Fenner Pearson's selection of the best of 'later Kate'. Written & compiled for International Women’s Day but Kate Bush is a superlative artist regardless of gender.
It is January 1978 and Kate Bush has just released her debut single. I could write a thousand words and still fail to capture the impact that this single had. Against a backdrop of seventies staples such as Abba and ‘new wave’ bands such as Blondie, Bush burst into the charts with ‘Wuthering Heights’, showing scant regard for fashion or genre. It would be hard to distil what gave the single its impact but suffice to say that both Bush’s songwriting and amazing vocals ensured that it would become the first self-penned number one by a female artist.
Bush followed this with a string of successful singles, all of them excellent pieces of pop, but, as a young man enamoured with electronic music, these largely passed me by, right up until ‘Sat In Your Lap’. And then I took notice. Indeed, what I want to emphasise in this piece for International Women’s Day is the more unorthodox and experimental side of Bush’s writing. Bush has described ‘The Dreaming’ as her “she’s gone mad album” and I do think that there was a backlash for her daring to move out of the box that she’d been placed by both the tabloids and the music press.
For me, the highlight of the album is the title track, inspired by the Native Australian myths of ‘the dreamtime’. Bush creates a soundscape that is both exotic and mysterious, adopting a vocal style that meant it was a three or four listens before I realised she was singing in English. And while a handful of the songs on the album do provide some continuation from her earlier albums, there is also the wonderfully out-there ‘Get Out Of My House’, which has a wildly varied collection of vocal styles, including braying like a donkey.
But despite my newfound admiration for Bush, I was totally unprepared for the following album, ‘The Hounds Of Love’. Four of the five tracks on the first side were singles and I could pick any one of those to display just how brilliantly assured her writing was, combining a more rhythm based style of composing with her unerring pop sensibilities. But I’ve chosen ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ as being perfectly representative, with its rolling drums, pinched synths, and gorgeous vocal.
However, incredible though that first side is, it is dwarfed by the ambition and achievement of the album’s second side, a suite a songs called ‘The Ninth Wave’. It starts with the starkly beautiful ‘And Dream Of Sheep’, which introduces a Celtic folk element that will resurface over the course of the suite. This is followed by the sustained tension of ‘Under Ice’, which leads into the vocal collage and electronics of ‘Waking The Witch’. At this point, Bush deftly switches across to the gentle, loving, melodic ‘Watching You Without Me’. But even this little oasis of (near) conventional writing is given a gorgeously leftfield adornment by Eberhard Weber on the double bass. It is at this point the folk element comes to the fore with ‘Jig Of Life’, featuring whistles, fiddles, and bodhrán. And it is from here that we begin the gorgeous climax to the suite, firstly with ‘Hello Earth’, which is my favourite part of the whole endeavour. I love pretty much everything about this song, but her incorporation of the Georgian piece ‘Tsintskaro’, it’s simply sublime. And from there, we are into the finish with ‘The Morning Fog’, which brings a perfect resolution to the entire suite. I often feel moved to tears when I listen to this, not least for the backing vocals (“Do yer?”).
Nothing was going to top ‘The Hounds Of Love’ for me but with my expectations appropriately set, I was still delighted by the next album, ‘The Sensual World’, which, for what it’s worth, was the first album I ever owned on CD. The album opens with the title track, a delightful mix of electronics and folk, which is every bit as sensual as the title suggests. And while the album marked a return to some more conventional – but nonetheless excellent – songs, there were still more experimental treasures to be found in addition to the title track. ‘Heads We’re Dancing’ tells the tale of a woman who accepts an invitation to dance from Hitler although what makes it for me is the characteristically bonkers bass playing by Mick Karn. But the best track on the album for me is the wonderful ‘Rocket’s Tail’. Written, I believe, about her cat, Rocket, this song starts with the extraordinary harmonies of The Trio Bulgarka over which Bush tells the story of her cat wishing it was a firework.
The lyrics turn on a sixpence as Bush envisages herself as the firework, at which point Stuart Elliot (drums), John Giblin (Bass), and Dave Gilmour (guitar, of course), appear from nowhere to lay down a heavy rock piece that forms the second part of the song. It is exhilarating. Bush and the Trio return though, to see the song through to its close. (I’m listening to it right now and it has never lost any of its thrill or magic for me.)
For me, Bush slightly lost her way with the next album, ‘The Red Shoes’, and I’m going to breach the conceit of this piece here to include the aching ‘Moments Of Pleasure’. It is a song that seems less sentimental and gains more poignancy over time. Elsewhere on the album, there is the superficially conventional ‘Lily’ and, the most interesting (to me) song on the album in the form of the title track.
It would be twelve years until Bush’s next album ‘Aerial’, but she returned refreshed and, creatively, on fire. The first part, ‘A Sea Of Honey’, is second only to ‘The Ninth Wave’ as a collection of songs, including the brilliant ‘Pi’, in which Bush actually sings parts of the value of the mathematical constant to surprisingly emotive and uplifting effect. The second part, ‘A Sky Of Honey’, is another suite of songs, and the second track, ‘Prologue’ is my favourite single track by Bush; it’s an extraordinary piece of songwriting and composition. (Elsewhere in the suite, on ‘Aerial Tal’, it is (allegedly) Bush imitating the birdsong. I’m not so sure.)
Six years later, Bush released her last studio album to date, the slightly eccentric ’50 Words For Snow’. I must confess that I’ve never quite come to grips with this somewhat sprawling album, yet Bush’s creativity and experimentation are still clear enough. I’ve selected three tracks: ‘Misty’, which concerns a woman who takes a snowman as a lover, only to find him melted away in the morning; ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’, which features Elton John, and concerns two time travelling lovers seemingly fated not to find one another; and, lastly, the title track, in which Bush exhorts Steven Fry to provide the required fifty words for snow.
And then, amazingly, after thirty-five years, Bush decide to perform some live concerts in the form of a twenty-two night residency at the Hammersmith Apollo, a venue straight out of my formative concert experiences. I was lucky enough to obtain tickets for the first night and it was absolutely mind-blowing. I spent the preceding hour or so in the pub with some friends where we speculated pointlessly on just what Bush would do. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that she would perform the whole of ‘The Ninth Wave’, but she did and it remains my best ever concert experience.
Will we ever hear another Kate Bush album? I have no idea. It would be nice, for sure, but perhaps a little greedy, too. The body of work she has produced to date is extraordinary and is the legacy of a woman who is an outstanding songwriter and composer, blessed with an incredible voice that she has used in ways that demonstrate a relentless musical imagination, and who has written songs that push at the boundaries whilst always remaining enjoyable.
Fenner Pearson is presenter and curator, Electronic Ears. Check out Lina Moon’s artwork in our gallery