FEATURE:
Among Angels
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow
Kate Bush: The Divine, Mystical, Spiritual, Philosophical and Mysterious
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I can’t quite recall…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
when I last covered this subject. I know I have done it before. I have been reading the new issue of Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, and I at near the beginning still. One of the sections that caught my eye is when Thomson discusses some of the things Bush writes about. In terms of her subject matter, of course she is influenced a lot by literature and film. From television, there is Wuthering Heights and Delis (Song of Summer). From film, she got inspiration from The Innocents (The Infant Kiss), Night of the Demon (Hounds of Love), La Mariée Était en Noir (The Wedding List), The Red Shoes (The Red Shoes). Even though he claims Get Out of My House was inspired by the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining, Bush was actually influenced by the original book from Stephen King (she also alludes to Pinocchio in that song too). No matter. The point is that Bush was looking at the screen and page for a lot of guidance. That was not the only area she traversed that was away from the personal and ordinary. One of the most interest corners of her musical palette is the darker, more spiritual and curious side. Whether it Bush talking about mysticism, religion or strange creatures and mythical figures, it is one of the most interesting aspects of her writing. Bush was not raised in an especially strict religious family, though the fact that the Bush household was full of art and conversation meant that, inevitably, so many different ideas and theories would have come into her life. In the sense it wasn’t perhaps the same upbringings many of her peers would have in the 1950s and 1960s. Whether it was various T.V. shows or literature that also opened Kate Bush’s imagination up to what exists beyond the ordinary and tangible, I am not too sure. It was clear that she had a very curious mind.
One could argue that she was born spiritual and curious. That was always the way. Perhaps so. I also think that the art and words she was exposed to contributed. Bush was compelled by the poetry that her brother Jay wrote. Bush wrote poetry in school. Uninspired and a bit trapped by the conventional and rigid structure there, it is only natural that she would have let her mind wander. There are a few examples of the mystical and spiritual coming into her songs pre-The Kick Inside. Those early demos. However, you can really hear it from her debut onwards. Right up until her latest album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, you can sense those strange beings and odd spirits. Not just a childhood and teen fascination. On The Kick Inside, aside songs of love and passion, we also hear about topics that many listeners in 1978 might have considered or been exposed. I would say there are three songs that look at the otherworldly, mystical and unconventional in that sense. Strange Phenomena is in part about menstruation. It is also about coincidence. The opening lines, “Soon it will be the phase of the moon/When people tune in” takes us somewhere magical and spiritual. The repeated mantra, “Om mani padme” translates to “praise to the jewel in the lotus” (Padma is the Sanskrit for the Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) and mani for ‘jewel’, as in a type of spiritual ‘jewel’ widely referred to in Buddhism). One can say that Bush’s interest in Buddhism and spiritually might have come from listening to bands like The Beatles. Indian influences perhaps from George Harrison. A lot of the 1960s culture. Peace and love. Perhaps. I think it this vibrant and intellectually keen young woman who was never attracted to the ordinary and conventional. This rebellion defined her entire career.
Think about Wuthering Heights and the fact that it is about the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw trying to grab Heathcliff’s soul away. This figure that appears at Wuthering Heights in the cold and wants to come inside. Bush weas influenced by the 1967 T.V. adaptation of the Emily Brontë novel. I love these images of spirits and the chill of the night. It takes from a very specific and particular part of the book. Rather than it being about the passion of their relationship and the beauty of the Yorkshire Moors, it is haunting and this strange obsessions. Her debut single signalled that here was an artist with a mindset and approach different to anyone else around her! Them Heavy People is perhaps the most overt nod to the philosophical and spiritual. This pursuit of knowledge how it enriched Kate Bush. These teachers and voices whose words and philosophies she absorbed. Consider lines like this: “They open doorways that I thought were shut for good/They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu/They build up my body/Break me emotionally it's nearly killing me/But what a lovely feeling!”. That reference to ‘Heavy’ in the title. Those people who have depth rather than them being oppressive or depressing. They were ‘rolling the ball’ to her. That gift of knowledge that lifted out of teenage confusion and blues. Enlightenment and understanding. People would interpret songs like Them Heavy People and Strange Phenomena and lead their mind to sex or the erotica. I have seen these theories online. Many song on The Kick Inside are about sex, though examples of where she embraces the purer and more spiritual should be interpreted as such – and not everything is about lust and sexual.
