FEATURE:
In the Air, the Night Scented Stock
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980
Is Never for Ever Kate Bush’s Most Underrated Album?
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I have written about…
various aspects of Never for Ever, and I approached it from different angles. I asked, earlier in the year, whether there would be an anniversary edition ahead of its fortieth on 7th September. Although Kate Bush is reluctant to look back, it would have been great to have an anniversary release, as I think Never for Ever might be one of her most important album. Hounds of Love is celebrating thirty-five years in September, and it remains her most-celebrated moment. I am going to reassess that album and give it a lot more attention over the coming weeks, but before that titanic album turns thirty-five, Never for Ever turns forty. The Kick Inside (1978), her debut, is my favourite album, and I think Lionheart (released later that year) was a bit rushed and, although underrated, it does not rank with her true essence. I think The Dreaming (1982) was important, as it was Bush alone as a produce; she released her most layered and intriguing albums to that point and, not long after that album was released, Bush was making changes to her life that would lead to the revelatory and genius Hounds of Love. I recently argued that Lionheart was a seriously underrated album, but I think Never for Ever is one of her most underrated album of all. It is also one of her most important, as there was a lot of expectation looming in the air. Lionheart was met with a murmur of disappointment. 1978 was a busy and tiring year for Bush!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during 1979’s Tour of Life
It seemed like there was no moment for rest! Many would have understood if Bush took a lot of time off in 1979, but she took her Tour of Life across Europe. It was important for her to assume more control of her work, as there was a feeling that, on her first two albums, she was more a bystander rather than the creative engine. The Tour of Life went some way to appeasing Bush’s lack of satisfaction; a tour that was very much her at the forefront. In the same way people massively underrate The Kick Inside and dismiss it as a ‘promising debut’ (which I think is her most underrated record), I do not hear a lot of people underline just how pivotal Never for Ever was. Maybe, looking back, Bush felt that Never for Ever was a small step to where she wanted to head, if not completely in love with the album – in interviews from the 1980s and 1990s she sort of distanced herself from her first three albums. Maybe it is not as accomplished and ambitious as Hounds of Love, but I think Never for Ever is more accessible than The Dreaming, and it is packed with brilliant moments. Kate Bush produced Never for Ever alongside Jon Kelly (who was an engineer on The Kick Inside, and Lionheart), and I think this really adds something to the album.
She was only twenty-one where she was recording the album, so it might have been a bit early to produce on her own – and after a tiring last couple of years, another body in the producer’s seat would have been welcomed! Never for Ever is vital, as it was an important transition from the sounds of her first two albums. Those albums explore various subjects, but there are a lot of songs about passion and love; the piano takes the starring role, and Never for Ever signalled a lot of development. I have seen a lot of reviews for Never for Ever, but very few are profusive and really do the album justice! The album entered the U.K. album chart at number-one on the weekend ending 20th September, 1980. That was impressive, as Bush became the first female British solo artist to achieve that status. Never for Ever is also the first studio album by any female solo artist to reach number-one in the U.K. It was a hugely popular album, so I wonder why the reviews were not terrific. Listen to the album as a whole, and the song quality is tremendous! Apart from the rather throwaway Blow Away (for Bill), every song on the album is a treasure! I feel Never for Ever gave Bush the confidence to experiment and push herself on albums that followed and, liberated by her Tour of Life the year before and the chance to work alongside a new producer, you can really hear the difference.
Although, on most polls, Never for Ever makes the top-five or six, it rarely gets any higher. I think the album is one of her most varied, and it easily unites the beauty of her first two albums and the more experimental and forward-looking sounds she would explore after Never for Ever. One big change from her first two albums to Never for Ever was a more political flavour. Whether it was a reaction following an interview Bush conducted with Danny Baker in 1979 (where he sort of suggested she lacked edge), or her reacting to a decade that was ending with a lot of division, I am not too sure. Like Bush’s best albums, the track listing is perfect. The more ‘political’ songs, Army Dreamers, and Breathing, end the album, but both are different in tone. The former has a nimbler vocal, where Bush adopts an Irish accent (Bush’s mother was Irish, as a side-note). The song talks about the way young men are sent to war and lives are wasted and, whilst it is a heavy subject, there is a lightness and beauty to the song that keeps it from being too harrowing. Breathing is an epic closer where we see a perspective of a fetus who is trying to stay safe from the horrors of the outside world: a land where nuclear war is imminent and there is so much danger around. The stark and unexpected leap from The Kick Inside/Lionheart in terms of maturity and lyrical themes is noticeable. If Bush’s first two albums hinted at broadness and an eclectic musical mind, Never for Ever was the first indication of who she really was and where she wanted to go.
