FEATURE:
Kate Bush: Elastic Fantastic
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush between filming duties during The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
The Red Shoes’ Rubberband Girl
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BECAUSE The Red Shoes is….
twenty-seven tomorrow (1st November), I wanted to look at a track that I have mentioned but not covered in depth. I think an opening track is very important when it comes to setting mood and the scene, and Rubberband Girl definitely gives The Red Shoes a great kick off! I think the entire album is awesome, and there are so many tracks on the album that do not get talked about or played. Rubberband Girl is a terrific single, and one hardly hears the track played at all! I think Kate Bush herself rates the song highly as, when she spoke to MOJO about its inclusion on Director’s Cut (where she reworked various songs from The Sensual World, and The Red Shoes), she remarked the following - preferring the original, perhaps, to the reworking:
“I thought the original 'Rubberband' was... Well, it's a fun track. I was quite happy with the original, but I just wanted to do something really different. It is my least favourite track. I had considered taking it off to be honest. Because it didn't feel quite as interesting as the other tracks. But I thought, at the same time, it was just a bit of fun and it felt like a good thing to go out with. It's just a silly pop song really, I loved Danny Thompson's bass on that, and of course Danny (McIntosh)'s guitar. (Mojo (UK), 2011)“.
Rubberband Girl is a great and fun song, it is seems to speak of a determination to come back from adversity and the perils of life - Bush wanting to life like a rubber band. Wishing she had an elasticity to rebound from knocks, it is infectious and cute, but I think it speaks to a subconscious vibe that, perhaps in 1993, she was going through some tough stuff.
Although various songs for The Red Shoes were written before her mother died in 1992 (and in advance), Bush wrote Rubberband Girl in the studio quite quickly. When the band came in to record, Bush had some words down and a basic structure, and it was a rare occasion of a track coming together in the studio – we always associate Bush as being meticulous and having songs worked out prior to recording. Maybe the gesture of bouncing back seems a little hopeless because, as Graeme Thomson explained in his biography of Bush, this is an album where she could not bounce back – the sound of a grown woman trying to reclaim innocence; songs that have lost a bit of hope and the tone (of the album) is darker and more defeated. Rubberband Girl was released as a single by EMI Records in the U.K. on 6th September, 1993; the song was subsequently released as a single in the U.S.A. on 7th December, 1993. Rubberband Girl peaked at number-twelve on the U.K. chart - becoming Bush's last top-twenty until King of the Mountain reached number-four in 2005. The song was a moderate success worldwide, reaching the top-forty in Australia, Ireland, The Netherlands, and New Zealand. Although others prefer different tracks on The Red Shoes – including the title track, Lily, and Moments of Pleasure -, I have a soft spot for Rubberband Girl. It is a song on The Red Shoes that has groove and is uplifting without sounding too cluttered and layered (like Why Should I Love You? or even Eat the Music), and I think many people can relate to the lyrics.
Maybe some, on face value, would take the song as being silly – sort of it being about Bush as this elastic superhero! -, but, as I said, I think she channelled a lot of her own struggles and desires for stability and happiness. I really like that Bush recorded two different music videos for Rubberband Girl. The original video was also used in the movie The Line, the Cross and the Curve and features Kate dancing in a studio. For the U.S.A., a different video was shot with Kate wearing sunglasses and singing the track, with scenes from the movie intercut. I prefer the U.K. video – in the same way I prefer the U.K. video for Wuthering Heights -, and it is a shame that Rubberband Girl only hit eighty-eight in the U.S. For me, it is a brilliant opening number to a really underrated album! Twenty-seven years after The Red Shoes came out, maybe the production sounds dated, but there is still a lot to love. Among the fantastic songs on the album is this introductory gem. One reason why I really like Rubberband Girl is that the video is pretty physical. Bush dances in the video for Eat the Music, but Rubberband Girl is one of her most physical routines since Hounds of Love and, also, she is seen in the video (the U.K. version) on a trampoline!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush between filming duties during The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I will finish up soon, but I want to bring in a couple of interviews where she talks about The Red Shoes. Bush spoke with Melody Maker in 1993, where she talked about mixing traditional and non-traditional music – and some experimentation on Rubberband Girl:
"The Red Shoes" also sees Bush resume her periodic delvings into non-Western ethnic music. The sprightly "Eat The Music" is the result of a recent infatuation with Madagascar's folk music. She first heard it through her brother Paddy, who hips her to a lot of world music. (He plays 'fujare' and Tibetan singing bowls on "Lily", another song on the album). "If I hear things and think they're really great, it's hard not to be influenced. I've always had an interest in traditional music. Madagascan music is so fantastically joyous. And I really wanted to do something that could hopefully use that joy but fit it into a rock context. It was wonderful working with this Madagascan guy, Justin Vall. His energy was extraordinary. Just like the music, so very innocent and positive and sweet.
Bush has always loved to make an unusual voice even more unearthly, by revelling in studio treatments and multi-tracking herself into a disorientating polyphony. On the new album's "Rubberband Girl", she lets loose a geyser of scat-vocalese mid-song, a sort of horn solo for the human voice, then spirals off into an eerie drone-chant. "A lot of those vocal experiments just happen in the studio," she says. "But then a lot of the times I'm writing in the studio, onto tape, as opposed to taking a song in with me".
I am going to end up by quoting from an interview in Q from 1993, as it is an interesting piece! The period before and after the The Red Shoes’ release was quite tough, and Bush encountered the death of her mother, a long-term relationship breaking up, in addition to some critical backlash. It makes Rubberband Girl seem all the more impressive, given that Bush’s head and heart were in different places and being pounded during The Red Shoes’ creation and release! She was asked by Q how she unwinds away from music:
“What do you do for fun?
"I make records (laughs). There's a lot of other stuff that I like to do. But I find making records really exciting. It's making something out of nothing and you can involve other people. It's brilliant."
But what do you do when you're not making records?
"Well, I don't listen to records. I tend to watch a lot of films. I tend to work quite late and I tend to put in quite long hours. If you work like that, you don't get a great social life. I watch a lot of comedy. I suppose it's the same if you work in film: You don't want to watch films to relax. You want to give those particular senses a rest."
So what makes you laugh?
"Lots of stuff. I think it's an incredible gift to be able to make people laugh. It's not just a question of guts, it's having the talent to achieve it. I can't think of anything braver than being a stand-up comedian. I suppose you must learn a lot about yourself. Even if you get booed off you must get so much insight. I love all kinds of stuff. I still think Fawlty Towers is the best sitcom ever. I like Python, I like Ben Elton, I like what Rik and Ade do. We've got a load of good comics here...and a lot of good comediennes, which is nice".
Ahead of The Red Shoes turning twenty-seven tomorrow, I wanted to nod to Kate Bush’s only album of the 1990s and give special mention to its first track and lead-off single. It is this propulsive and additive track with a great, gutsy chorus. The video is fantastic, and I love what Bush does with her voice through the song. If you have not heard The Red Shoes, or it is an album you skip through, I would recommend checking it out, as Rubberband Girl gets things started…
IN spectacular fashion!