Maybe Lionheart has fewer examples of the mystical and philosophical. However, the opening track, Symphony in Blue, does nod to the divine. The divine of sex (“Good for the blood circulation”). Bush seeing herself at the piano and the fear of death and doom leaving her as she plays. It is quite a deep and challenging thing to write about. Thinking of her own mortality as a teenager. How different colours represent sex and death. There is a section of the song that sticks in my mind. God would appear several times through her songs. Here, his presence and influence is described in a very curious and beautiful way: “When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in/Go blowing my mind on God/The light in the dark, with the neon arms/The meek He seeks, the beast He calms/The head of the good soul department”. Think about 1980’s Never for Ever and examples of the spiritual and strange. Blow Away (For Bill) was about the sad loss of lightning assistant Bill Duffield. He died in a freak accident after the warm-up performance of 1979’s The Tour of Life. Placing Duffield in the heavens alongside other departed artists like Minnie Ripperton, Marc Bolan, Keith Moon and Sid Vicious. Lines that nod to the divine and otherworldly: “From people who nearly died but survived/Feeling no fear of leaving their bodies here”; “Put out the light, then put out the night/Vibes in the sky invite you to dine”. I think there was always a belief in Kate Bush that people lived on. Someone who perhaps did not want to accept that this is it. That spirits continue to live on after death. Whereas some might feel that the strange and otherworldly was more a part of her early career, I think that her mid/late-career work has more examples. From Hounds of Love onwards. There is an example from The Dreaming that I want to get to next.
I may have missed some examples and cases where Kate Bush brings ion the God-like, spiritual, philosophical and strange into her music. There may be other examples on The Dreaming (1982). Influenced by Stephen King’s The Shining, many critics of the time interpreted Get Out of My House as being about Kate Bush’s mindset. The stress and paranoia she might have felt pushing herself producing this album. The feelings that were in her head. Whereas songs beforehand has a lightness and beauty about them, this is dark and demented. Previous spiritual, philosophical and religious theorising and illumination replaced by something more sinister and strange. Not that this was a pivot moment. Instead, Bush was thinking more about subjects such as possession and something more threatening: “Woman let me in!/Let me bring in the memories!/Woman let me in!/Let me bring in the Devil Dreams!”/I will not let you in!/Don’t you bring back the reveries/I turn into a bird,/Carry further than the word is heard”. Hounds of Love is where we really get a lot of the spiritual and transcendent. Maybe it reflected something changing in Kate Bush’s life. In The Dreaming was a denser and slightly eerie listen, Hounds of Love did have some of that. It was also about understanding and acceptance. Kate Bush bravery revealing her fears and cowardice on songs such as Hounds of Love. Think about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and how it is about a man and woman swapping places so they can better understand one another. Bush, as the narrator, wanting to do a deal with God.
Hounds of Love’s title track opening with the lines of “It's in the trees!/It's coming!”. That dialogue from Night of the Demon, again, there is reference to the strange and sinister. Darkness and light mixing alongside one another. A few songs on the album’s second side, The Ninth Wave, mention spirits and witchcraft. Or the idea of being a witch. The 1985 masterpiece is a blend of colours and emotions. About acceptance and revelation. Passion and discovery. About survival and soul-searching. Waking the Witch, at a time in The Ninth Wave when the heroine is losing hope and strength, plays with this idea this woman almost being a witch-like figure. When speaking with Richard Skinner in 1992, Bush said of Waking the Witch: “I think it’s very interesting the whole concept of witch-hunting and the fear of women’s power. In a way it’s very sexist behaviour, and I feel that female intuition and instincts are very strong, and are still put down, really. And in this song, this women is being persecuted by the witch-hunter and the whole jury, although she’s committed no crime, and they’re trying to push her under the water to see if she’ll sink or float”. Lines that stand out include these: “You won't burn (red, red roses)/You won't bleed (pinks and posies)/Confess to me, girl (red, red roses, go down)/Spiritus Sanctus in nominee/Spiritus Sanctus in nominee/Spiritus Sanctus in nominee/Spiritus Sanctus in nominee”. Again, redemption, faith and belief coming into her music: “Bless me, father, bless me father, for I have sinned”. You could be talking about a priest or even her own father. Watching You Without Me and Hello Earth could be interpreted to be about dying and the spiritual. The former almost puts the spirit of the woman lost at sea at her family home. Them waiting for a call to make sure she is okay. This feeling that the woman is watching over them as they wonder where she is. Hello Earth is a song I always feel is the heroine looking from the skies to the sea. Maybe having lost her fight to stay alive, her spirit is watching on – though Bush originally implied the woman was rescued and it was not a case of her dreaming about being rescued.
