FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris
The Mystery and Transience of Sex and Passion Through Her Music
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FOR this feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Jill Furmanovsky
the eight-hundred-and-ninetieth I have published about Kate Bush, I wanted to zero in on a passage and thought that was shared by Graeme Thomson in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. I know I do mention this book a lot and have been given plenty of information and inspiration for features. I am returning to it again and I will definitely continue to do so going forward. I have discussed Bush’s lyrics and their depth. I have approached them from different angles. Now, and related to the forty-seventh anniversary of The Kick Inside on 17th February, I am thinking back to the start. How Bush describes passion and love in different ways. How it can be mysterious, ephemeral but also intense and temporary. But also have this sense of mystique. Thomson’s observations about Misty, which appears on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, led me to think about the way in which Bush writes about sex and passion. How it can be this powerful force that enlivens, emboldens and is universal. However, there is also this other aspect. The transient nature of it. How Misty has this sense of ridicule, as it is about a woman who has a night of passion with a snowman, and darkness.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush visualising Misty from 2011’s 50 Words for Snow
Maybe a taboo coupling, though I always think Bush used the snowman as a metaphor. How there is this passion that is gone by the morning. The fleeting nature of sex. The sense of loss too. How there is blood on the hand. Is it menstruation blood or from death? Or is it insignificant? Thomson comments how Misty concerns the mystery of love. The power of fantasy. The woman’s (or Bush) love has melted by the morning. It was a theory that I was compelled to stretch. How the words, “I turn off the light” link to The Man with the Child in His Eyes. In that song, which features on her The Kick Inside (her 1978 debut), Bush sings “I realise he's there/When I turn the light off and turn over”. I don’t think it was an unintentional link to her debut album. So many have highlighted how Bush returned to The Kick Inside through the importance of the piano. There are similarities in terms of the lyrics and sound. Love and passion quite prominent. If Bush was singing about philosophers, mysticism and inhabiting the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw (from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights) on The Kick Inside, she was singing about a haunted lake (Lake Tahoe) and the mystery of a Yeti. How we want to hunt for this mystery and put it in a box. How there is beauty to the mystery and we should leave it alone. If it is less explicitly about love and passion, I do feel Bush was also alluding to something more grounded in the everyday. It is interesting how Bush has addressed and represented the fleeting nature of love and passion through the years.
Think about The Man with the Child in His Eyes. This very young woman has this mysterious stranger. This talked-about love that might be “lost on some horizon” or is out to sea. If Bush has said the song is about how men have this child-like wonder and keep that within themselves, I think of the song as very sensual but also mysterious. Something fictional perhaps. If the first lines suggest a physicality and closeness, it does seem that Bush is referring to falling asleep and seeing this man in her dreams: “I hear him, before I go to sleep/And focus on the day that's been/I realise he's there/When I turn the light off and turn over”. Even if Bush has been pretty direct and natural when talking about passion, one of the most interesting aspects is how she entwines the mystical, transient and almost fictional around sex and passion. The Kick Inside is a great example. L’Amour Looks Something Like You’s first verse has that combination of yearning but this transient, passing nature. How there is attraction and pull but it is temporary or somehow fleeting: “You came out of the night/Wearing a mask in white colour/My eyes were shining/On the wine, and your aura/All in order, we move into the boudoir/But too soon the morning has resumed”. The Wedding List, from 1980’s Never for Ever, is about a bride who seeks revenge after her groom is killed at the altar. Whilst an extreme example, it is another case of love being snatched away. How the unpredictable can end love. You can look at Hounds of Love’s title track as another extreme example. How Bush is running away from love. This fear that the hounds (love) will catch you and cause harm.
Bush has never shied away from discussing sex and passion. Many songs where she has been very bold and uncomplicated when representing her desires or fears. There is another side. Where she highlights love and passion as being something out of reach, temporary or mystical. Think about the sexuality and passion through Aerial’s Mrs. Bartolozzi. Images of clothes entwined in the washing machine. Through a song about domesticity, there are fantastical elements. This woman’s mind wandering and almost imagining this sexual encounter between clothes. The water splashing. When the cycle stops, so does the romance. Rather than focusing on whether Bush feels love is largely transient and mysterious, I think it is probably worth reframing things. How she tackles the complexities and realities of love. How love can be lost. Whether it is the loss of a young son sent to war in Army Dreamers or Misty’s fantastical and unusual hero melting in the sheets, I am fascinated by how Bush tackles love and loss. Rather than it being depressing and downbeat, there is something deeper and more positive. There is a mystery and magic in so many of her songs. How she can perfectly illustrate the wonder and physicality of sex without any restrictions or needless embarrassment. Someone very confident and honest. Most artists would only have this one side or dynamic. The way Bush writes and expresses herself. How passion and love can be lost so quick. How the real and imaginary are close bedfellows. The way she can write about something universal that has a unique storytelling palette. No other writer matches Bush when it comes to highlighting the mystery of love, the transient nature of sex and he power of fantasy. Something that runs right through Bush’s catalogue. Graeme Thomson’s comments about Misty did get me thinking deeply about Kate Bush’s work and how she writes about sex and love.
How it is very much present on Kate Bush’s debut album from 1978 and her latest album from thirty-three years later. Bush was derided or at least mocked when she wrote about sex in a romantic fiction sort of way on The Kick Inside. One or two lyrics that were a little below her best (images of boudoirs and stockings falling!). Some feel that some of the songs of love on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes are more routine. A little dull. Not to say that Bush is unmemorable when being very honest about the loss or love or the thrill of sex. In fact, she can be majestic and peerless! However, I think she is at her very best when she marries fantasy and the relatable. When she is close to the ecstasy of passion or the fulfilment of desire but it is taken away. When there is this mystery and lingering sense of loss when it comes to love. Someone will put it into words a lot better than me. I have not really seen it expanded on though I would really like to. Such an intriguing subject. By all means, Bush was in largely stable and happy relationships. She was with Del Palmer for well over a decade, and she did not get her heart broken much. Some could say she is writing from a fictional or less personal lens. What makes Kate Bush’s songs about passion and love so compelling is that she taps into something we all feel. Whether it is the vulnerability and temporary nature of love or the way it can chase us and we need to stand up to it, it is a reason why her music is so enduring and discussed. In a 2022 BBC feature, Bush’s “mystical songs” were celebrated. One passage particularly caught my eye: “In interviews she is lovely, if deftly evasive, unable or unwilling to put into words why and how she makes music of such magical intensity. The more that she denies that there is any mystery to unravel, the more fascinating she becomes. She told me that she loves it when listeners mishear or misread her songs as long as they take something positive from the experience: "Whether you've understood what the artist felt is basically irrelevant. It's how it makes you feel”. When Kate Bush graces us with new music, no doubt she will put love, romance and sex in the mix. Its romance, fragility and mystery. It will be compelling reading Kate Bush’s…
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