FEATURE:
Lean Living
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
The Kate Bush Diet
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ONE may not find it relevant….
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of Eat the Music in 1993
to her music and career, but there is something to be said of any artist’s diet and how they live. In terms of how it affects their body and mind. How a bad diet can impact the music negatively and reduce productivity. How a better diet can be beneficial in that regards. I am interested in the diet of Kate Bush. There is this mix of healthiness and conscientiousness together with occasional excess. Moments where there was a slightly less healthy approach. Tricks she used to give her voice mucus and gravel. How vegetarianism played a big role. One big reason why she could take to the stage for 1979’s The Tour of Life and have such stamina. How key that diet was to her energy levels and mental wellbeing I think. Even if there have been times of unhealth eating, Bush managed to overhaul this and return to her previous self. Rather than this being something a tabloid newspaper would print and then discuss her figure in a derogatory and misogynistic way, this is much more loving of course! I am writing about it because I can’t see anyone else that has. In terms of the food and drink that accompanied Bush through her career. I am going to drop in a clip of Bush with Delia Smith from early in her career. Where Bush talked about her vegetarianism and why she decided to stop eating meat as a child. Last year, I did discuss Kate Bush meeting Delia Smith. I am tempted to buy this on eBay, as I am going to reference this magazine cover from 1986. It is in Lean Living magazine and there is this wonderful photo of Kate Bush on the front I can’t seem to see anywhere else! It was another chance to read about Kate Bush talking about her vegetarianism. The magazine is about the meat-free lifestyle. Later in this feature I will talk about slightly less healthy habits and times.
However, when it comes to Kate Bush, she is someone who has had to have this healthy diet. Such a hardworking artist and dancer, her physicality was a big part of her music and videos. I will come to Lean Living soon. However, this article collates quotes and interviews where Kate Bush has spoken about her diet and vegetarianism:
“I asked if people were interested in Kate Bush quotes about Vegetarianism, and got an overwhelming response. So here's a bunch, they're from my 'Lectronic book Cloudbusting - Kate Bush In Her Own Words, which is available on the Genie computer network and in the Love-Hounds archives (the international Kate Bush Computer Network - rec.music.gaffa). It's pretty long so if you're not interested hit "N" now!
If vegetarians are against the killing of animals for food, why don't they object to them being killed for leather?
I think there are a lot of vegetarians who are against animals being killed to make leather, and they do go out of their way to wear rubber and plastic shoes and belts, but I think that there is a practical side to it, as well. Leather is very warm, and it's nice to look at, but it does require a lot of effort for most of us to make a different choice from the normal, and I find myself that I do wear quite a few leather shoes. Not that I consciously buy them because they're made of leather, but I do have a few, and I think it's something to do with the tradition of leather being used in clothing. But there's no excuse for the mass production of leather, and I think it comes down to effort and how far you really want to go. It's up to you in the long run.
You are a vegetarian and yet you wear fur coats. Why?
I don't wear fur coats. I haven't got one. I don't own one and I don't believe in wearing them - I may have occasionally been in photos with one, but it wouldn't have been mine. It would have been one that I'd borrowed because it was very cold; for instance in Switzerland, when I did the Abba special. [In fact, as far as I know, that was the only time Kate has ever been seen in a fur. - IED] But I don't believe in people wearing fur coats, I think it's very extravagant and again, I think people don't tend to associate the clothes with the animals they come from, especially the rare animals that some of the coats are made of. You can get incredibly good imitation ones now - I've seen ones that I thought were real fur and they weren't. They're really fantastic, and they cost less, too.
Do you follow vegetarian recipes from books, or do you make up your own?
I do follow recipes from books, but I find that normally I don't stick to them, especially if I haven't got all the ingredients, and I tend to substitute different vegetables. If I'm feeling really brave, occasionally I base a meal on a recipe and make the rest up. Cooking is quite a logical thing, really, and you soon learn the things that go together - what works and what doesn't.
You say in interviews that you don't eat meat because you don't believe in eating life. But you eat plants, and they are living things. Why?