Many reviews in 1980 – and a few since – single out the singles as highlights, but they feel the rest of the album lacks something. Breathing was released on 14th April, 1980 and got to number-sixteen in the U.K. charts. Army Dreamers was released on 22nd September, and it reached the same position. Between those songs was the second single and album opener: the majestic and beloved Babooshka. I went deep with that song back in May as I looked ahead to its fortieth anniversary and, following its release on 27th June, the single reached number-five in the U.K. charts. In the space of three singles, Bush covered so much ground! I love Babooshka’s wonderful introduction and the breaking glass sound from the Fairlight CMI we get later on. I think the introduction of the Fairlight CMI into Bush’s world offered new possibilities and added something special. Never for Ever, to that point, was her most musically-varied, and I love the fact there were a lot of musicians involved. Alongside strings, bass, and drums, Paddy Bush (her brother) brought in rarer instruments like a balalaika, sitar, koto, mandolin and the strumento de porco to give various songs unusual scents and beautifully angular sounds. Some truly exceptional albums arrived in 1980, and there was this sort of moment where Punk was fading and artists like David Bowie and Talking Heads were offering something more experimental and richer. Kate Bush, in my view, was as boundary-pushing and bold as those artists, and Never for Ever overflows with genius.
I disagree that the three singles are the only things worth getting excited about. From the urgency and oddness of Babooshka, Delius (Song of Summer) is a different beast. Bush’s ethereal and gorgeous vocals mix with Ian Bairnson’s bass vocal perfectly. Blow Away (for Bill) is one of the weaker tracks, but it is still beautifully performed – and it is an ode to musical stars who recently departed (including Minnie Riperton and Marc Bolan). Bush remarked in interviews around the time that a lot of great albums came out in 1980 as a reaction to a lot of the loss – in terms of musicians passing - and tensions that were happening in the world. All We Ever Look For, and Egypt end the first side of Never for Ever and, as you’d expect, Bush does not stand still - and neither song shares a lot of common ground! All We Ever Look For is one of Bush’s most-underrated songs. As she explained in an interview, the song was not about her:
“One of my new songs, 'All We Ever Look For', it's not about me. It's about family relationships generally. Our parents got beaten physically. We get beaten psychologically. The last line - "All we ever look for - but we never did score".' Well, that's the way it is - you do get faced sometimes with futile situations. But the answer's not to kill yourself. You have to accept it, you have to cope with it. (Derek Jewell, 'How To Write Songs And Influence People'. Sunday Times (UK), 5 October 1980)”.
I love the second side, and you get the rush of Violin, and this wonderful segue track, Night Scented Stock, before Army Dreamers. A lot of artists put out these sub-one minute songs that act as a pause or way to bridge between two very different songs. More than a filler track, Night Scented Stock is an incredibly beautiful passage where we get wordless vocals from Bush; her phrasing and utterances are sublime and dreamy! The song is more like a mini-hymn, and one cannot help but listen and be transported! Two of the best tracks on the album occur on the second side: The Wedding List, and The Infant Kiss. Bush always had a gift for storytelling and pushing beyond the simple, and we get these two marvellous songs that not a lot of people discuss today. The Wedding List was inspired by a François Truffaut's film called The Bride Wore Black (La Mariée était en noir). It tells of a groom who is accidentally murdered on the day of his wedding by a group of five people who shoot at him from a window. The bride succeeds in tracking down each one of the five and kills them in a row, including the last one who happens to be in jail. I love the black humour of the song and, in my view, it could have been released as a single and been a chart success! The Infant Kiss was inspired by the horror movie, The Innocents, which in turn was inspired by Henry James' novel, The Turn of the Screw. The story is about a governess who believes the ghost of her predecessor's dead lover is trying to possess the bodies of the children she is looking after. Not many artists would take inspiration from such sources, but Bush proved that there was nobody like her!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Phillips
In an interview Bush conducted with NME, she was asked about The Infant Kiss:
“I: Your songs all have different identity, very specific mood, based in part on the subject matter and one can't help but wonder in what circumstances the ideas come to you. Let's just take one, the next one - "The Infant Kiss". Where and how did that idea come to you?
