Kate Bush – Weird, Wacky and Wonderful. – Read and Listen with Keith

I was asked if I could put together a playlist of tracks by chanteuse extraordinaire Kate Bush and as it was a great opportunity to revisit her albums I got onto the case there and then. I have only included tracks released on albums up to and including her 1993 release The Red Shoes. From that year until 2005 Kate Bush took a bit of a hiatus and pretty much disappeared from the scene. She has released a few albums since her return but I haven’t included anything from them here. I may put that to rights some time in the future.

Having written songs since the age of 11, Kate Bush recorded demos with the assistance of her brothers, who were also musicians. A friend of theirs, Ricky Hopper, brought some of these tapes to various record companies in 1972, when Bush was 13. The tapes were passed over, but Hopper played them for his friend David Gilmour of

Pink Floyd.Gilmour was immediately intrigued and went to meet with the Bush family and was impressed with Kate’s talent for songwriting. He financed some better quality demos and while Pink Floyd were recording their album Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road studios, Gilmour played the tapes for record company executives. EMI Records was impressed and agreed to sign her, offering her an advance of £3,000. Two of the demos recorded in June 1975 were included on her debut album three years later: “The Man With The Child In His Eyes” and “The Saxophone Song”.

That beautiful debut album was The Kick Inside. It was released on 17 February 1978 and contains her UK number one hit, “Wuthering Heights”. The album peaked at number three on the UK Charts and has since been certified Platinum by the BPI.The production included efforts by several male prog rock veterans, Duncan Mackay, Ian Bairnson, David Paton, Andrew Powell, and Stuart Elliott of the Alan Parsons Project, and, of course David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

“Wow” is a song from her second album Lionheart in 1978. it was issued as the album’s second single in March 1979 and was a top 20 hit in the UK. There is a rather risqué story surrounding the song as the lyrics include a reference to Vaseline as a sexual lubricant. In the original video released to promote the record, Kate pats her behind when singing the lyric. This video was censored by the BBC at the time of release. What larks!!!!!!!!

“Delius (Song of Summer)” was inspired by the 1968 Ken Russell TV movie Song of Summer, which portrays the last six years of the life of English composer Frederick Delius, when Eric Fenby acted as his amanuensis. Fenby is mentioned in the lyrics (“in B, Fenby”).”Blow Away (for Bill)” commemorates her lighting director Bill Duffield, killed in an accident at Poole Arts Centre during her 1979 tour. The song links his name to those of several music stars who died in the previous decade—Minnie Riperton, Keith Moon, Sandy Denny, Sid Vicious, Marc Bolan—and one earlier icon, Buddy Holly. All very strange but it is a beautiful song. It appears on her third album “Never Forever”.

“The Dreaming” is the title song from Kate Bush’s fourth studio album The Dreaming and was released as a single on 26 July 1982. Bush had not released a single since “Sat In Your Lap” thirteen months earlier. “The Dreaming” made it to #48 on the UK Charts.

“Hounds of Love” is a song written, produced and performed by Bush and is the title track and the third single released from her number one 1985 album Hounds of Love. The single was released on 24 February 1986, and reached number 18 in the UK Singles Chart.The song is about being afraid to fall in love; in the song this feeling is compared to being chased by a pack of hounds. The music video (directed by Bush herself) was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film The 39 Steps and a Hitchcock lookalike also features in the video as a nod to the director’s famous cameo appearances in his movies.

“The Sensual World” is the title track and first single from her album of the same name, released in September 1989. The single entered and peaked at no.12 in the UK single charts. The song was later re-recorded using only words taken from Molly Bloom’s soliloquy from James Joyce’s Ulysses, as Bush had originally intended whilst recording album. The song is inspired by Molly Bloom stepping out of the black and white, two-dimensional pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses into the real world, and is immediately struck by the sensuality of it all. As I said, It was originally supposed to be Molly Bloom’s speech (from the end of Ulysses) set to music, but Bush could not secure the rights from the Joyce estate, so she altered it. In 2011, the Joyce estate granted license to the material, and Bush re-recorded the song as “Flower of the Mountain”, releasing it later in her career.

The Red Shoes is Kate’s seventh studio album which notably features many more high-profile cameo appearances than her previous releases. The track “Why Should I Love You?” featured instrumental and vocal contributions from Prince as well as guest vocals from comedian Lenny Henry. “And So Is Love” features guitar work by Eric Clapton, and the late Gary Brooker from the band Procol Harum. Jeff Beck also collaborated. Trio Bulgarka (who had contributed to The Sensual World) appeared on three songs: “You’re the One”, “The Song of Solomon”, and the track ”Why Should I Love You?”.

“Don’t Give Up” is a song written by English musician Peter Gabriel and recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel’s fifth solo studio album So released in 1986. The song was inspired by the Depression-era photographs of Dorothea Lange, showing poverty-stricken Americans in Dust Bowl conditions. Gabriel saw Lange’s images in a 1973 book titled In This Proud Land. He felt that a song based on this was wholly appropriate to difficult economic conditions in England under Margaret Thatcher.He composed lyrics within a situation about a man whose unemployment causes stress in his domestic relationship. The verses, sung by Gabriel, describe the man’s feelings of isolation, loneliness and despair; the choruses, sung by Bush, offer words of hope and encouragement. Gabriel originally wrote the song from a reference point of American roots music and he approached country singer Dolly Parton to sing it with him. However, Parton turned it down, so his friend Kate Bush took her place. It is a very moving performance.

A few other notable tracks were picked as favourites by a great friend of mine called Marie. I worked with her for 15 years at a rather large house in London.

The second single released from her number one 1985 album Hounds of Love, ”Cloudbusting” peaked at No. 20 in the UK Singles Chart.

“Army Dreamers” was released on 22 September 1980 and peaked at number 16 in the UK Singles Chart. The song is about the effects of war and about a mother who grieves for her young adult son, who was killed on military manoeuvres. Saddened by his unnecessary death, she wrestles with her guilt over what she could have done to prevent it. The song is a waltz, which marks a change to Bush’s previous singles. The version on the original single release is longer than on the album release. This version fades; whereas the single release, the one you hear here, has a dead ending.

“Wuthering Heights” is Kate Bush’s most famous song. It was released as her debut single in November 1977 and re-released in January 1978. Inspired by the Emily Brontë novel of the same name, it appears on her 1978 debut album The Kick Inside. It stayed at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, and remains Bush’s most successful single. The song received widespread critical acclaim and continues to be highly regarded; in 2016 Pitchfork named it the fifth greatest song of the 1970s. Bush wrote the song aged 18, within a few hours late at night on 5 March 1977.She was inspired after seeing the 1967 BBC adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights.She then read the book, and also discovered that she shared her birthday with author Emily Brontë. It’s a small world.

I hope you enjoyed this foray into the world of Kate Bush.

The Kick Inside – The Kick Inside.