FEATURE:
I Associate Love with Red…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the filming of Eat the Music (the song was from 1993’s The Red Shoes; the video was featured in the short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve)
The Colours of Kate Bush’s Albums
_________
I shall try not…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
to mention this book in every Kate Bush feature. The magnificent and newly republished Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush compelled me to think about Kate Bush’s albums in a different way. Graeme Thomson’s book has given me a lot of inspiration. It is one particular section when he was talking about the differences between 1982’s The Dreaming and 1985’s Hounds of Love. The colour palette that each album summoned. He remarked on, I think, the blacks, greys and browns of The Dreaming. Dirtier, duskier and darker. Edgy, suffocating at times. More downcast or dirtier. Compare that the more purple, green and silver Hounds of Love. Essentially representing emotions and dynamics within each work, you can also tell from the cover. I think Kate Bush, whether consciously or not, was tying colours and design to the mood of each album. The Dreaming’s cover summons up escape and death-defying. Maybe linked to something she was feeling at the time in terms of being overwhelmed or strained by demand, there is brown in the cover. Hounds of Love is purple. You feel this album is more about renewed energy and ambition. Some might say (perhaps correctly) that colours have no meaning. That you cannot really apply them to anything deeper and psychological. If seems like bad science or something quite New Age, I do think that, in music terms at least and Kate Bush especially, there is some weight into the suggestions colours mean something. I have seen so many reviews of her albums where colours are mentioned. Colour Symbolism is a subjective thing. We attach various words and meanings to each colour. It was something I was taught at school. Linking colours to words and feelings. Blue was for sadness. Red for love or anger. Yellow for hope. White and black, of course, life and death. It is hard not to associate colours with particular feelings or meaning.
I do think that we can look at Kate Bush’s ten studio albums and at least apply one colour to each. Her first, 1978’s The Kick Inside, is pink. Although many covers of the album were used around the world, there is a focal colour. I think that various covers were used is to make sure she was marketed differently in each nation. The U.S. cover more wholesome and relatable to a U.S. audience. The Japanese cover much more daring and sensual. I don’t think EMI knew how to market her. One cover, the U.K. one, perhaps would not translate around the world. They did focus from Lionheart on. In any case, think about The Kick Inside and its themes. It is a distinctly feminine album. In 2019, writing for Pitchfork, Laura Snapes remarked how The Kick Inside is extremely feminine (Graeme Thomson also notes this in his book). There is incredible maturity and desire. Lust and personal revelation. Exploration:
“What made Bush’s writing truly radical was the angles she could take on female desire without ever resorting to submissiveness. “Wuthering Heights” is menacing melodrama and ectoplasmic empowerment; “The Saxophone Song”—one of two recordings made when she was 15—finds her fantasizing about sitting in a Berlin bar, enjoying a saxophonist’s playing and the effect it has on her. But she is hardly there to praise him: “Of all the stars I’ve seen that shine so brightly/I’ve never known or felt in myself so rightly,” she sings of her reverie, with deep seriousness. We hear his playing, and it isn’t conventionally romantic but stuttering, coarse, telling us something about the unconventional spirits that stir her”.
Although The Kick Inside is a complex and varied album, it definitely has its own colour chart. Pink traditionally symbolises peace, femininity, romance, warmth and nurture. There is romance and sweetness. A mix of the white of innocence and the burning red passion of love. Some might say that it is reaching but, for artists like Kate Bush, you do get a sense of albums being defined, not only by emotions and themes, but by colour. The Kick Inside summons up pink. Neon at times. The juvenile and youthful. The original lyrics for The Man with the Child in His Eyes were written with a hot pink felt-tip. Kate Bush wore a pink leotard for the cover to Wuthering Heights. That Gered Mankowitz photo was scrapped, though you can see a version on the Japanese release of The Kick Inside. Kate Bush’s debut is feminist, lustful, pure, tender and passionate.
The next two albums are perhaps a little harder to define. No single colour. 1978’s Lionheart shares a lot of D.N.A. with The Kick Inside. There are pinks. There is definitely purple in the mix. In terms of that colour represents the mystical and regal. It balances the fire and passion of red with calm of blue. There is a song on Lionheart, Symphony in Blue, where Bush explicitly mentions the meaning behind and power of colours. How they match her mood. Consider these lyrics from Symphony in Blue:
“I spent a lot of my time looking at blue
The color of my room and my mood
Blue on the walls, blue out of my mouth
The sort of blue between clouds when the sun comes out
The sort of blue in those eyes you get hung up about
I associate love with red
The color of my heart when she's dead
Red in my mind when the jealousy flies
Red in my eyes from emotional ties
Manipulation, the danger signs”.
Perhaps a more complex and less easy-to-define album, you get a variety of colours and shades with this album. The listener can feel the blue and red. The warmer pinks. However, as has been noted, there is paranoia and stress on the album. The same colour that would come four years later with The Dreaming. Depending on what source you use, different colours can have vastly contrasting qualities. I think brown and black can have positives though, as Graeme Thomson wrote, they are associated with the darker and more depressed. Less attractive. Perhaps the worst and wetter days of autumn. You get that from Lionheart. The anxiety and fear that screams through some of the songs (such as Fullhouse). A young artist making a bold step but also backed into a corner. Lionheart has perhaps the broadest and most fascinating colour palette.