K: That's from a very old British movie, I think it's a Fifties movie that was called The Innocents and it was based on a book called The Turn of the Screw. I haven't seen the film for I suppose eight years now but they showed it twice I think when I was much younger and it's a very very haunting film and the fact that it's in black and white makes it even spookier, it's very eerie. The story is that a governess goes to look after two children, a young boy and a young girl who are in fact possessed by the spirits of the previous gardener and the maid - and she doesn't know this, as far as she's concerned they're just two children. She starts noticing that when she tucks the little boy in bed that instead of giving her a little peck on the cheek he give her a very big manly passionate kiss. And in the film they really didn't go into that area very strongly, it was much more the haunting, but it always fascinated me that strange distortion of the child having a very experienced hard man inside. Something that the child could never be without the experience that a much older man would have. It seemed very disturbing and in order to make it very intimate and to make people try to understand how terrible it is for her, it's sung in the first person and it's really confusing for her, she's really terrified by what's happening.
I: I do find this such a beautiful lyric: Word of caress on their lips that speak of adult love, I want to smack by I hold back; I only want to touch. You really do create this picture of a woman who wants to respond as a woman rather than as a governess or a mother. Does the distortion of relationships in general other than just this particular one, appeal to you as a subject?
K: Yes, terribly. I think it is that distortion that makes me want to write about it and there seems to be distortion in so many areas and that's what's so fascinating, because without that distortion things would probably be so simple, so easy and it's always that little thing that makes it hard for us.
In the same interview, she discussed the balance of the commercial demands that would have been on her, in addition to the more experimental mentality she had:
“I: You mentioned that so much of it is experimental and I agree with you and we'll be talking about that - but was there pressure on you to have those commercial considerations which would be the result of your previous success?
K: Well, to be quite honest that's something that I never really consider. Commerciality is such - a word that we use a lot that sometimes gets mixed up, because in many terms commerciality is really something that people like, a lot of people like. Sometimes a very unobvious thing can in fact be commercial and really the way I go for it is just if I feel I have a good enough song to build on it and to give it all I can give it, all its highlights, the best you can and then really it has its own life then. It's not so much a matter of commerciality as rather dressing the song in the correct manner - like putting a nice suit on it instead of, you know, a pair of overalls.
Bush talked about the unconventional angles of love, and the fact that a song such as The Wedding List would take many by surprise:
“I: But the one you've written about is another tale of romance, successful and failed and a very touching one about a man who is tired a bit of his wife but when she dresses up in what we might call new clothes he falls for her all over again. Now someone might say that this is a very novel way of looking at love. Do you think of yourself as a writer of love songs?
K: I don't know. I suppose I would say that I have written some love songs but I wouldn't term that as one. Really I'm very annoyed at the way that the woman is behaving in this song because it is so stupid and in fact she's just ruining the whole situation which was very lovely - and it's only because of what's going on in her brain that she does these things so - suspicion, paranoia all these naughty energies again and it's really quite sad I think.
I: Has a great effort gone into the sound of this album, not just the music but the sound?
K: Yes. I thinks sounds are so important because that is what music is - it is the sound of the music - and the way sounds mix and move together is incredible. It is again so similar to colours and to have a pure colour and pure sounds are very similar things. In many ways I think we saw a lot of the sounds a visual things - this is the way I often interpret music, I see it visually, and so in many ways you'd interpret a mountain in the picture into a very pure guitar sound or whatever. I think everyone was very aware of sounds and the animation of it and how a certain sound could imply so much more at one piece in the song”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing a copy of Never for Ever in Glasgow on 9th September, 1980
One of the most defining aspects of Never for Ever is Bush being in the producer’s role. She has assisted with Lionheart, but here she was having a much bigger say! It is clear that this freedom and responsibility was something she was keen to take on:
“I: You are the co-producer of this album with Jon Kelly. I suppose this then was your job in that regard, the direction of the sound?
K: Yes. The whole thing was so exciting for me, to actually have control of my baby for the first time. Something that I have been working for and was very nervous of too, obviously, because when you go in for the first time you really wonder if you are capable - you hope you are. Every time that we tried something and it worked it just made you feel so much braver. Of course it doesn't always work, but everyone helping and concentrating on the music, it's such a beautiful thing, it really is a wonderful experience - everyone's feelings going into the songs that you wrote perhaps in a little room somewhere in London, you know, it's all coming out on the tape”.
Hounds of Love will get a lot of love (as it should) when it turns thirty-five in September, but Never for Ever’s fortieth happens sooner. Maybe non-Kate Bush fans will not realise the significance, but I hope there is some focus on an album that remains hugely underrated and was a real evolution for Bush. I think more people should listen to the album, and it is long-overdue a reappraisal. Like several Kate Bush albums, many have just focused on the singles and assumed the rest of the material is inferior. That is not the case with Never for Ever. Bush herself might feel Never for Ever was good at the time but she was still finding herself and not at her very best. I feel Never for Ever is better than that and, having heard the album so many times through, it still affects me in different ways…
EACH time I return to it.