FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s The Sensual World at Thirty-Five
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Inside the Amazing Singles, and Three Songs That Could Have Been Singles
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AS Kate Bush’s…
The Sensual World turns thirty-five on 16th October, I wanted to put out a couple of features. In this second one, I am going to look at the amazing singles released from Bush’s sixth studio album. Compared to 1985’s Hounds of Love and the singles released from this album, The Sensual World offered something different. Reaching number two in the U.K., this is among Kate Bush’s most successful albums. An artist who always charts high with her albums, The Sensual World was a success around the world. Although the reviews were not as universally positive as they were for Hounds of Love, there was a lot of love for her 1989 underrated and understated masterpiece. Perhaps not as acclaimed as its predecessor, I do think that The Sensual World has a richness and depth that is not explored and dissected as much as it should. Hounds of Love’s singles all went to the top forty in the U.K. The Big Sky was the lowest placing at thirty-seven. Hounds of Love had four singles. The Sensual World three. I am going to spotlight those three singles and suggest three songs that should have been considered as singles. I think the album could have benefited from at least one further single. The first single, The Sensual World, was released on 18th September, 1989 and reached number twelve in the U.K. It was quite a high chart position. One of Bush’s most beloved songs, this charged and sensual track has this beauty, lust and heat that gets into the blood. One of Kate Bush’s most stirring and accomplished set of lyrics. Let’s start out here, The Kate Bush Encyclopedia gives more information about the first single from The Sensual World:
“The Sensual World’ is a song written by Kate Bush. It was originally released as a single by EMI Records on 18 September 1989. Also released on her sixth album The Sensual World.
Bush was inspired to write the song after hearing Irish actress Siobhan McKenna read the closing soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses, in which the character Molly Bloom recalls her earliest sexual experience with husband-to-be Leopold Bloom. The book was published in 1922.
Kate, believing the text had fallen to public domain, simply lifted parts from it and sang them on the backing track she’d created. She approached director Jimmy Murakami to make a video for the song, and he expressed doubts because he suspected James Joyce’s grandson Stephen James Joyce had the rights to the book. Kate then contacted him numerous times, but the Joyce estate refused to release the words. She spent over a year trying to gain permission before accepting defeat.
In the end, she kept the backing track but “re-approached the words”, writing a lyric that sounded a lot like the original text but also added the dimension of ‘stepping out of the page / into the sensual world‘, in effect Molly Bloom stepping out of the book and walking into real life.
Musically, one of the main hooks in the chorus of The Sensual World was inspired by a traditional Macedonian piece of music called ‘Nevestinsko Oro’ (‘Bride’s Dance’). A recording of this piece of music was sent to Kate by Jan Libbenga. As in the traditional version, the melody is played on uilleann pipes, in this case by Irish musician Davy Spillane.
There’s a few songs that have been difficult to write. I think the most frustrating and difficult to write was the song, ‘The Sensual World’. Uh, you’ve probably heard some of the story, that originally it was written to the lyrics at the end of ‘Ulysses’, and uh, I just couldn’t believe how the whole thing came together, it was so… It was just like it was meant to be. We had this sort of instrumental piece, and uh, I had this idea for like a rhythmic melody, and I just thought of the book, and went and got it, and the words fitted – they justfitted, the whole thing fitted, it was ridiculous. You know the song was saying, ‘Yes! Yes!’. And when I asked for permission, you know, they said, ‘No! No!’ That was one of the hardest things for me to swallow. I can’t tell you how annoyed I was that, um, I wasn’t allowed to have access to this great piece of work that I thought was public. And in fact I really didn’t think you had to get permission but that you would just pay a royalty. So I was really, really frustrated about it. And, um… kind of rewrote the words, trying to keep the same – same rhythm and sounds. And, um, eventually, through rewriting the words we also changed the piece of music that now happens in the choruses, so if they hadn’t obstructed the song, it would have been a very different song. So, to look at it positively, although it was very difficult, in the end, I think it was, it was probably worth all the trouble. Thank you very much.
Kate Bush Con, 1990
A lot of people have said it’s sexy. That’s nice. The original piece was sexy, too; it had an incredible sensuality which I’d like to think this track has as well. I suppose it is walking the thin line a bit, but it’s about the sensuality of the world and how it is so incredibly pleasurable to our senses if we open up to it. You know, just simple things, like sitting in the sun, just contact with nature. It’s like, for most people, their holidays are the only time they get a real burst of the planet!
