FEATURE:
“Mmh, yes”
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush shot for The Sensual World’s single cover in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Inside Kate Bush’s The Sensual World
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THOUGH I have…
discussed Kate bush’s album, The Sensual World, before, I have not really investigated its title cut. It is a song I have seen shared online quite a bit over the past week, and 16th June marked the famous Dublin day spent by the character Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's novel, Ulysses. Kate was drawn to the book's closing speech by Leopold's wife, Molly (Bloom). I do love artists who are curious about literature and can get something from classic literature. Usually, a songwriter, might sprinkle in a couple of words from a novel or they might loosely base a song on it. In Kate Bush’s music, you hear someone inhabit a character like Molly Bloom. Literature has always played a role in her creativity. Although Bush wrote Wuthering Heights after seeing a T.V. adaptation, one has to draw back to the original novel by Emily Brontë. I can imagine why Bush was struck by this moment where Cathy comes to Heathcliff as a ghostly vision, and the sheer power and strange romance that this image conveys. Similarly, Molly Bloom’s sensual soliloquy in Ulysses would have resonated for a different reason. Although The Sensual World and Wuthering Heights both take from classic literature, the songs are very different; by 1989, Bush was heading in a new direction and not the same artist she was on 1978’s The Kick Inside.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Pitchfork, when they reviewed The Sensual World last year remarked on how the album was an important step forward for Bush:
“She didn’t need to prove her own steeliness to anyone, especially the male journalists who patronized her and harped on her childishness as a way of cutting her down to size. Instead, The Sensual World is the sound of someone deciding for themselves what growing up and grown-up pop should be, without being beholden to anyone else’s tedious definitions. It gave her a new template for the next two decades, inspiring both the smooth, stylish art-rock of 1993’s The Red Shoes and the picturesque beauty of 2005’s Aerial”.
The Sensual World was the first song from the album of the same name, and it was released in September 1989. As I was born in 1983, I was not around first time to experience Bush’s first four albums. The Sensual World might well have been the album that I was aware of when it came out. I think the record remains quite under-explored and exposed, and songs like The Sensual World prove that Bush could evolve and change direction and remain more captivating and original than any other songwriter. The song reached number-twelve in the U.K. charts, and it remains a favourite among fans. I love the musicianship and rich sounds on the song. I think the composition is the first thing that hits me. We have Del Palmer on bass, Charlie Morgan on percussion, who provide this tight and incredible rhythm section.
It is the way the bass and drums work with the more unconventional instruments that gives The Sensual World its personality and aura. Paddy Bush’s swished fishing rod is subtle but powerful; Davy Spillane’s uilleann pipes gives the song its Irish blood and rush; John Sheahan’s fiddle and Dónal Lunny’s bouzouki are perfect, and these musicians bring so much to the song. I think Bush’s voice is at its most stirring and tremulous, and she provides this incredible sensuality and beauty. I will talk more about the music and vocal but, interestingly, the most notable aspect of The Sensual World is the fact that Bush could not get permission to use text from Ulysses when the song was recorded. It was not until 2011’s Director’s Cut – when one assumes the copyright might have expired –, when Bush was finally granted permission from the Joyce estate to use the original words from the novel. This article discusses the atmosphere of The Sensual World, and the challenges Bush faced when trying to obtain the rights to source from Ulysses:
“Musically, one of the main hooks in the chorus of The Sensual World was inspired by a traditional Macedonian piece of music called Nevestinsko Oro, or "Bride's Dance". As in the traditional version, the melody is played on uilleann pipes, in this case by Irish musician Davy Spillane.[2]
She found inspiration in the literary world again, scouring the pages of James Joyce’s landmark 1920s novel Ulysses to find Molly Bloom’s closing monologue, in which the character steps from the pages of the book and revels in the real world. Bush was delighted to find that the rhythm and sound of the words fit perfectly with the music she had been working on.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989
This revelation was frustrated by the intractability of Joyce’s estate, which repeatedly refused Bush permission to use the words as her lyrics on ‘The Sensual World’. She was forced to rebuild from the ground-up, writing new passages that captured the same breathless energy as Bloom’s soliloquy. The finished product mirrored the inspirational text very closely, anchored around the repeated erotically charged ‘Yes’ which Bush delivers with a quivering intensity. The lyrics detail a panoply of sensual stimuli, from peaches, to mountain flowers, to seed-cake, whilst the syncopated rhythm of her voice rides the irresistible flow of music. Bush had often resisted the urge to write in such a potently sexualised voice due to the exploitative nature of her early career, but here it felt as if feminine sensuality was finally being expressed on its own terms. Molly Bloom simply supplied the creative insulation – a mask to slip behind when things became too personal”.
