FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Image
Numbers, Astrology, Synchronicity, Otherworldly
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REVISITING and reapproaching…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
a subject I wrote about a while ago, I have been fascinated when re-reading a section of Graeme Thomson’s biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. I have written about how the paranormal and otherworldly have been present in Kate Bush’s work from her 1978 debut, The Kick Inside, to her most recent album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. It is amazing to think how she goes beyond the ordinary and puts the strange and spectral in these beautiful songs. It is clear that Bush’s mind is very open to things that cannot be explained. Even if God and religion were really not a large part of her work, there were references to him in some of her tracks. I think the gothic and dark is a particularly appealing subject to investigate. Think about all the songs where there are shadows or darkness weaving through the lyrics. For this feature, I wanted to look at a different side of this colour spectrum. The inexplicable, fictional or otherworldly. If the spectral and gothic are shades of grey, black (I know it technically not a colour) and red, then I want to look more at oranges, yellows and greens. Go with me on this. Returning to that Graeme Thomson reference and he mentions how Kate Bush was always taken with synchronicity and a deeper meaning behind numbers. The fact that both Kate Bush and Emily Brontë share a birthday. Of course, Bush’s debut single, Wuthering Heights, was inspired by Brontë’s only novel of the same name. Well, a 1967 T.V. adaptation of it at least! However, both Bush and Brontë were born on 30th July. Brontë in 1818 and Bush in 1958. Rather than it being a coincidence – which it is -, Bush felt that this connection had a deeper meaning. Maybe seeing it as something bigger and more spiritual than mere coincidence, that strange connection definitely would have opened her mind and imagination. Exploring the meaning and connection between dates and numbers.
Somewhat different I think to the paranormal and ghostly, there was this other side to Bush that was to do with numbers, synchronicity and astrology. I think it dated to before The Kick Inside. One song from that album, Strange Phenomena, is about coincidences and synchronicity. Menstruation and the “punctual blues”. The secret meaning behind women’s moods. I am not sure exactly when Bush started to think this way. Maybe it was something instilled from birth. Whereas most of her peers had one way of thinking about the world, it is clear Bush had this intrigue that meant she had this insatiable curiosity about life beyond the ordinary and everyday. You can trace this side to Bush back to her childhood. Not only did it inspire her most interesting and original songs. I think it impacted everything she did. Bush never really thinking and writing in a conventional and joined-up way. Maybe not until the 1990s at least. I do like Bush’s fascination with numbers. A friend of hers, David Paton (who played bass on many of her songs and contributed guitar and vocals too), noted how she thought it was spooky how he and her boyfriend, Del Palmer, had the same initials. That is common enough. However, the two shared the same birthday – it is not quite true as Paton was born on 29th October; Palmer was born on 3rd November. Maybe it is bad science, though I do like how Bush was curious about the relationship of numbers and synchronicity. How birthdays and star signs were fascinating to her. Bush definitely believes in astrology and thinks there is something in it. How when you were born affects your personality. The movement and relative positions of celestial bodies affects human affairs and behaviour. There are entire websites that talk about Kate Bush’s star sign and draw her natal chart. Kate Bush is a natal Sun-Uranus in Leo person with Scorpio Rising. In her natal chart, Bush's North Node (her destiny) is in a tight conjunction to the Lord of Fame and Success, Jupiter, in airy Libra.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris
Coming back to birthdays and coincidence, it does sort of link in to the paranormal. When thinking about the song Strange Phenomena at least. I will move on a minute. However, this article about Strange Phenomena highlights some interesting observations about the song and Bush’s beliefs:
“There’s a philosophical dimension to this as well: Bush once referred to Synchronicity while discussing “Strange Phenomena” in an interview. In short, Synchronicity is psychoanalyst Karl Jung’s concept of the interconnectivity of coincidences. Coincidences bearing similarity but no common cause are termed “meaningful.” This is a pretty easy way to argue for paranormality, and Jung did so (this is not the last time a psychoanalyst will influence Kate Bush. If you’ve read this blog’s title, you already know how). Bush picks up on this, heartily saluting the spectres and weirdness of everyday life.
“Strange Phenomena” is textured with little mysteries and details. Without the Internet at one’s disposal, listeners would go years not understanding some of the song’s allusions. There’s the obscure line “G arrives/funny, had a feeling he was on his way,” which seems inexplicable in context (apparently G was a person Bush knew, while my initial guesses were that G was the Almighty Herself, John Berger’s character G, or David Gilmour himself, most plausibly) yet brings a social instinct to the song, suggesting that people can be just as mysterious as events. The presence of people is mystical to Bush — the living can be ghosts as well. In many ways, “Strange Phenomena” is about clustering: when people gather and events happen close together, magic occurs. “We raise our hats to the hand a-moulding us,” sings Bush, nodding to spiritual forces beyond human understanding”.
It is not only the case that Bush talked about numbers, coincidences and synchronicity in her earliest albums. Think about Pi (π) form 2005’s Aerial. Bush fascinated with numbers once more. This time, she was reciting π to seventy-eight decimal places. The song is about a man’s fascination with reciting π. This is what Bush told Ken Bruce in a 2005 about one of Aerial’s most interesting and overlooked songs:
“I find numbers fascinating, the idea that nearly everything can be broken down into numbers, it is a fascinating thing; and i think also that we are completely surrounded by numbers now, in a way that we weren’t you know even 20, 30 years ago we’re all walking around with mobile phones and numbers on our foreheads almost; and it’s like you know computers…”
I might go into it a bit more in another feature. From her childhood to the present day, there is this depth and side to Kate Bush that not a lot of people discuss. Alongside her embrace and portrayal of the paranormal, scary, gothic and dark is this curiosity about the relationship of numbers and synchronicity. How she and Emily Brontë shared birthdays. Here is what Bush said about Strange Phenomena: “Strange Phenomena” is about how coincidences cluster together. We can all recall instances when we have been thinking about a particular person and then have met a mutual friend who – totally unprompted – will begin talking about that person. That’s a very basic way of explaining what I mean, but these “clusters of coincidence” occur all the time. We are surrounded by strange phenomena, but very few people are aware of it”. Later in life when she was reciting a mathematical constant. Whereas most artists focus on their own life and love, Kate Bush has always looked beyond that. Bringing film and literature into her music. Exploring the paranormal and otherworldly. In addition, the relationship of numbers, synchronicity and coincidences. It is all part of Kate Bush’s…
DEEPER understanding.