I do eat plants, and I know they're living, and I'm fond of them, but I think you have to find your own level. I could live on pills, but I don't think it's very human to do that - that is something we dream of in the space age: food without texture or mass. I don't think plants mind being eaten, actually. I think they'd be really sad if no-one paid that much attention to them. I appreciate them very much for the things they give me. I'd be very sad if there weren't any vegetables, and normally it isn't the actual plant that's killed - it's the fruit or vegetable that's taken off. I think this is the purpose of plants, that they grow to be eaten. The only problem is that it has become a very mass-produced market, again, and that the really natural, unchemicalised environment doesn't really exist. Too many chemicals are used on plants, but while there is a demand for brightly coloured food in pretty packets, that's how it will carry on. But you can get fresh, organically grown vegetables. You can grow them yourselves, and if you look around and ask, you'll find that there are a few shops and some local farms that sell vegetables that have not been grown in chemically fertilised ground. (1980, KBC 5)
I just couldn't stand the idea of eating meat - and I really do think that it has made me calmer. (1982, Company)
People probably eat so much pre-packaged food because it's always so easy to get in shops, and they don't connect it with live animals. If they actually had to kill the animal themselves, they would probably have great difficulty in doing it. People who live and work with animals can be aware of what they are doing when they kill an animal. They realise that they're going to be eating it, rather than it being sent off to be sold in supermarkets. On some levels this seems to be all right, because it's on a one-to-one basis: you feed and look after the animal for a certain length of time and then it repays you by becoming your food. But it's the mass-production of living creatures just to be eaten, and the fact that people aren't really aware of what they're eating, that I don't like.
These days it seems more and more probable that fish are likely to contain pollution - which can't do you any good - as they have no choice but to eat all the muck that's in the water. But hopefully people's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us can't really be right, and if you've seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it can't understand why its calf isn't by it, it can make you think a lot.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at East Wickham Farm appearing on an edition of Delia Smith’s Cookery Course in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC
Working in London, I often have to go past meat markets, and when I see all those people working in there with blood all over them, and dead animals strung up from meat-hooks, just waiting to be devoured, it's like something out of a horror film. When I realised that, I didn't want to eat meat any more. I became more conscious about the things that I did eat. I think this helped me to learn more about food, because I had to start thinking what the nutritional value of something was, and I'm still learning about things I didn't think I could eat, which is really good. Just the discipline of not eating meat is a very good thing. It's like giving up anything you like - it hurts at first, but then you feel much better for it. I don't know whether it was just me, but when I first became a vegetarian I was really hungry a lot of the time, but I'm not now, and I wonder if that's because my stomach has adjusted. When you eat meat, you do tend to eat more than you need, and the body has to work a lot to break it all down.
It's interesting how the traveling that I've done reveals things about people's diets. In many European countries it's very hard to get something that hasn't got meat in it. There was one instance in Germany where I asked for a bowl of tomato soup and, having been assured that it contained just tomatoes, I tucked into it. But about halfway through the soup I could see all these lumps floating around at the bottom, and of course they were all meatballs. They just naturally do things like putting bacon and meatballs into vegetable soup, without even thinking about it. So many shops are meat-oriented: it's all sausages and pies, and the only other things you can really get are just potatoes and salads, when there is such an enormous variety of non-animal foods that can be eaten. Looking forward to a breakfast of toast and marmalade, and then getting a couple of slabs of cold meat and white bread pushed under your nose, isn't the way I like to start my day.
Japan seemed to be more vegetable-oriented. They take great pride in their vegetables, although they're greatly into fish, and this is causing them and the dolphins a lot of problems. I found Australia very meat-oriented, too, and this might have something to do with it being such a young country, and it's true that meat does give you a lot of energy. I suppose there was a time when a slab of bacon fat for breakfast might have been necessary for somebody working in a heavy manual job. But I've found that if I keep an eye on the sort of vegetarian food that I eat, I don't have any problems about dancing and singing on it.
It all comes down to looking more closely at the sort of food you are just used to having and saying to yourself, Do I really need to eat this, or is there something that will be better for me? The more people who get into good vegetarian food, the easier it will be for us. If I go into a restaurant with friends, and they settle down to a feast of meat and sauces and so on, I usually end up with salad and chips - which is OK, but that's about as far as most restaurants can go in the direction of vegetarian food. (1980, KBC 5)”.
I would love if anyone has a copy of Lean Living or could transcribe the piece or see what is in it! For Woman’s World, Bush wrote about her vegetarianism. That, in addition to her talking with Delia Smith, did project this image of an animal-conscious person. This ethical side. Whether it was a decision she made instantly as a child or there were artists she admired who were vegetarian (I can only think of Paul McCartney), it is commendable that she discussed it. It is clear that Kate Bush would occasionally use food and drink for effect in her music. To change her voice. This blog post discusses how she managed to get some rawness in her vocal for The Dreaming’s Houdini:
“The song is far from a stringent one. “Houdini” is fueled by anguished conniptions rather than melodic coherence. The verse initially sounds like “The Infant Kiss” or some other perfectly normal song with its piano balladry in Eb minor with a progression that finishes on a major tonic chord. It commences as a séance with mourners preparing to reach into the ether (“the tambourine jingle-jangles/the medium roams and rambles”). The refrain is the apex of Bush shrieks, culminating in a gravely, agonized “WITH YOUR LIFE/THE ONLY THING IN MY MIND/WE PULL YOU FROM THE WATER!” The result is hardly melodic — it’s willfully ugly, produced by Bush eating lots of chocolate and drinking milk to sabotage her own voice. Whether or not the experiment works, it doesn’t seem like Bush cares — she wants this to sound raw and ugly”.