Will Johnson, ‘A Slowly Blooming English Rose’. Pulse (UK), December 1989”.
Kate Bush’s production is amazing throughout The Sensual World. I think that her songwriting is as good as on any album. A remarkable collection of ten songs. Even though three singles were released, there are three others that could have worked. And had some remarkable versions and high chart positions. However, the second single from The Sensual World is a masterpiece. Considered one of her best songs, This Woman’s Work has been featured on adverts and in films. The song has been released several times as a single. On 20th November, 1989, the public were able to purchase a single that appeared the year before in a successful film. This Woman’s World reached twenty-five in the U.K. Not a high chart position, I do think that it deserved a lot better. The closing track of The Sensual World – Walk Straight Down the Middle was a bonus track on C.D. and cassette versions -, it is a gorgeous and truly moving song. Again, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia offers insight and background to this stunning song:
“This Woman’s Work’ is a song written by Kate Bush. It was originally released on the soundtrack of the movie She’s Having A Baby in 1988. A year later, the song was included in Kate’s sixth studio album The Sensual World.
The lyric is about being forced to confront an unexpected and frightening crisis during the normal event of childbirth. Written for the movie She’s Having a Baby, director John Hughes used the song during the film’s dramatic climax, when Jake (Kevin Bacon) learns that the lives of his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) and their unborn child are in danger. As the song plays, we see a montage sequence of flashbacks showing the couple in happier times, intercut with shots of him waiting for news of Elizabeth and their baby’s condition. Bush wrote the song specifically for the sequence, writing from a man’s (Jake’s) viewpoint and matching the words to the visuals which had already been filmed.
The song was used in the 21st episode of the third season of Party Of Five, an episode of the TV series Felicity, an episode of the soap opera Another World, the second episode of the series Alias and in the first episode of the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale. The song was also used in the film A Man Called Otto.
Critical response
A luscious, spiritually elevating showstopper ballad. How does anyone get that much cool into a voice? Ecstatic with wintry tragedy, undeniably beauteous.
Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 25 November 1989
Is it possible through pop to truly represent the emotions of a young man stranded in the waiting room while his lover’s life is threatened by the birth of their baby? I think not. Unless you’re Kate Bush…
Len Brown, NME, 25 November 1989
There’s a film called ‘She’s Having A Baby’. And John Hughes, the director, rung up and said that he had a sequence in the film that he really wanted a song written to be with. And I’d only worked the once before on the ‘Castaway’ film – where I’d really enjoyed that – so I was extremely tempted by the offer. And when he sent the piece of film that the song was going to be part of, I just thought it was wonderful, it was so moving, a very moving piece of film. And in a way, there was a sense that the whole film built up to this moment. And it was a very easy song to write. It was very quick. And just kind of came, like a lot of songs do. Even if you struggle for months, in the end, they just kind of go – BLAH! – You know. [Laughs]. So that was the first song that I wrote for ‘The Sensual World’ album. In fact at the time we weren’t even sure whether to put it on the album or not. And I must say that Del was very instrumental in saying that I should put it on the album, and I’m very glad I did. Because I had the most fantastic response – in some ways, maybe the greatest response – to this song. And I was really – I was absolutely thrilled, that you felt that way about it.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
The third and final single from The Sensual World was her first single of the 1990s. It is also the lowest-charting releases from the album. Released on 26th January, 1990, Love and Anger reached thirty-eight. One of the most interesting aspects of Love and Anger is its B-sides. Ken, The Confrontation and One Last Look Around the House Before We Go are fantastically varied songs. Ken is probably the standout. I love the B-sides from The Sensual World. This Woman’s Work had Be Kind to My Mistakes and I'm Still Waiting. The Sensual World boasted Walk Straight Down the Middle and The Sensual World (Instrumental). It is also worth mentioning how Love and Anger reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1989. It was Bush's only chart-topper on any U.S. chart until 2022. Love and Anger features David Gilmour on guitar. One of the most difficult songs Bush ever wrote, I am glad that there was some positive critical acclaim for the single. The first taste of Bush as a singles artist in the 1990s. Again, a huge thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for information about Love and Anger:
“Critical response
Unfortunately the ‘serious’ music press in the UK was not too positive about this single. Only the magazine Kerrang! offered praise.
