FEATURE:
Escapology
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Abbey Road's Studio 2, London, 10/05/1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport/Getty Images
No Time for Dreaming: Kate Bush and the Promotion of 1982
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I have mentioned this before…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing copies of The Dreaming in September 1982
when speaking about Kate Bush in 1982. Around the time she released The Dreaming (13th September), there was this blitz of promotion. She was taken all over the place and it was pretty exhausting. Considering she had thrown herself into the creation and recording of the first album where she produced solo, she needed time to decompress and rest after the release of her fourth studio album. However, it was a period where she was not given much time to rest. In fact, I have been reading through Tom Doyle’s Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, where he write about the promotion following The Dreaming. Before getting to the promotional duties and dates around that, it is worth looking up to the lead-up of The Dreaming’s release. Exactly what Bush was doing in 1982. It is amazing looking at the timeline and how much she fitted into that year:
“January 1982
Kate goes into Advision Studios with Paul Hardiman as engineer to complete the final overdubs on the album. The session is to last for three months.
Kate turns down an offer to play a leading role in the West End production of The Pirates of Penzance.
March 1982
Kate finishes the overdubs and goes into the final mixing of the album. This session lasts two months.
April 1982
Kate's projected book Leaving My Tracks is shelved until early 1983.
The album's release date is put back to September for marketing reasons.
May 1982
The Dreaming album is completed, after a combined work period of more than sixteen months. Kate goes off to Jamaica for a holiday.
June 1982
Kate does some session work for Zaine Griff, who with her had attended Lindsay Kemp's mime classes back in 1976. She does backing vocals on a track dedicated to Kemp, called Flowers.
The release of the single The Dreaming is delayed.
The first issue of Homeground is prepared. 25 copies are run off on an office photocopier.
July 21, 1982
At 48 hours' notice Kate is asked to take David Bowie's place in a Royal Rock Gala before HRH The Prince of Wales in aid of The Prince's Trust. She performs Wedding List live, backed by Pete Townsend and Midge Ure on guitars, Mick Karn on bass, Gary Brooker on keyboards and Phil Collins on drums.
"The best moment by far was Kate Bush's number, a storming success..." (Sunie, Record Mirror)
July 27, 1982
The single The Dreaming is finally released, to excellent music press reviews saluting Kate's creative courage. The single is stifled, however, by the radio producers and presenters, particularly on BBC Radio 1, who will not play it. The plans for a twelve-inch version are aborted.
August 1982
Despite no daytime airplay on Radio 1, The Dreaming enters the singles chart, but peaks at number 48.
September 10, 1982
Kate appears live at a special Radio 1 Roadshow from Covent Garden Piazza to be interviewed briefly about her new album”.
In his chapter entitled The Hardest Sell, that must have been what it seemed like. Whereas the more commercial or accessible Never for Ever (1980) went to number in the U.K. and was perhaps closer to what Kate Bush produced a couple of years prior, The Dreaming was a big leap in the same space of time. An album that was very much unlike her past work. A whole new sound for fans to get their head around. Despite the fact The Dreaming reached number three in the U.K., its sales were seen as relatively poor. Consider her debut album, 1978’s The Kick Inside sold more than a million copies, The Dreaming sold far fewer. Regardless, Bush promoted The Dreaming widely and heavily. The sort of questions and interviews Bush had to face. Interviewers pointing out her dwindling fortunes in the singles charts. On 10th September (1982), Bush attended the Radio 1 Roadshow at Covent Garden, where she was interviewed by Dave Lee Travis, a.k.a. ‘The Hairy Cornflake’. Travis pointed out that Bush was wearing a T-shirt reading ‘I’m a Prima Donna’. This was a promotional item for Steve Harley’s 1976 album, Love’s a Prima Donna. Bush would also wore that T-shirt when signing copies of The Dreaming mere days later. Travis felt that The Dreaming was Bush “acting out”. Maybe not appreciating her new sound, this was a typical tone. Bush would face cynical and often sexist interviews. She was asked whether she would tour. Bush explained how desperate she was to get out there but said it would not be the next year. As it was, Bush never toured again (the only time was in 1979). On the day of The Dreaming’s release - 13th September, 1982 -, Bush was at Capital Radio, where she spoke with D.J. Roger Scott. He noted (rather redundant) that it must be a relief the album is out. He also said Bush must had second thoughts, in the sense that she must have done the album wrong. Self-doubt. Bush said that she had but they were “last-minute paranoias”.