I think one of the big motivations Bush recorded the Director’s Cut album was so that she could record The Sensual World again – the new version, Flower of the Mountain, saw her record the lyrics she had always wanted to, some twenty-two years after The Sensual World was released. Of course, there are other songs on that album that Bush wanted to tackle again, but I feel there was this huge desire to ‘complete’ The Sensual World.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummings
I have a lot of respect for the 1989 album, and the way The Sensual World perfectly opens and closes: the title track is this wonderfully evocative opening, and we end with the startling and deeply emotional This Woman’s Work. After the success of 1985’s Hounds of Love, Bush could have repeated herself and written an album that was inspired by similar themes. Bush always moves and never wants to rehash what has come before. I think The Sensual World is a more mature album, in the sense we never hear a track as child-like as The Big Sky, or as propulsive as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). It is the sheer awe and hush Bush portrays through her voice that makes The Sensual World’s title track so affecting and popular – and I can completely understand why she was very keen to secure the rights to quote Molly Bloom. I also really love the song’s video, which was directed by Bush and The Comic Strip co-creator Peter Richardson. In it, Bush is dancing through a forest wearing a red medieval dress. To me, she has never looked so entrancing and beautiful as she does in that video – maybe And So Is Love (from 1993’s The Red Shoes) comes close! I really like the way the video sits alongside the song and how Bush (and Richardson) brings her song to life so fully and beautifully. Watching the music video is this wonderful experience, where one is drawn into a different world. I have watched the video countless times, and I am always moved and mesmerised.
The Sensual World (track) gathered a lot of reviews. This is Sounds’ review from 14th October, 1989:
“Isn't the single absolutely withoug equal? Especially the way the "mmh yes" punctuation gets progressively more urgent as the song unwinds. There is really no doubt about it, when Kate Bush says "The Sensual World" is "a string expression of positive female energy" she isn't kidding. That 45 proves that she's come a long way from "Wuthering Heights" and is now writing approximations of the soundtrack to Body Heat. Stunning stuff.
That song is the best thing on this, her sixth album. It's probably her best song to date, although -- lyrically at least -- it's possibly rivalled by "Rocket's Tail" and "The Fog" for classic Bush-like unsettling, mesmerising undertones”.
This is how The Quietus assessed the song when they wrote about The Sensual World (album) in 1989:
“The Sensual World' itself sets out the album's autumnal stall immediately – soft, pealing bells give way to an arrangement that incorporates pipes, warm synth washes, and an insistent drum pattern; its accompanying video, following the singer through a forest of crimson leaves, is as seamless a supplement as could be”.
If you have not explored The Sensual World, I would advise you do, as it is a terrific song that marked a real growth and departure for Bush – never before had she sounded so grown-up, autumnal and alluring.
PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I just want to quote another passage from The Quietus’ review, as they make some very interesting observation about The Sensual World’s title track:
“The Molly Bloom of Joyce's soliloquy escapes the confines of his text, "stepping out of the page into the sensual world," to enjoy the "down of a peach," the "kiss of seedcake," to "wear a sunset," where bodies roll "off of Howth Head and into the flesh." Kate described the album as her first to really explore "positive female energy" – "I think it's to do with me coming to terms with myself on different levels," she told NME. "In some ways, like on Hounds Of Love, it was important for me to get across the sense of power in the songs that I'd associated with male energy and music. But I didn't feel that this time and I was very much wanting to express myself as a woman in my music rather than as a woman wanting to sound as powerful as a man. And definitely 'The Sensual World', the track, was very much a female track for me. I felt it was a really new expression, feeling good about being a woman musically".
Kate Bush was thirty-one when the single came out, and it has almost been thirty-one years since the track came out. I remember listening to The Sensual World when I was a child and being struck by this amazing song. I listen back now, and it still provokes something deep inside of me. The Sensual World must go down as…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
ONE of Kate Bush’s most important and impressive tracks.