Is it too late to take back all those gushing hymns of praise we wrote in homage to Kate’s recent LP? [This is] pretty dispensable, fairly orthodox pop-rock listening.
Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 3 March 1990
Kate seems to have lost the plot… all middle without a beginning or an end… lost in an unfocused mire…
Tim Nicholson, Record Mirror, 3 March 1990
Dynamic understanding and depth that is quite untouchable. Bloody fantastic.
Phil Wilding, Kerrang!, 3 March 1990
Remarkably, US reviews were much more positive:
Bush recalls her ‘Big Sky’ in this lively introspective number from the hit album… already a no. 1 smash with modern rock programmers.
Bill coleman, Billboard (USA), 9 december 1989
This bristles with vigour electricity and life… fuelled by cascades of crashing guitars and a huge chanting chorus of background vocals… captures the power and sweetness of Kate Bush’s voice and music.
College Music Journal (USA), November 1989
It’s one of the most difficult songs I think I’ve ever written. It was so elusive, and even today I don’t like to talk about it, because I never really felt it let me know what it’s about. It’s just kind of a song that pulled itself together, and with a tremendous amount of encouragement from people around me. There were so many times I thought it would never get on the album. But I’m really pleased it did now.
Interview, WFNX Boston (USA), 1989
I couldn’t get the lyrics. They were one of the last things to do. I just couldn’t find out what the song was about, though the tune was there. The first verse was always there, and that was the problem, because I’d already set some form of direction, but I couldn’t follow through. I didn’t know what I wanted to say at all. I guess I was just tying to make a song that was comforting, up tempo, and about how when things get really bad, it’s alright really – “Don’t worry old bean. Someone will come and help you out.”
The song started with a piano, and Del put a straight rhythm down. Then we got the drummer, and it stayed like that for at least a year and a half. Then I thought maybe it could be okay, so we got Dave Gilmour in. This is actually one of the more difficult songs – everyone I asked to try and play something on this track had problems. It was one of those awful tracks where either everything would sound ordinary, really MOR, or people just couldn’t come to terms with it. They’d ask me what it was about, but I didn’t know because I hadn’t written the lyrics. Dave was great – I think he gave me a bit of a foothold there, really. At least there was a guitar that made some sense. And John [Giblin] putting the bass on – that was very important. He was one of the few people brave enough to say that he actually liked the song.
Tony Horkins, ‘What Katie Did Next’. International Musician, December 1989”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush captured during the photoshoot for The Sensual World’s single cover/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
I am going to match the three singles with three songs that could have been singles. 1993’s The Red Shoes offered up five singles. Not all of them were U.K. releases. I think that The Sensual World could have offered more. As it approaches its thirty-fifth anniversary, I have selected three songs that could have been successful singles. The first is The Fog. The third song on The Sensual World, I often think that it is a track that could have been on Hounds of Love. Appearing on the second side, The Ninth Wave. It is a phenomenal moment that is my favourite from Bush’s 1989 album. Apart from The Fog being an epic song, it also features the voice of Kate Bush’s father, Robert. I love song of the lyrics and exchanges: “Just put your feet down child/The water is only waist high/I’ll let go of you gently/Then you can swim to me/Is this love big enough to watch over me?/Big enough to let go of me/Without hurting me/Like the day I learned to swim?”. I think that The Fog could have had a brilliant video and would have charted high. Apologies if I have covered this topic and song before. When thinking about singles that could have followed Love and Anger, I feel The Fog would have been a natural success. I will donate to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia because, when it comes to information and details of Bush’s music, they are on top:
“Again, it’s quite a complex song, where it’s very watery. It’s meant to be the idea of a big expanse of water, and being in a relationship now and flashing back to being a child being taught how to swim, and using these two situations as the idea of learning to let go. When I was a child, my father used to take me out into the water, and he’d hold me by my hands and then let go and say “OK, now come on, you swim to me.” As he’d say this, he’d be walking backwards so the gap would be getting bigger and bigger, and then I’d go [Splutters]. I thought that was such an interesting situation where you’re scared because you think you’re going to drown, but you know you won’t because your father won’t let you drown, and the same for him, he’s kind of letting go, he’s letting the child be alone in this situation. Everyone’s learning and hopefully growing and the idea that the relationship is to be in this again, back there swimming and being taught to swim, but not by your father but by your partner, and the idea that it’s OK because you are grown up now so you don’t have to be frightened, because all you have to do is put your feet down and the bottom’s there, the water isn’t so deep that you’ll drown. You put your feet down, you can stand up and it’s only waist height. Look! What’s the problem, what are you worried about?