How do you define and represent Never for Ever in terms of colours? It was a time of growth, change and opportunity. The slate being cleaned. After 1979’s The Tour of Life, Bush was starting again. Producing with Jon Kelly, this felt like a moment where she could assume say and control. Put more of herself into the music. Look at the album’s cover and you see mainly white. Some brown, though there is more of the white there. Think also of Kate Bush’s reissuing her studio albums recently for independent record stores. She designed the vinyl art. In terms of the colour scheme. I think that she choses colours very deliberately. The Kick Inside is orange – opportunity, growth, creativity and freshness -; Lionheart is dirty pink (a more tarnished or dulled version of The Kick Inside’s pink; maybe a sense of disappointment or dimmed passion); Never for Ever is Blade Bullet (this mix of brown with some black flecks). Maybe this retrospective and conscious representation of what her albums mean to her now and how she felt at the time. I see Never for Ever as a light album. Optimism and hopeful. Experimental and fresh. There is yellow coming through. A warmer and more airy palette than we would have for The Dreaming or Hounds of Love. Less suffocated and tense than Lionheart. Although white has no hue, it is often associated with cleanliness and clarity of mind. Quite appropriate considering that Never for Ever was very much that. White can also represent perfection, the good, honesty, cleanliness, the beginning; the new, neutrality, and exactitude. Emotionally, from Kate Bush’s perspective, there was this feeling of transition. Not quite a blank canvas, there was this feeling of new creativity and rebirth. Even if Bush has almost disowned every album before Hounds of Love, there is no doubt she was relieved in 1980 when she could produce Never for Ever. What she wanted to do from the start of her career.
Maybe not purely psychological colours, browns, blacks and greens mix. It s a darker and denser album. You can definitely feel a change of seasons between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. It is understandable that there was a sense of the anxious and paranoid on The Dreaming. It was an intense working period. Bush had been working flat out since 1978. Producing solo for the first time, The Dreaming is a different-sounding album compared to Never for Ever. Whereas the 1980 album felt quite light and had this sense of looseness and breathing room, there is none of that in The Dreaming. It is harder hitting, punchier and denser. Lots of layers and a bigger influence from the Fairlight CMI. As such, you get these hues of brown, black and grey. Hounds of Love came along three years later. Psychologically, Bush was in a better place. Even if the workload was problem the same for Hounds of Love, she had allowed herself a break. Building her own studio near her family home, the influence of the countryside – or a slightly less hectic setting – meant her imagination was being influenced by that. Even so, one can see some tension and suspense right through The Ninth Wave. In terms of colours that suggest themselves, there is lightness and nature. Greens coming through. Purple is the colour that springs to mind. If The Kick Inside has a pink softness and lustfulness, there is something perhaps a little more mature and developed on Hounds of Love. Love and personal relationships still at the fore, though discussed through a different lens.
Purple is synonymous with creativity and pride. Very evident when you think about Hounds of Love and Kate Bush’s life at this time. Also, I often feel the choice of purple on the cover was maybe a nod to someone like Prince. Having released Purple Rain the year before, maybe a suggestion to that. There is that blend of the stability of blue and the fierce energy of red. Purple represents creativity, wisdom, dignity, grandeur, devotion, peace, pride, mystery, independence, and magic. Going back to the Prince point, I think that the fact she made the reissued album Purple Beret is a salute to Prince’s Raspberry Beret. In terms of the emotional spectrum, there are silvers, greens, oranges. More nature and nurture, together with shades of green. It is purple that seems to come through. Whether that is influenced by the cover and Bush’s outfit in the Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) video. Light purples are associated with light-hearted, romantic energies, while darker shades can represent sadness and frustration. There is that mix of light-hearted romance and frustration right through the first side. On The Ninth Wave, there is sadness and frustration. Always hopefully, you do get the sense that Bush had colours in mind when creating the blueprints for her masterpiece.
The next two albums are interesting. Turning thirty in 1988, Bush followed Hounds of Love with 1989’s The Sensual World. Obviously, with it being an album with sensuality running through it, there is also this womanly and feminine energy. Bush wanted a more masculine and harder sound for albums like Hounds of Love. Feminine energy and influence is more present on The Sensual World. Not that this means a return to pink. That is more youthful and teenage. The reissued vinyl is a beautiful Ash Grey. I would actually say that red and grey are the colours that come through. If you think of the look of the album cover. This black-and-white portrait by John Carder Bush. A red flower (a rose?) over her mouth. One might think grey is boring, passive, deathly and pallid. In fact, rather than it being neutral and detached, grey can be a symbol of power. Also, grey is the colour of intellect and of compromise. It's a diplomatic colour, negotiating all the distance between black and white. This is very much what I think of when listening to The Sensual World. A very mature and sophisticated album, but one where Bush is at her most personal. Many of the songs reveal something about her in a way we had not heard before. Even if she was not being autobiographical, you can feel more of herself coming through. This is where red comes in. Red is about passion, love and energy. This can be heard through so many of the songs. The title track, This Woman’s Work (in a paternal sense). There are strange twists on desire and romance from Between a Man and a Woman, Heads We’re Dancing and Love and Anger. Authority and authoritative figures in Deeper Understanding and The Fog. The clash of greys and reds.
