Bartolozzi:
“Is it about a washing machine? I think it’s a song about Mrs. Bartolozzi. She’s this lady in the song who…does a lot of washing (laughs). It’s not me, but I wouldn’t have written the song if I didn’t spend a lot of time doing washing. But, um, it’s fictitious. I suppose, as soon as you have a child, the washing suddenly increases. And uh, what I like too is that a lot of people think it’s funny. I think that’s great, because I think that actually, it’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written! (laughs)
Clothes are…very interesting things, aren’t they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and…what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are…
So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting. And then it was the idea of this woman, who’s kind of sitting there looking at all the washing going around, and she’s got this new washing machine, and the idea of these clothes, sort of tumbling around in the water, and then the water becomes the sea and the clothes…and the sea…and the washing machine and the kitchen… I just thought it was an interesting idea to play with.
What I wanted to get was the sense of this journey, where you’re sitting in front of this washing machine, and then almost as if in a daydream, you’re suddenly standing in the sea.
Opening the second side of the first vinyl is the majestic How to Be Invisible. This is a song that not many people discuss but really should. It is filled with so much brilliant and vivid imagery. A song that will stay in the memory and draws you in. It is a perfect way to open side B. I really love it and feel it needs to be played on the radio more. This is my favourite passage from the song: “Eye of Braille/Hem of anorak/Stem of wallflower/Hair of doormat/Is that the wind from the desert song?/Is that an autumn leaf falling?/Or is that you, walking home?/Is that the wind from the desert song?/Is that an autumn leaf falling?/Or is that you, walking home?/Is that a storm in the swimming pool?”.