FEATURE:
I Just Took a Trip on My Love for Him
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Tokyo in June 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Koh Hasebe (Shinko Music/Getty Images)
The Beauty and Orchestration on The Man with the Child in His Eyes
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ONCE more…
I am turning to the pages from a recent edition of PROG. It went deep with Kate Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside. Released in 1978 when Bush was nineteen, we get insights and perspectives on an incredible introduction. For this feature, I want to highlight one of the standout songs from The Kick Inside. The Man with the Child in His Eyes was the second U.K. single from the album. It reached six in the U.K. and three in Ireland. Bush wrote the song when she was thirteen and it was recorded in June 1975 when she was sixteen. An astonishingly mature and accomplished song, I am going to go into more depth about it for a future feature. Prior to dissecting some words from PROG, here is Kate Bush discussing the story behind one of her most loved songs:
“The inspiration for ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that’s the same with every female. I think it’s a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don’t think we’re all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child.
Producer Andrew Powell spoke with PROG about his experiences producing The Kick Inside. I am really interesting reading what Powell thinks of Kate Bush now. His recollections from 1977 when her debut album was being recorded. He notes how Bush’s lyrical and melody work is incredibly sophisticated. Considering The Man with the Child in His Eyes was written when she was a schoolgirl. How Bush knew what she wanted from production. Many might think that Kate Bush was this inexperienced artist who was very young and was being guided by men in the studio and did not have too much say. Even though she did not produce The Kick Inside, she was very present and involved. Intuitive when it came to her music and what she wanted it to sound like. Bush pushed for The Man with the Child in His Eyes to be the second single. I think EMI were pushing more for Them Heavy People (which was released in Japan under the title, Rolling the Ball, and reached number three there). Not about The Man with the Child in His Eyes, but Andrew Powell recalled how she came in the studio for the first day of a session and played the first track to the band and personnel. They were all mesmerised. She had this instant and profound impact. When it came to The Man with the Child in His Eyes, Bush spoke with Andrew Powell about some of her influences. She was very keen to have a lovely and affecting orchestral part on the track. One of the most potent and memorable aspects of the song is the strings. In June 1975, Bush recorded at AIR studios – situated above the crossroads by Oxford Street and Regent Street, London – and one of the songs laid down was The Man with the Child in His Eyes. David Gilmour put up the money for everything and was mentoring Kate Bush. Making sure she got a professional recording and this early exposure to a studio. The version of The Man with the Child in His Eyes on The Kick Inside is what was recorded in June 1975.
Geoff Emerick was a big factor when it came to the orchestration on The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Perhaps best know for his engineering work with The Beatles, he did a wonderful job with the rhythm section and orchestra. I know Bush was nervous being backed by strings and it was this big occasion for a teenager. Something she had not done before, she rose to the occasion and delivered a spine-tingling vocal! Powell remembers how they did one or two sessions. He had a day between them to write the orchestral parts and do some overdubs. Bush did her part in one take it was all recorded live. You do get this feeling when listening to the track that you are in the studio with her. It is such an intimate and evocative performance. Bush was not phased working with someone as reputable and legendary as Geoff Emerick. In July (1975), David Gilmour took Bush’s tape to a listening session at Abbey Road with EMI’s General Manager, Bob Mercer. Even though Mercer was rightly impressed with such a determined, precocious and original talent, he was also a little wary of having such a young (potentially vulnerable) artist launch a career at that point. He did offer a deal: £3,000 and a four-year contract. The caveat – and thanks to PROG for their words; of which I am almost quoting verbatim – was that Bush would continue her studies and gain real-world experience for two years.
That took her to June/July 1977, which is just before Bush stepped back into AIR studios to begin recording the remaining eleven tracks on The Kick Inside (the album has thirteen tracks; The Saxophone Song was also recorded in June 1975 alongside The Man with the Child in His Eyes). I did not know that Mercer recommended Pink Floyd manager Steve O’Rourke to the Bush family, paid for piano lessons so she could refine her technique and, crucially, accompanied her to see a performance by Lindsay Kemp (who enjoyed a long friendship and creative partnership with Bush), who inspired and taught David Bowie. I am going to explore more of the PROG issue, because there is a lot of great detail about Kate Bush in 1977. Her performing with the KT Bush Band. A look at the very hot summer of 1976, where Bush would stay up to the early hours and play piano and sing – to the annoyance of one or two of the neighbours (as she kept her window open and her voice carried down the street). I wanted to spotlight The Man with the Child in His Eyes and the orchestration. The beauty of the song. Andrew Powell’s recollections all these years later. Such a remarkable song that still sounds utterly entrancing and overwhelming to this day. Did she know in 1975, when she stepped into AIR studios, that this song would take on a new life?! It would have been brilliant without orchestration, though it is the strings that really add something. They compliment her voice and piano. Such a gorgeous song that still moves me every time I listen to it. When I think about The Man with the Child in His Eyes, I imagine Kate Bush in a studio performing backed by an orchestra, one wonderful day…
IN June 1975.