FEATURE:
Looking Like a Happy Man
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
Kate Bush’s King of the Mountain at Nineteen
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EVEN if…
I celebrate the anniversary of the song fairly regularly, it is important to talk about it. Sorry if I am not saying anything new but, on 24th October, 2005, we got the first Kate Bush single in over a decade. After 1993’s The Red Shoes, there was doubt that Bush would release another album. She had reached a point in her career when she needed to step away and think about herself. After having a son in 1998 and moving house, she was settling down and enjoying time away from the limelight. It was not a complete shock that King of the Mountain arrived. In 2001, there was an interview where Bush talked about her family and a new album. We knew that it would come along but were not sure exactly when. How would it sound and what would be the first single from it? When it came to Aerial, Bush only officially released one single. King of the Mountain opens the album and is the most single-worthy. There are other songs on the album that could have been singles – Mrs. Bartolozzi for one -, yet there was this feeling she did not want to give too much away. It would have meant additional promotion. Bush not overly happy being in videos. King of the Mountain was her final music video where she was featured. It was a turning point. Perhaps self-conscious about the way she looked after so long away from music, she did look fantastic in the King of the Mountain video!
I think King of the Mountain was already about a decade before the rest of Aerial. Whether you she intended to release it as a single in the 1990s or this was the first step on a new album I am not too sure. I have said before how it seemed to mirror her own experiences. Being seen as this recluse, Bush was sort of hiding away. King of the Mountain mentions Elvis Presley and whether he is still alive “Looking like a happy man”. Maybe over-reading the lyrics, Bush using that artist to represent herself. How the media were wondering whether she was and assuming she had disappeared. Instead, she was living happily in private. I can hear a lot of herself in the song. Bush adopting an Elvis accent and drawl through the song. With Kate Bush producing and Del Palmer engineering, this is a hugely solid and brilliant single. Her young son Bertie designed the single cover art for King of the Mountain. It is very much this family affair (Del Palmer and Kate Bush were in a relationship for about fifteen years). It is no surprise that the single did well in the chart. It reached number four in the U.K. There was so much excitement around Kate Bush coming back. One of her more popular singles, she did not do any live performances at the time. She did bring the song to the stage in 2014. There are some fantastic interviews to promote Aerial where she spoke about King of the Mountain. The single was first played on 21st September, 2005 on BBC Radio 2. With its video directed by Jimmy Murakami and Bush’s writing, production and vocals at their peak, I think more sure be written about King of the Mountain. How important this song is.
The lyrics are incredibly evocative. Distinctly from the pen and mind of Kate Bush, I wonder where she was when she wrote them and what inspired the song’s direction and themes. My favourite lines are these: “Elvis are you out there somewhere/Looking like a happy man?/In the snow with Rosebud/And king of the mountain/Another Hollywood waitress/Is telling us she’s having your baby/And there’s a rumour that you’re on ice/And you will rise again someday/And that there’s a photograph/Where you’re dancing on your grave”. In their feature ranking Kate Bush’s fifty best songs, MOJO placed King of the Mountain in thirty-sixth. This is what they observed: “The first song written (and partially recorded) for Aerial, in 1997, and the song that announced its completion eight years later, is an atmospheric meditation on the possibility that Elvis lives on in some iconic hinterland, sledging on Kane’s Rosebud. The slinky marimba groove, tough drums and skanky guitars (by Bush’s husband Dan McIntosh), provided an early clue this album would be unlike anything she’d done before, albeit reassuringly compelling and eccentric”. In 2018, The Guardian ranked Bush’s singles. King of the Mountain came in eleventh: “Comeback album Aerial wasn’t exactly overburdened with obvious singles. Perhaps the beautiful, sunlit Somewhere in Between might have worked out of context of the Sea of Honey song-suite, but instead Bush plumped for a song that involved her impersonating Elvis and knowingly ruminating on the benefits of withdrawing from the public eye”. Earlier this year, Classic Pop placed King of the Mountain fourteenth when deciding on Kate Bush’s forty best songs: “Written a good decade before its eventual release as part of Aerial, King Of The Mountain – her first single in 12 years – wonders if Elvis is still out there, somewhere living normally, having been subjected to such intense fame during his career. It also referenced parallels between Presley and Citizen Kane, hence ‘Rosebud’. Her biggest hit in over 20 years, it went to No. 4 in the autumn of 2005”.
I am going to end with some round-up and reviews for King of the Mountain. Even those who were not huge Kate Bush fans could have resisted the excitement and anticipation that surrounded her first single in many years. What it would deliver. This is what Drowned in Sound noted in their 7/10 review for the mighty King of the Mountain:
“There’s my idea of taking a break and there’s your idea of taking a break. And then there’s Kate Bush’s idea of taking a break. The wandering enigma of British pop has been gone for twelve years. Which means the last time we saw Kate Bush was in the nineties – and let’s be honest, who can remember them?! (I can actually remember them very well, but that last bit scans rather nicely dontchathink?)