That started at the Fairlight. We got these big chords of strings, and put this line over the top, and then I got this idea of these words – slipping into the fog. I thought wouldn’t it be interesting to sort of really visualize that in a piece of music, with all these strings coming in that would actually be the fog. So I wrote a bit of music that went on the front of what I’d done, and extended it backwards with this bit on the front that was very simple and straightforward, but then went into the big orchestral bit, to get the sense of fog coming in.
Then we put a drummer on, and Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, came in and replaced the Fairlight violin, which changed the nature of it. He’s great to work with – such a great musician. The times we work together we sort of write together. I’ll say something like, “what about doing something a bit like Vaughan Williams?”, and he’ll know the whole repertoire, and he’ll pick something, and maybe I’ll change something. By doing that we came up with this different musical section that hadn’t been on the Fairlight.
So when I got all this down it seemed to make sense story-wise. This new section became like a flashback area. And then I got the lyrics together about slipping into the fog, and relationships, trying to let go of people.
It sounded great with the Fairlight holding it together, but it just didn’t have the sense of dimension I wanted. So we got hold of Michael Kamen, who orchestrated some of the last album, and we said we wanted this bit here with waves and flashbacks. He’s really into this because he’s always writing music for films, and he loves the idea of visual imagery. So we put his orchestra in on top of the Fairlight.
Again a very complicated process, and he was actually the last thing to go on. I don’t know how anything comes out as one song, because sometimes it’s such a bizarre process. It does seem to work together somehow.
Tony Horkins, ‘What Katie Did Next’. International Musician, December 1989”.
A song that was released as a single in 2011, Deeper Understanding is one of the most obvious overlooked songs on The Sensual World. It is such a natural single. Director’s Cut was Bush reworking songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Even though the new version of Deeper Understanding is great, it does not have the same impact as the original. It was prescient and scarily accurate Bush discussing the impact and control computers had in 1989. It all came true! It was less futuristic and impactful in 2011. That is why I think the 1989 version should have been a single. On the version from The Sensual World, Charlie Morgan plays drums. John Giblin played bass – he would also appear on the 2011 version -, whilst Paddy Bush handles tupan. The highlight is the Trio Bulgarka (soloist: Yanka Rupkhina) on vocals. A penultimate visit to the Kate Bush Encyclopeida, I feel Deeper Understanding would have been a top-twenty single in 1990. It could have followed Love and Anger or been the fifth and final single – if we had The Fog as the fourth:
“Kate about ‘Deeper Understanding’
This is about people… well, about the modern situation, where more and more people are having less contact with human beings. We spend all day with machines; all night with machines. You know, all day, you’re on the phone, all night you’re watching telly. Press a button, this happens. You can get your shopping from the Ceefax! It’s like this long chain of machines that actually stop you going out into the world. It’s like more and more humans are becoming isolated and contained in their homes. And this is the idea of someone who spends all their time with their computer and, like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive amount of time with their computer. People really build up heavy relationships with their computers! And this person sees an ad in a magazine for a new program: a special program that’s for lonely people, lost people. So this buff sends off for it, gets it, puts it in their computer and then like , it turns into this big voice that’s saying to them, “Look, I know that you’re not very happy, and I can offer you love: I’m her to love you. I love you!”
And it’s the idea of a divine energy coming through the least expected thing. For me, when I think of computers, it’s such a cold contact and yet, at the same time, I really believe that computers could be a tremendous way for us to look at ourselves in a very spiritual way because I think computers could teach us more about ourselves than we’ve been able to look at, so far. I think there’s a large part of us that is like a computer. I think in some ways, there’s a lot of natural processes that are like programs… do you know what I mean? And I think that, more and more, the more we get into computers and science like that, the more we’re going to open up our spirituality. And it was the idea of this that this… the last place you would expect to find love, you know, real love, is from a computer and, you know, this is almost like the voice of angels speaking to this person, saying they’ve come to save them: “Look, we’re here, we love you, we’re here to love you!” And it’s just too much, really, because this is just a mere human being and they’re being sucked into the machine and they have to be rescued from it. And all they want is that, because this is “real” contact.
Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1 interview, 14 October 1989
I suppose it’s looking at society where more and more people are being shut away in their homes with televisions and computers, and in a way being encouraged not to come out. You know, there’s so many people who live in London in high-rise flats – they don’t know their neighbors, they don’t know anyone else in the building. People are getting very isolated. It was the idea of this person who had less and less human contact, and more and more contact with their computer, where they were working on it all day and all night. They see an advert in a magazine for a program for people who are lonely and lost, so they write off for it. When they get it back in the mail and put it into the computer, it’s the idea – a bit like an old sci-fi film, really – where it would just come to life and suddenly there’s this kind of incredible being there, like a great spiritual visitation. This computer is offering this person love, and the idea that they’ve had such little human warmth, they’re getting this tremendous affection and deep love from their computer. But it’s so intense it’s too much for them to take, and they actually have to be rescued from just being killed with love, I suppose.
There were four other songs on The Sensual World I have not covered. One or two not suitable as single. There is one song that I think could have been a stronger chart entry than The Fog. Never Be Mine was re-recorded for 2011’s Director’s Cut and also featured during the 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. It is a track that Bush clearly has affection for. I do feel it could have been a successful single. A wonderful album with so many strong songs, it is interesting reading what Kate Bush said about the track:
“Kate about ‘Never Be Mine’
It’s that whole thing of how, in some situations, it’s the dream you want, not the real thing. It was pursuing a conscious realisation that a person is really enjoying the fantasy and aware it won’t become reality. So often you think it’s the end you want, but this is actually looking at the process that will never get you there. Bit of a heart-game you play with yourself.
Len Brown, ‘In The Realm Of The Senses’. NME (UK), 7 October 1989
I wanted a sort of eastern sounding rhythm. I wrote it first on the piano, though the words were completely different, except for the choruses. I did it on the piano to a Fairlight rhythm that Del programmed – I think that maybe because of the quality of the sounds, it was harder for Del to come up with the patterns. And I was more strict – he found it much harder. I think the pattern in ‘Heads We’re Dancing’ is really good – really unusual, the best he came up with. But ‘Never Be Mine’ was kind of tabla based. We got Eberhard (Weber) over to play bass and he played on the whole song. When we were trying to piece it together later we kept saying it just doesn’t feel right, so we just took the bass out and had it in these two sections. You hardly notice it going out at all. I think the song has a very light feel about it, which helps the whole imagery. The Uilean pipes have a very light feel, and the piano is light… I think it’s a nice contrast when the bass suddenly come in.
The piano on this is an upright Bernstein that has a really nice sound – I think it has to do with proportions for us. We did have a big piano and it’s a small room, and it didn’t record well. The small piano sounds much bigger.
Tony Horkins, ‘What Katie Did Next’. International Musician, December 1989”.
On 16th October, The Sensual World turns thirty-five. It is one of Kate Bush’s best albums. As I mentioned in the first anniversary feature, critics now place it high in the album rankings. Normally third or fourth. It is an amazingly compelling album released at a time when Bush was in her thirties and was writing in a different way. More concerned with her femininity and embracing her womanhood, it was different to her previous work. I do really love the three singles that came from the album. It was natural that The Sensual World and This Woman’s Work would be singles. The two most celebrated songs from that album. Even if Love and Anger is less obvious, it is still a wonderful song. I feel there was capacity to have one or two other tracks released as singles. As I suggested, there was plenty of choice. Just think what videos she would have made for The Fog or Deeper Understanding! It is tantalising. In any case, what we did get was three strong singles from an amazing album. Released in a year where Hip-Hop was ruling and Pop was evolving, perhaps The Sensual World did not really fit in. Some critics took against it and felt the album is not her strongest work. Contemporary critics regard it very highly. What we do get from The Sensual World are ten songs with their own skin and sound. They fit together wonderfully. Bush did rework four of The Sensual World’s tracks in 2011 for Director’s Cut. Interestingly, two were originally released as singles: The Sensual World (renamed Flower of the Mountain); This Woman’s Work was also re-recorded. The other two are songs I have suggested as lost singles: Deeper Understanding and Never Be Mine. Maybe Bush was not happy with those tracks and felt they benefited from being taken apart and given more room and space to breathe. What The Sensual World highlighted brightly is that there are…
NO artist quite like Kate Bush.