FEATURE:
A New Focus
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on 21st March, 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Those Paying Tribute to Kate Bush in Photo Form
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I wasn’t planning…
IN THIS PHOTO: Bridget Christie/PHOTO CREDIT: Simon Webb/The Guardian
on writing about this but, because Kate Bush News made us aware of a new interview where Bridget Christie pays tribute to Kate Bush during the photoshoot, it did get me thinking. It is a brilliant photoshoot and the photos look amazing. You can read the interview here. Bridget Christie is a really wonderful comedian, actor and writer. I have talked before about the influence Kate Bush has and how this extends to artists. However, it is clear that Bush is important to those beyond music. I was not aware that Bridget Christie was a fan of Kate Bush. However, as she was recreating 1978 photos shot by Gered Mankowitz - including tributes to ones where she was photographed in this wooden box; a shot from that session was used as the U.S. cover for her debut album, The Kick Inside -, it made me think about this subject. People nodding to Kate Bush and her photographic allure. Before expanding, here is the opening of The Guardian’s interview with Bridget Christie:
“Is it a pigeon-hole, Bridget Christie asked to be photographed in, or is it a box? Either way, it’s some pretty trenchant visual messaging: whatever society wants to do with middle-aged women, Christie is done with it.
It was also a chance for the 53-year-old to dress up as Kate Bush, recreating her 1978 shoot by Gered Mankowitz. And Christie loves dressing up. She did a whole show dressed as Charles II. The actor, writer and comedian is playful: she has way more than the usual number of funny facial expressions; her chat is peppered with silly, surreal diversions. Making people laugh is her thing, she says. “It motivates me, it helps me navigate the world, it’s like a drug.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Simon Webb/The Guardian
Also her thing? Shaking injustice like a snow globe, and saying, “Guys, guys – there’s a better way to do this.” There was her 2013 Edinburgh comedy award-winning show A Bic for Her, in which she skewered everything from the marketing of a pastel-coloured Biro to the geopolitical significance of violence against women. Her first Radio 4 series, Bridget Christie Minds the Gap, was silly but very much about feminism. Her second, Utopia, in 2018, took on all the crushing events of the world, from Brexit to Kim Jong-un to the climate crisis.
Now, she has found a home on Channel 4 with The Change, her Bafta-nominated comedy drama. It’s about menopause – women in midlife, raging against the machine, sloughing off their domestic servitude – and centred on long-married Linda, played by Christie, clawing back the millions of minutes she has spent doing drudge work for others. The scenarios are within the envelope of regular sitcom, but the execution has an almost fairytale surrealism – as Christie describes, “it’s like science fiction, magic realism, a western, a comedy, a tragedy”. The second season opens on a menopause joke: Linda, in the middle of a rousing speech on self-empowerment, forgets a word. It’s a simple one, but important; nothing else will do. The word is “log”.
“There are so many words, aren’t there?” Christie says, having forgotten a word today. “Too many. It’s the nouns!”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith
Bridget Christie’s nod to Kate Bush is not a solitary example. Last year, American artist Halsey paid tribute to Kate Bush. I like the fact hers and Bridget Christie’s tributes are not obvious photos. Those 1978 Gered Mankowitz photos are not known to all. I think Tori Amos was consciously replicating the same photoshoot for the cover of her 1992 debut album, Little Earthquakes. The similarities between that photo and those taken by Gered Mankowitz in 1978 are too similar to be a coincidence. Halsey recreated a shot of Kate Bush from 1981. She also recorded a song for her album, The Great Impersonator, that was influenced by Kate Bush. Kate Bush News picked up the story:
“Already known for covering Running Up that Hill live back in June 2022, US singer Halsey has announced that the song “I Never Loved You” is inspired by Kate Bush. The singer also pays visual homage to Kate on social media with a photo shoot recreating the Clive Arrowsmith “blue gauze” photograph of Kate used for the cover of the January 1982 issue of Company Magazine.
The track is featured on Halsey’s upcoming new concept album, The Great Impersonator, which takes influence from many different artists and eras, thematically tied to artists who’ve influenced her. Halsey also sent a message to her subscribers upon the song’s release to detail the dark story behind it: “This song cuts deep….a woman lies ill-fated in an Emergency Room. She’s holding on with all her might, in hopes her lover will show to say goodbye. He arrives, too late and defensive. Who was driving the car that hit her?”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Halsey
In a future feature, I am going to discuss some of the photographer who took amazing shots of Kate Bush but do not get the same credit as better known photographers like Guido Harari and Gered Mankowitz. It is great when you get these unexpected salutes to Kate Bush. It means people who might not know about Kate Bush discover he music and dig deeper. I know there are some great Kate Bush tribute acts. I have discussed that recently and mentioned terrific acts like Baby Bushka. However, there is this whole new thing about people – mainly women – recreating Kate Bush photos. It would be nice if some men did too. As I said, Halsey and Bridget Christie chose rarer photos that many do not know exist. Christie looks a lot like Kate Bush in the new photos. She looks wonderful. Halsey too looks a lot like Kate Bush when she provided her take on one of the best photos of Kate Bush ever taken. I would love to see more of these photos come to light. I have argued before how we need a Kate Bush exhibition featuring a range of her photos. I would love to see a range of people choose a Kate Bush photo and provide their take. A new focus. Not just women. There are a range of great Kate Bush photos I could see people doing their own version of. It is wonderful when people like Bridget Christie unexpectedly are ‘cast’ as Kate Bush. Let’s hope that there is more of this to come. It goes to show that there is this ongoing and wide fandom. How she continues to inspire so many people throughout the arts and regular life. So many possibilities in the future when it comes to musicians, actors, writers and inspiring people replicating a Kate Bush photo. Taking these older shots and…
GIVING them a modern twist.