So what on Emily Bronte’s misty earth has she been up to for the last twelve years? Well, I imagine she’s been raising a family and proba…yadda, yadda, yadda – who gives an arse? She’s got a new album coming out. She’s called it ‘Aerial’. And ‘King Of The Mountain’ is the first indication that it might be as ace as we hoped it would be.
For a while, I always thought that Kate Bush was taking the piss when she sang. Either that or she was celebrating her release from the mental asylum by screaming at passers-by, then softly informing them that she has a house on top of the hill that they simply must visit because the garden path is made of swords and the kitchen is run by the trees. Of course, that was then. Now, having actually listened beyond ‘Wuthering Heights’, I’d stick her up their with the very best. So apart from the remarkable voice, why do folk dig The Bush? Thankfully, some answers can be found in ‘King Of The Mountain’. Sort of. A slow-burning reggae groove, peculiar lyrics, electronic phasing, tribal pulsing and a shuddering, vintage vocal are all in there. She also talks of “the wind whistling” – which in a Kate Bush track, can only be a good thing. Thing is, the track doesn’t really go anywhere and if the lady herself wasn’t singing it could be considered terribly dull. Still, the pastoral princess returneth – Yeth!”.
Dropping this single in a 2005 music scene when there was nothing like King of the Mountain, there were some impassioned reviews for one of the most anticipated returns in music history. How much Kate Bush had been missed! You can read further reviews for the single here. It was clearly a beloved single release from an artist who proved, no matter how long she had been away, she had lost none of her magic and ability to stand out from the crowd:
“The NME has reviewed the single in style: “Ok, so it was hardly worth waiting a decade and a bit for but then what is? Nothing that we can think of. What it is, mind, is an apt reminder of just how little everyone else is trying right now and just how Ms Bush has been missed. It’s five minutes of druggy acenes, has a mental breakdown in the middle, and sounds like Sade washing down lyrical razorblades with plummets of fizzy white wine nabbed from Massive Attacks rider. But with more heart than a Canadian AOR radio station or a passionate snog with a Care Bear. If we were excited about the album before we heard this (and we were, very), now we’re EXCITED IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS.” Eye Weekly in Toronto writes: “The famously melodramatic (some would say screechy) chanteuse’s influence on such singers as Björk and PJ Harvey has come full circle on “King of the Mountain,” currently available only as a download. The rumbling bass and propulsive drumming recalls Harvey’s “A Perfect Day, Elise,” while Bush takes her creepy torch-song vibe down a notch, mostly reining in her upper register to devastatingly intense effect. Learning how to smoulder is the final frontier for great singers, and Bush does it without giving up the vulnerability that made every teenage wallflower in the ’80s stare longingly at her LP jackets.”
…here’s an article on Peter Bochan’s Alternative Music Blog which reveals that King Of The Mountain is the 231st song about Elvis! “At least one of his white jump suits is in the video with Kate, along with a storyline that seems to be a throwback to the “Is Elvis Still Alive” period in tabloid journalism, mixed with some Citizen Kane “Rosebud” imagery and some dodgy shots of Kate that seem to hide her from any full-figure viewing–maybe she’s going through her own “later elvis” type period. Whatever the reason, this first sample from the upcoming “Aerial” is very encouraging, “King Of The Mountain” is vintage sounding and full of the usual “moments of pleasure” that Kate has been delivering since 1977’s “Wuthering Heights”. Read more here…BBC Radio 1 may be largely ignoring the single from it’s playlists (no, we can’t figure it out either) but one DJ, Rob Da Bank continues to rave about the single: “She makes us wait 12 years and then bam! She’s back and jeepers creepers the lady’s been busy if this, the first single from her new album Aerial is anything to go by. Wooshy wind noises – check! Mystical lyrics – check! Genius reggae guitar and bountiful production – check! Best pop song of the year so far and proud to be a Blue Room tune. Welcome back!” See it at the BBC Radio 1 website here…finally, need wheels to get to the record shop next week to buy the single? The “big black car” from the Cloudbusting video is up for sale – see here!”.
It is hard to believe that it has been almost nineteen years since King of the Mountain was released. On 24th October, we mark that anniversary. With its B-side of Sexual Healing – an unusual choice of cover but one Bush adds her own stamp to -, it was a huge treat getting this new Kate Bush music! Aerial would arrive on 7th November. Bush performed this song as part of her set for the 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. A chance for her to bring this amazing song to life on the stage. Her most successful single since the 1986 duet with Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up, King of the Mountain is a truly magnificent single from…
ONE of her best albums.