The Red Shoes and Aerial are very different albums with their own palettes. Of course many might associate The Red Shoes with red. There is that. Love and passion for sure. There is still romance and lust throughout. Loss too. And So Is Love, Why Should I Love You?, Constellation of the Heart and You’re the One. There is vibrancy throughout the album. The extraordinary energy of Eat the Music and The Red Shoes. If there were greens and purples on Hounds of Love, The Red Shoes has oranges and pinks. I would say that there is there is love, nurture and compassion. Shades and hues of pink. Not in the same manner as The Kick Inside. Not soft and tender, it is more about self-love and outward compassion. The orange of happiness, creativity, attraction and adventure. In terms of Kate Bush’s life, she was entering into a new relationship. In her thirties, she was looking ahead to maybe starting a family and taking a break. As such, there is this clash between reflectiveness and looking forward. Not a dark or gloomy album, there is brightness. Even the most inward-looking or heartbroken songs have this sense of compromise and calm. Not angry or upset. The reissued vinyl for The Red Shoes is a dark red. I guess Bush was thinking about the cover and maybe a sense of keeping the colour true to the title. Deep love and blood. This Dracula red as it is called, perhaps a portrait of self-sacrifice and loss. Aerial is Bush with a new son. Starting a family and being in an idyllic house with a beautiful garden, new life, dawn and summer are present. It is not hard to detect the colours on Aerial. The strong yellows and oranges. It is a mix of the summer and autumnal. Physically and emotionally.
Again, the warmth and happiness of orange. This new creativity and life. The orange of the sun. Whether you associate colours with meaning and words or just hear Aerial and can identify the songs and lyrics with a colour, there are distinct ones on here. Yellow shines though. Its warmth and optimism. Happiness and cheer. Perhaps the happiest and yellow-ist album Kate Bush ever released. Also, in sadder moments where she thinks of family; perhaps some grey or black. However, in terms of the colours, there are also greens of nature. Growth and luck. You can detect this brighter and beautiful palette. Think about her two most recent albums. Those from 2011. Director’s Cut was revision of The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Those original colours blended perhaps. In terms of it being a fresh and new album, I see blue, orange and purple. People might disagree. In terms of that blend of the future, prosperity, love, wisdom and freshness. It is a fascinating album to dive into. An older Kate Bush revisiting songs she originally recorded over twenty years earlier. There is a lot of wisdom and re-evaluation. When considering the intent and emotion, she was forging a path for new work. Trying to address and correct the pass Psychologically, making amends or looking at things with new eyes and wisdom. It is that wisdom and sense of re-evaluation which leads me to blues especially. It is interesting that the reissued vinyl is Hazy Red. Like red, there is passion, energy, excitement and love. However, as it is hazy; perhaps less intense. Looking at the past and these songs with a haziness. Even if it is a fresh look at the tracks, it is this older women maybe recontextualising songs she wrote when she was in her twenties and thirties.
50 Words for Snow is Kate Bush’s most recent studio album. Of course, many would jump to white of snow. Maybe the grey of sludge. In terms of the visions, themes and feel of the album, there is a lot of white. In terms of physically too, there is white. However, there is also black and blue coming through. The white represents purity, peace, goodness and emptiness. In terms of the blankness of snow. Think of blue and its association with trust, calm and peace. Blue is also about open spaces. 50 Words for Snow is full of open spaces and huge vistas. Wilderness, lakes, nature and cities covered in snow. In terms of black, there is elegance, death and mystery. The mystery of the unknown. The Wild Man subject. Sasquatch or a yeti. The mystery and death of Lake Tahoe. A ghostly figure. There is elegance of the snow and the compositions. Bush’s vocals often very elegant. Mixing black, white, blue and even some orange together. The sense of adventure, warmth and creativity of orange. A mix of colours that is not overpowered by white. Of course, in terms of what you associate with the album, maybe white stands out. It shows that, through ten studio albums, a wide colour spectrum has been represented. Of course, if you do not think colours have psychological meaning or depth, then it will mean nothing. I think Kate Bush would link colours to emotions and themes. From the pink of The Kick Inside to the yellows and greens of the later work, via the browns and darker shades of The Dreaming, you would almost have this colour chart of her albums. The vibrancy and richness of some of the albums and the more dense and concentrated of others. Similarities between albums and colours they share. I was thinking back to that passage from Graeme Thomson where he compared the colours of The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. The darker and deeper browns and blacks of the former; the purple and green of the latter (with some other colours attached to each). It goes to show that her studio albums have this depth. I hope that this feature has given them…
NEW perspective and meaning.