Of course, like all people, Bush did like to indulge. I have heard her mention chocolate a few times. Even if the lyrics of Lionheart’s Coffee Homeground says, “Offer me a chocolate, No thank you, spoil my diet, know your game!” – more to do with her not being poisoned by it I suspect -, she has said in interviews how she will console herself with chocolate in the studio. That’s what she said to Phil Sutcliffe when he interviewed her for Q. I think Bush’s weight and body was described in very disrespectful tones by the media. She would snack and indulge in chocolate in the studio. It did mean she could be out of shape. However, as a comfort and consolation, it no doubt helped her a lot. Bush would often come into the studio with a big bar of milk chocolate. I know when she was producing Never for Ever (1980), there would be chocolate and tea in the studio. And something else. I will come to that later.
There were times when Bush was so busy working she couldn’t have the time to cook and eat a healthy diet. Hospitality was top of her mind when running a studio. She would offer tea and snacks to musicians and people in her team. However, I think about albums like The Dreaming (1982) where she would work all day and night. Subsiding off of takeaways and junk food, it showed that a balanced diet was essential to good mental health. A reason why she was exhausted and anxious after that album was recorded is because of her diet. She would overhaul her diet by 1983 and take up dance again before Hounds of Love was released in 1985. Think back to 1979 and The Tour of Life. Lots of filling vegetarian food was brought in. It meant that Bush and her crew could fill up but had this healthy diet that gave them energy and nourishment. Something that she stuck with through her career. If fish did come into her diet later from time to time, Bush was not someone who gave up on her principles. She also knew how important healthy eating was for all aspects. Her body, mind and music. I would love to know more about the sort of tea, cakes and biscuits Kate Bush likes now. It would be interesting. I know people who have interviewed her and said that she would serve cake, biscuits and tea. I wonder what brands she likes! Tea played a big role in her career. She would often drink over a dozen cups a day. It did seen to be one of her main sources of fuel! Bush has also spoken about her love of Indian cuisine too. Kate Bush is someone who bits contrasts in her music. Polemics and huge range of emotions. Not someone who was one thing or another.
Though I see Kate Bush as someone who had a very healthy lifestyle and understood the benefits of healthy living, there was also this other side. She was and is not a big drinker. Cigarettes were a vice. She gave up smoking in the 2000s. Having taken up the habit as a child, I am surprised that it continued for so long. She managed to maintain a healthy diet and was very engaged in dancing but also smoked! I guess it was something pretty normal for artists of the time. Maybe not it would be more of a stigma or less healthy thing to talk about – even if modern artists like Charli xcx smoke and it is part of her image. I think that Bush did use cigarettes as a social lubricant. Maybe something that was more communal. There are photos online of Kate Bush having a smoke break. Whether that is in 1978 when she was at De Efteling Amusement Park, in 1993 whilst filming The Line, the Cross and the Curve or a 1993 interview from Q (that bizarrely touted her this bloke-chasing, cigarette-totting ladette!). In any case, we are glad that she has given up! Maybe it was also a way of helping with stress and anxiety. Whilst determinantal to her health and voice, she did suffer anxiety a lot through her career. Bush also partook in smoking weed. During The Kick Inside (1978), she would smoke it quite a bit. Maybe artists she admired like The Beatles compelled her. Maybe just something artists did more in the 1970s and 1980s. She would offer engineers and people in the studio weed when recording The Dreaming. Sometimes she would be chided and told that she had to put it away and focus! Again, whilst we can see this as a negative, it may have benefited her in some ways. Maybe not creatively but in terms of feeling relaxed in the studio. The late Donald Sutherland recalled a time when he was on the set of Cloudbusting (from Hounds of Love) with Kate Bush and approached her about smoking:
“During the video shoot, Sutherland also vividly remembered one funny moment he shared with Bush while on set.
“I remember being in the car and the hill and them taking me, taking Reich, away and looking back through the back window of the car and seeing her, seeing Reich’s son Peter, standing there,” said Sutherland. “And I remember the first morning on set seeing her coming out of her trailer smoking a joint and I cautioned her, saying she shouldn’t smoke that, it’d affect her work. And she looked at me for a second and said she hadn’t been straight for nine years, and I loved her”.
