FEATURE:
Mrs Bartolozzi and the Moments of Pleasure
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980
Kate Bush and the Work-Life Balance
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I have sort of touched…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
on this in other features. Kate Bush and that allusive work-life balance. Bush’s albums are characterised by long hours in the studio and barely any time free. Many might feel that she is all work and there was never any time for stepping away from the studio. I want to look at this in a bit more detail. Productivity has never been an issue with Kate Bush. She writes very quickly but the recording takes a long time. The words are two-dimensional and, although Bush does revise words and puts thought into it, the process of finalising lyrics is not as rigorous and layers as the sound and production. For 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, Bush completed two long pieces within a couple of days. Including Lake Tahoe. It was the power of water and the relationship she had with that. Water a common theme in Bush’s work. Where the hours start to climb is when you consider Bush realising her images in the studio. So vivid and cinematic is her music that it calls for a production sound that does justice to that. There is a definite shift from her perfectionist tendency – though she claims not to be a perfectionist – and a looser way of working. Especially on albums like The Dreaming and Hounds of Love, Kate Bush was making sure every song was as good as it could be. This often meant multiple takes or a lot of time in the studio. A couple of mistakes were left in 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. A wrong chord at the start of Among Angels was left in. Near the end of an eleven-minute take for Lake Tahoe, Bush’s fingers slipped from the (piano) keys and there was this moment of silence. As Graeme Thomson notes in his book, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, this was because of embracing the mood and feel of the track. Making it sound more natural or fitting of the lyrics perhaps.
There were contrasts between Kate Bush in the 2010s and the 1980s. The latter period would have been about craft and precision. Not as free-forming or relaxed. Not that this was a bad thing. She worked at several studios for 1982’s The Dreaming. Hounds of Love, released in 1985, was quite a tough recording period. Not unhappy but just ambitious. Tracks like The Big Sky problematic and hard to crack. When producing Never for Ever (1980), there would be multiple musicians brought in and work would go through to the small hours. As a relatively new producer, Bush was throwing herself into things. When it came to an album such as 50 Words for Snow, it was more about office hours. A Monday-Friday routine and computer time in the evenings. Bush was and is a mother so her priorities shifted. She did not have to jump on the first ideas that came along. Her working method and headspace was different. However, I still think about that earlier period when she was working insane hours. If later albums have seen Bush’s free time dedicated to her son, Albert, and time with family watching films and relaxing, I think about how much Bush allowed herself to unwind in the 1980s and that recording era. She did spend a lot of 1983 gardening, being with her boyfriend (Del Palmer) and family. Going to films and putting work aside. Bush has been moving away from Pop music. Perhaps it was the constraints of the genre and the demands of commercial allure that means now Bush is not so beholden to chart positions and radio play. Her music has evolved and moved to the boundaries. Not that she puts less effort in. However, it is clear that there is a better work-life balance. Thinking about 1980-1989 (when she released The Sensual World). Kate Bush has said how she does not consider herself to be interesting. Maybe leading a boring life. Like many of her Pop contemporaries, Bush’s free time was not spent at parties or courting the spotlight
When Tracey Thorn wrote for The Spectator in 2014 are shared her thoughts on Kate Bush’s residency, Before the Dawn: “Kate Bush may have been semi-absent from our lives all these years, but it looks to me like she has been fully present in her own. And though we all fret about our work/life balance, in truth, it takes a lot of life to make work this good”. In retrospect, Bush might look at everything she has done and see it as essential and unavoidable. I wonder if there are any regrets over some of the albums in terms of how much time she put into the work. How her life could have turned out if there had been more of a balance. It was not as though Bush was in the studio constantly and only had time for sleep. She lived a normal life, though it is clear that from 1980 and even through to 1993, there was this real commitment to her work. Sometimes at the expense of her spare time and health. I have mentioned how Bush gardened or spent time with family. She had this small social circle and was busy travelling for work to have too many holidays abroad. As explained, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow was a shift in terms of how she approached songwriting and recording. A young son affecting how much time she spent working. Maybe the same with 2005’s Aerial. There needed to be a reset after 1993’s The Red Shoes; how hard Bush was pushing herself. However, consider the legacy of her work and how her albums are being discussed decades later. Maybe Kate Bush regrets some lost time and things she could have done differently. However, I am curious about the 1980s particularly. Whether her schedule and workload impacted her life in a positive or negative manner.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush whilst filming The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
In a positive sense, the albums sound phenomenal and Bush established herself as a remarkable producer and singular talent. Also, this music is influencing people all these years later. On the negative side, could we blame the record label, the demands of the industry or a certain drive in Kate Bush to make her music that much more extraordinary and distinct? Bush’s life now is amazing and she has a loving family. I do wonder about her in the 1980s and whether she was allowed enough time to rest and break away. When her mother died in 1992, she was recording an album and maybe could not grieve properly. In terms of seeing the world more, spending more time on other projects or just enjoying the simple things in life, there is this sense a lot was missed and passed over. I do think there is a lot in that, under EMI, there were expectations. Maybe Kate Bush proving herself and knowing how much work she had to put in to achieve an album sufficiently different and better to the last. When she set up Fish People and was not beholden to the usual demands of a label, things definitely changed. Also, I guess you could apply Bush’s work-life balance to that of modern artists. Between touring, promoting and working, artists’ mental health and wellbeing suffers. Something else Tracey Thorn said. This time in 2015 when speaking to Jude Rogers for The Guardian: “Kate Bush seems to me like someone who has hit upon a work-life balance that works brilliantly for her. She’s had a family life where she clearly adores her child, and she’s carried on making music – she’s never stopped as far as I know. OK, she didn’t play live for 35 years, but big deal! There is a tendency to think of women artists as being a bit weird and witchy, unpredictable and mysterious. It’s daft”. It made me think about media perception and their attitudes towards women.
Whether part of Bush’s efforts and studio time was because of the way a lot of the media treated her early in her career. Maybe feeling watched and tabloid-fodder if she went out more. To plays, on holiday or parties. Getting to that position where Kate Bush had a family and this wonderful life and could also make music. But on her own terms. One cannot feel too hard about the 1980s and 1990s. It all led to where she is now. I do have this sadness or anxiety. Worrying about Kate Bush and whether her work-life balance was dictated as much by the media, label or her, as a woman, thinking she had to prove herself or do more than her male counterparts to be respected. Bush might say that she has no regrets and that is the sort of effort that she had to put in. That there were small sacrifices. I can respect that. I am really glad of how things have worked out. “Just being alive/It can really hurt/And these moments given/Are a gift from time/Just let us try/To give these moments back/To those we love/To those who will survive”. Those lyrics from 1989’s The Sensual World seemed to be about Bush dealing with loss and things slipping away. “I think about us lying/Lying on a beach somewhere”. That need for a normal life, time away from pressures - or merely a fantasy. At the end of a hectic decade, Bush revealing some torment or sadness. However, we cannot speculate. What happened behind closed doors. How much time Bush was free to socialise or merely detach from the studio and work. Whilst it took a long time to finally happen, it is clear that, for Kate Bush, a work-life balance was…
A hard balance to strike.