FEATURE:
Kate Bush In the Dunce’s Cap
Sat in Your Lap from The Dreaming
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I wanted to highlight one of Kate Bush’s…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1981/PHOTO CREDIT: Janette Beckman
best singles - that was released a year before her album, The Dreaming, arrived. The Dreaming was released on 13th September, 1982 whereas the first single, Sat in Your Lap, came out way before on 21st June, 1981. I am not sure why there was this gap between Never for Ever being released in 1980, to the first single from The Dreaming coming out, to the album itself appearing. I guess Bush and EMI needed a single out as there was a two-year gap between records and, as Sat in Your Lap was a song she wrote after seeing Stevie Wonder perform (and she had this rush of inspiration), perhaps she was keen for people to hear it first. I suppose the recording of The Dreaming was quite tense and it took a while to complete, so many might have wondered what happened to Bush if she had left it until 1982 to release a new single. Before moving on, this article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia sources interviews where Bush discussed Sat in Your Lap:
“I already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after I'd been to see a Stevie Wonder gig. Inspired by the feeling of his music, I set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare. I now had a verse and a tune to go over it but only a few lyrics like "I see the people working", "I want to be a lawyer,'' and "I want to be a scholar,'' so the rest of the lyrics became "na-na-na"' or words that happened to come into my head. I had some chords for the chorus with the idea of a vocal being ad-libbed later. The rhythm box and piano were put down, and then we recorded the backing vocals. "Some say that knowledge is...'' Next we put down the lead vocal in the verses and spent a few minutes getting some lines worked out before recording the chorus voice. I saw this vocal being sung from high on a hill on a windy day. The fool on the hill, the king of the castle... "I must admit, just when I think I'm king."
The idea of the demos was to try and put everything down as quickly as possible. Next came the brass. The CS80 is still my favourite synthesizer next to the Fairlight, and as it was all that was available at the time, I started to find a brass sound. In minutes I found a brass section starting to happen, and I worked out an arrangement. We put the brass down and we were ready to mix the demo.
I was never to get that CS80 brass to sound the same again - it's always the way. At The Townhouse the same approach was taken to record the master of the track. We put down a track of the rhythm box to be replaced by drums, recording the piano at the same time. As I was producing, I would ask the engineer to put the piano sound on tape so I could refer to that for required changes. This was the quickest of all the tracks to be completed, and was also one of the few songs to remain contained on one twenty-four track tape instead of two! (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)
'Sat In Your Lap' is very much a search for knowledge. And about the kind of people who really want to have knowledge but can't be bothered to do the things that they should in order to get it. So they're sitting there saying how nice it would be to have this or to do that without really desiring to do the things it takes you to get it. And also the more you learn the more ignorant you realize you are and that you get over one wall to find an even bigger one. [Laughs] (Interview by J.J. Jackson for MTV, 1985)”.
There are a couple of reasons why I really like Sat in Your Lap. It is one of her most urgent and propulsive singles to that date and, although Breathing from Never for Ever is quite heavy, Sat in Your Lap incorporates some of the darkness and weirdness of Breathing…but the song is faster and has this whole different sound. It sort of nodded to the more experimental and confident writer/producer Bush had become by that point. The song contains one of my favourite verses from her – “In my dome of ivory/A home of activity/I want the answers quickly/But I don't have no energy/I hold a cup of wisdom/But there is nothing within/My cup, she never overfloweth/And 'tis I that moan- and groaneth” – and Bush’s vocal performance is incredible! The Dreaming found her putting in more characters and accents into the music and, on Sat in Your Lap, there are these layers and shifts that takes your breath. It is a bit of a pity that was such a long gap between the release of Sat in Your Lap and The Dreaming, as people had to wait a long time until they got another taste from such an intriguing and unusual album. Another wonderful thing about Sat in Your Lap is its video. By 1981, Bush’s videos were becoming more inventive and fuller. I love the earlier videos where there is emphasis on dance and choreography but, from Never for Ever onwards, Bush was thinking more about casting herself more as an actor than a dancer, I think. She was inhabiting these roles and adopting new guises for each video. Sat in Your Lap is one of her very finest videos.
Returning to the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, and we get some great information regarding the composition and realisation of the video:
“According to Kate, "The video was filmed over two days, one part at a video studio, the other at the audio studios. The former provided the quick, easy technical sides to be performed, the latter provided the space and presence. The large parquet floor was to be a feature, and Abbey Road's past, full of dancing and singing spirits, was to be conjured up in the present day by tapping feet to the sound of jungle drums - only to be turned into past again through the wonder of video-tape. The shots were sorted into a logical order: all long shots were audio studio, all others were video studio. A storyboard was drawn up and was very closely worked to, being hung on the wall on days of shootings. The editing was a long, difficult job, as it was comprised of many sections which had to be edited together (just like the big musical one). The editor worked all day and into the next morning with great skill and patience, and only when someone told us did we find out it had been his birthday and he'd worked it all away. One of the exciting things about making the video was the "accessories" we used, such as the lovely costumes and props. The jerk-jacket which we used in 'Army Dreamers' was used again for a short sequence, and although there's a silver wire, it feels like flying. Out of the harness and into the light of a timeless tunnel, as a little magician's box springs to life and the room is filled with laser and skaters"
With some great support from her musicians - drums: Preston Heyman, bass: Jimmy Bain, piano and Fairlight: Kate Bush, sticks: Paddy Bush and Preston Heyman, backing vocals: Ian Bairnson, Gary Hurst, Stewart Arnold, Paddy Bush, and CMI trumpet section: Geoff Downes –, Sat in Your Lap is a very bold and wonderful lead single from The Dreaming. Also, as it is the first track on the album, Bush wasted no time in letting people know that she had ascended to a whole new creative plain! The song reached number-eleven in the singles chart; it was her most successful single from The Dreaming – by choosing songs that were less accessible and less instantaneous than Sat in Your Lap resulted in some extremely low chart positions for other singles from the album. It is amazing to think that Bush demoed Sat in Your Lap in September 1980 (the month Never for Ever was released) and she hade so many different tones and ideas running around her head so soon after her debut album (The Kick Inside, 1978). Bush battled writer’s block whilst creating The Dreaming, so I can sort of understand why there was a big gap between single release and the album arriving. The single version is different to the one she demoed - the vocals were raised higher and the backing track altered significantly - ; what she put out in 1981 was amazing! It is one of my favourite Kate Bush tracks, as it is so different to anything she had released before. I also have a lot of affection for the remarkable video. I wonder how many people, experiencing Sat in Your Lap in 1981, could predict The Dreaming and had any notion or realisation of just…
PHOTO CREDIT: Anton Corbijn
WHAT was to come.