14th September was a busy day. Bush was signing copies of the album at Virgin Megastore, Oxford Street. A huge line of fans ready to meet her and get their copies signed! Right after, Bush travelled up to Manchester to speak on The Old Grey Whistle Test with David Hepworth and Mark Ellen. They heard a rumour that Bush had hired a guard’s van on the train up so that she and her dancers could rehearse a routine. She confirmed that it was true. However, at a hundred mile an hour, she also admitted that it was quite hard too! On 21st September, Bush was on Razzamatazz, Newcastle. In a patronising voiceover from Alistair Pirrie who announced “Here’s little Kate Bush”, she and her dancers performed There Goes a Tenner. The similarities with Madness’ Baggy Trousers (1980) are perhaps not a coincidence as Bush loved that song. On 2nd October, Bush is a guess on Saturday Superstore. The successor to Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, D.J. Mike Read is the latest in a line of rather ill-informed, patronising, clueless and sometimes offensive interviewers Bush would have to deal with on this promotional trail. Bush was asked about the cover and whether that was her with a ring in her mouth. She corrected Read and said it was a key. Unable to think of anything to talk about regarding the album, Read asked if Bush had a local store she visited and whether she bought the same thing. It was a bit of an inane interview that did not really delve into The Dreaming. However, this was Saturday T.V. and the audience were likely to be mainly children! On 6th October, Bush was treated to a more respectful and astute interview. Up in Glasgow, Radio Clyde’s Billy Sloan chatted with her. Noting that Bush’s calibre and excellence meant she might be alienating herself from the charts, did she worry about that. “The top twenty albums this week, there are very few people that you could run parallel with”. It is clear that Bush was not being seen at the time as a commercial artist. Someone who was ahead of everyone around her. Sloan asked about There Goes a Tenner and whether it was glamourising a bank robbery. Bush said that it was almost the opposite. How the robbers planned this heist but it goes wrong and they panic. Oddly, Sloan asked if Bush would secretly love to carry out a robbery, to which she (rightly) that it doesn’t appeal to her!
The train rumbled on. It was down to Birmingham on 8th October for a personal signing/appearance. Bush was on Pebble Mill at One, where she spoke with Paul Gambaccini. He observed how there were longer gaps between singles and whether she worried about this. Bush was scared that she would be forgotten and might seem like she was out of the public eye. Noting how The Dreaming found Bush take more control of the music, they then showed the video for There Goes a Tenner (the only U.K. airing of it). Gambaccini thought it would be a hit. Bush was not sure it would be (it only reached ninety-three). Bush travelled to Paris for an interview on 28th October. Perhaps tired at this point, her patience was tested by a rather lurid and irrelevant interview where she was asked about being a sex symbol. This was for the France Inter public radio station. Bush was polite and said that she thought it was flattering but she worried about not being taken seriously it if was about the physical. Due to translation issues and the rather obnoxious line of questions, there was a weariness coming from Kate Bush. It was the end of a very busy and far-reaching promotional jaunt for The Dreaming. It was clear Bush was very tired at this point. The album went to number three and was a success but EMI and many people around her did not feel she should produce an album again. As it was, Bush would produce every one of her studio albums going forward. The next, Hounds of Love, was released in 1985 and went to number one. Bush was right to persevere but, after a gruelling 1982 and a sense of disappointment regarding the reviews and sales for The Dreaming, there was some uncertainty.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pierre Terrasson
Apart from a brief trip to Jamaica, most of 1982 was taken up with completing recording and promoting her album. Bush was offered an acting role, paused her memoir (which was indefinitely shelved not long after) and promoted The Dreaming around the U.K. Ending up with a fraught interview in France, Bush must have got to the end of 1982 and wondered what happened. Such a bizarre and tiring year. Not really given much headspace or pause after recording the album, the interviews she did ranged from respectful to the downright idiotic and sexist! Things would be different going forward. Bush spent 1983 with family and friends. Planting the seeds for Hounds of Love, it was a year when she had chance to recharge and regroup. It is easy to see The Dreaming as this dark album at a very turbulent and busy time. One where Bush threw so much of herself into the work that there was not a lot left afterwards. It is still divisive today, though I think it gets more respect than it did in 1982. It was a hard album to sell. Not instantly accessible, interviewers really showed their ignorance at times. However, in years since, The Dreaming is seen as one of Bush’s best albums. Phenomenal production and songwriting, it has inspired so many artists. I look at 1982 and how hectic it was for her! With no rest or chance of escape, Bush was professional and generous throughout the promotional process. If in 1982 there were some wary of The Dreaming and whether Kate Bush had made a commercial misstep, wise and knowledgeable minds clearly identify it as…
A remarkable album.