Kate Bush I think has also said she lives with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Of course, one might see signs of this in her working method. However, she probably also knew that she could fall into bad habits if she let her diet slip. Hard to correct. It is fascinating thinking about it. I love her discussing being vegetarian and how important that was to her. The fact she and chocolate were occasional studio collaborators. Whilst there were some unhealthier moments and times when junk food became a source of comfort - also around 1994 and 1995 -, Bush has always inspired me because of how she lived. How health and fitness were so important. As this amazing hostess, she also made sure her musicians were fed and looked after. When recording, her mother might provide the tea whilst her dad might nip out to collect takeaways for the gang. Even if she smoked her first cigarette aged nine, she knew how damaging it could be living with addictions. I would love if anyone could add anything or if they had a copy of Lean Living from 1986! As it is almost Christmas, I want to end with some words from Bush’s brother, Paddy. Sharing his thoughts in 1981 for the Kate Bush Club (KBC) he mused on what to get his sister for Christmas:
“It's December again, and how do you find me this chilly month? Well, I'm surrounded by my recent musical instrument projects: bagpipes, Indonesian mouth-harps, and a few ancient Egyptian temple instruments. There are little heaps of crumpled paper scattered over the whole of the floor, they are Christmas lists for Kate. What am I going to get her? I hear some of you shout something like Chocolate Elephants--come now, wouldn't that be a bit predictable? What a dilemma!
I could give her something really, really weird, like a reproduction of a sixteenth-century royal Viennese court tartold, but believe me, even something as crazy as that is still predictable for me. It's not as if it's easy. Kate as you know is a vegetarian so any presents like leather coats, pork chops, etc., are out. I can just see it now...rustle rustle "Ooh look! It's a..." rustle... "cabbage...Oh, thank you." You just can't give vegetarians vegetables for Christmas. The hours tick by, the piles of paper accumulate--maybe a vegetable rack, no she's got one, a carrot knife, a leek mulcher, or why not a turnip-condensing unit? Maybe a computer-aided marrow-stuffer, that might take a little too long to come from Switzerland, and it would sit around unused for months until marrows came back into season.
Hard, isn't it?
What about something to do with dancing? Some shoes, maybe... right...she doesn't wear them--says it doesn't feel natural. Maybe some mirrors--how can I get them down her chimney? Anyway, she's got mirrors when she dances with Gary and Stewart. Did you know that Gary and Stewart have their own dance group now--you must look out for them, they're called The Dance Theatre of London, and are doing shows all over the country and are getting lots of mentions in the press.
Did you see Kate on Desmond Morris's Friday Night and Saturday Morning? Wasn't she great? I could buy her a collection of his books, but as you can guess, she's already read them all. [Morris is a zoologist, and has written numerous books about the behaviour of cats, dogs and other animals.] I know you all think I'm joking, and I'm just making all this up, and what I'm really going to do is go out and buy some sophisticated electronic musical gadgetry like a Digital Real-Time Quantum On-Line H.A.R.P. Ballistic Sequential Processor, but like all these things, there is such a long waiting-list, and of course--she's already got one!
The hands on the clock creep round. I try playing the bagpipes for inspiration--soon the sound of broom handles and other heavy blunt household objects can be heard on the ceiling, floor and walls. I can hear voices crying things like "Are you strangling a cat or something?" and "I can't stand it...argh!" Ah me, it's tough trying to write Christmas lists. So this December the 25th, when you unwrap Santa's parcels to find that he has left you a new dumper-truck or a snake-charming kit, think of me as I try and wrap this giraffe in paper with "Noel Noel" written all over it--Kate likes giraffes and it fits down the chimney a real treat--well, almost. I tried earlier when she was out. Desmond said try the head first, but it isn't quite as easy as he said it would be. Nevertheless I think I have solved my problem of a Christmas surprise for her--just picture her face when she unwraps my lumpy, long, soot-covered parcel…”.
Taking things slightly away from music, I wanted to talk about the food and drink of Kate Bush. Someone whose diet was crucially linked to her productivity and wellbeing, there was a mix of healthiness and occasional indulgence. This ethical artist who would not eat life. Someone who also enjoyed chocolate and tea. The latter occasionally used to give her voice more spit. Smoking but not really drinking. Tea seems to be the defining element to me. Maybe quintessentially British, I imagine interviews overflowing with tea! Bush doing tea runs constantly! It does make me smile. This is a subject and thought that I may explore…
NEXT year.