There aren’t too many examples of the spiritual, occult, heavenly, philosophical, mystical or strange on the next two albums. I guess there is strangeness. In terms of songs’ themes, there is more of the personal. I guess you could say that The Red Shoes’ (1993) Lily is about Lily Cornford. A friend of Bush’s, she worked as a colour healing therapist. This is what Bush said about Cornford “I met her years ago and she is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She is very giving and I love spending time with her. She believes in the powers of Angels and taught me to see them in a different light, that they exist to help human beings and are very powerful as well as benevolent forces. She taught me some prayers that I found very useful (particularly in my line of work), she helped me a lot and I guess I wanted to pass on her message about our Angels – we all have them, we only have to ask for help”. Again, I might be missing some prime examples of songs on The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes. I think I might finish with examples of Aerial (2005) and 50 Words for Snow (2011) of the more otherworldly and mystical. King of the Mountain is a sort of ode to Elvis Presley. The spirit of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll being on a mountainside somewhere. Either as a spirit or having retreated there. “Elvis are you out there somewhere/Looking like a happy man?/In the snow with Rosebud/And king of the mountain”. The first single Kate Bush released since 1994 (And So Is Love) takes us to a very unusual place. Never conventional or predictable, King of the Mountain looks at this legendary artist and puts him in this spiritual and unusual place. A song filled with intriguing lines: “Why does a multi-millionaire/Fill up his home with priceless junk?”.
Maybe 50 Words for Snow is the album where you get the most examples of Kate Bush exploring the spiritual, mythical and divine. I am not sure whether it has anything to do with her age or that she was almost nodding back to the start of her career or childhood teachings. That curiosity that she had when she was young. Think about songs like Lake Tahoe. This ghostly spirit of a woman rising from a lake. When interviewed by The Quietus in 2011, this is what Kate Bush said to John Doran about 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?”. There are at least two other songs on the 2011 albums where we are taking to a spiritual or mythical place. I named this feature Among Angels, though Bush has not really discussed the song. Even so, there are lines in it that obvious nod to angels: “I can see angels standing around you/They shimmer like mirrors in summer/But you don’t know it/And they will carry you o’er the walls/If you need us, just call/Rest your weary world in their hands/Lay your broken laugh at their feet”. There are a couple of other songs from 50 Words for Snow that I want to cover off before finishing this feature.
Misty is all about fantasy. Whereas there are some darker songs on 50 Words for Snow, there is something magical about Misty. Even though it does end sadly (the snowman melting in the bed), you can look at The Snowman and a slight nod to that as a source of inspiration. However, this being Kate Bush, she took that idea of brining a snowman to life to a new place. This tryst and sensual encounter! Even if the logistics would suggest it would not be the most comfortable experience, I love the imagery and thoughts in the song. If Bush dismissed it as a bit of a silly idea, it does take us back to the start of her career and the sort of imagination she brought to her music. Going beyond the ordinary and tested. This is what she said to BBC’s Front Row in 2011: “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)”. Going back to that interview from The Quietus, Bush spoke about what Wild Man is about: “Well, the first verse of the song is just quickly going through some of the terms that the Yeti is known by and one of those names is the Kangchenjunga Demon. He’s also known as Wild Man and Abominable Snowman. (…) I don’t refer to the Yeti as a man in the song. But it is meant to be an empathetic view of a creature of great mystery really. And I suppose it’s the idea really that mankind wants to grab hold of something [like the Yeti] and stick it in a cage or a box and make money out of it. And to go back to your question, I think we’re very arrogant in our separation from the animal kingdom and generally as a species we are enormously arrogant and aggressive. Look at the way we treat the planet and animals and it’s pretty terrible isn’t it?”. Bush has always been curious about things outside of the explainable. Whether it is god, spirits, angels, karma or anything else, it has defined some of her best moments. Bush and this idea of creatures and the mystical. Maybe that comes from films and T.V. where beasts and ghosts lingered. Bush being exposed to these visual stimulus and sources of inspiration. A woman who has been fascinated and lead to the unusual and divine. When it comes to that word, Kate Bush is…
THE most divine of all.