There’s a lot more to Kate Bush than the Netflix-fuelled boomerang hit of the moment Running Up That Hill, you know. Indeed, you may well already know – but many are, consequently, new to this inimitable auteur. Chris Williams presents a guide to some deep cuts from her remarkable discography.
So Stranger Things has made Kate Bush cool again – except, of course, she’s always been cool! Even in her quiet years, not that Kate’s the recluse she’s sometimes portrayed as; rather, she put music on hold in the 1990s to bring up her son Bertie.
Delighting fans and media alike when she returned to the limelight post-millennial with new music – 2005’s Aerial and 50 Words For Snow, from 2011 – neither compared to the media storm in 2014, when she performed live for the first time in 35 years. Instead of touring, she commanded the world to come to her as she played a residency in Hammersmith Apollo.
When she asked (as opposed to instructed) fans not to take photos/videos of the shows, 99% of the audience complied. When Wuthering Heights was nowhere to be heard in these shows, no one complained. She seems to command a sort of quiet respectful fandom.
Bush’s nine studio albums harbour so many songs the casual fan won’t know about, from one of her poppiest moments The Big Sky to pop-rock gems like Kite, Wedding List and Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbreak.
And as for me? I’m not an OG fan, I’m too young: I came to her music when Babooshka was on one of those ‘year you were born’ CD birthday cards my sister had on her 18th. So it’s good that possible new fans are finding her music; and, as a now-viral tweet puts it, “Can’t wait for all the kids who discover Kate Bush from Stranger Things to check her Spotify, put on her most recent album, and listen to a 14-minute song about having sex with a snowman.”
Which gave me the idea of my favourite ‘bonkers’ and ‘beautiful’ songs from Kate’s back catalogue…
GET OUT OF MY HOUSE
The Dreaming, from 1982, is one of my favourite albums, and one of the biggest examples of Kate Bush at her most bonkers. There is a lot to choose from, but the album closer is a particular example. Inspired by Stephen King’s The Shining, Bush imagines the haunted house as a human, boarded up in protection. In the end we have to confront what haunts us, which for reasons unclear means turning into a mule and ‘hee-haw’-ing to the end of the song – yes, she literally makes mule/donkey noises…
HEADS WE’RE DANCING
Spoiler: the charming man in the song turns out to be Hitler. Inspired, Kate said in a 1989 NME interview, by a family friend who was sat next to a fascinating man at dinner, “They sat all night chatting and joking. And next day he found out it was Oppenheimer. And this friend was horrified because he really despised what the guy stood for.”
“Ken! Who is the man we all need? KEN! Who is the funky sex machine? KEN!” The Ken in question being Livingstone, then leader of the GLC (Greater London Council, not Goldie Lookin Chain). Written for a Comic Strip Presents film, this one is entertaining for its imagery of the erstwhile Labour firebrand as a “funky sex machine”, but also due to being a really good pop song.
EXPERIMENT IV
Admittedly not the most lyrically bonkers, it’s more the whole package – notably, a music video banned by Top Of The Pops. The song is about a secret military plan to create a sound horrific enough to kill people. Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Gary Oldman and Peter Vaughn star in the video, directed by Bush and filmed in an abandoned military hospital. The end of the video features Bush as the ‘sound’ – first appearing as an ethereal beauty, then an horrific monster that kills everyone in the video.
COFFEE HOMEGROUND
A humorous song about paranoia from the perspective of someone convinced people are trying to poison them… apparently directly inspired by a cab driver. “Pictures of Crippen” goes a refrain – what’s with the obsession over the macabre?
THIS WOMAN’S WORK
Written for 1988 John Hughes film She’s Having A Baby (it plays when the main character learns the lives of his wife and unborn child are in danger) this is possibly one of the most beautiful KB songs. The music video is equally forlorn, with Tim McInnerney playing an anguished husband in a hospital waiting room.
MOMENTS OF PLEASURE
In this song Kate remembers happy moments, remembering those who have left – “the case of George The Wipe” apparently refers to a sound engineer who accidently wiped a whole recording from The Dreaming era. Part of Moments… was written for her mother, who was ill at the time and died a short time later.
AND DREAM OF SHEEP
Part of the Ninth Wave section of the Hounds Of Love album, the concept side of the album tells the story of a possibly shipwrecked person – floating in the water awaiting, or hoping for, rescue. And Dream Of Sheep portrays the protagonist fighting sleep, which would mean certain death.
DECEMBER WILL BE MAGIC AGAIN
Because on any given December 1, who doesn’t hope that this will be another magical Christmas?
DEEPER UNDERSTANDING
Some years before the advent of home internet, Bush wrote this song – a highlight of 1989’s The Sensual World – about people replacing human connections with technology. “You can get your shopping from the Ceefax!” she said in a Radio 1 interview at the time. How can a song be so dated, and yet simultaneously so relevant?
words CHRIS WILLIAMS
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