FEATURE:
I Drift with Dunes
Kate Bush’s Egypt
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I want to focus on a Kate Bush song…
that does not get a lot of attention. I don’t think I went into a lot of depth about Egypt when I marked Never for Ever’s fortieth anniversary last year. It is, perhaps, not one of the best songs from that album - though I feel it warrants a lot more consideration and focus. I want to bring in an article that goes into depth regarding Egypt. It is an interesting song for sure, though how successful lyrically and musically it is has divided people. I really love Bush’s vocal on the song and the sort of atmosphere that she summons. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia gives us some background and information regarding one of her lesser-known songs.
“Song written by Kate Bush. She described the song as 'an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country'. The song was premiered during the Christmas Special in 1979 and released on the album Never For Ever in 1980.
“'Egypt' is an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)
The song is very much about someone who has not gone there thinking about Egypt, going: "Oh, Egypt! It's so romantic... the pyramids!" Then in the breaks, there's meant to be the reality of Egypt, the conflict. It's meant to be how blindly we see some things - "Oh, what a beautiful world", you know, when there's shit and sewers all around you. (Kris Needs, Fire in the Bush. Zigzag (UK), 1980)”.
Appearing at the end of Never for Ever’s first side – just after the superior All We Ever Look For -, maybe Egypt is a bit of a side-ender that is not in the same class as Babooshka, Army Dreamers, and Breathing. At 4:10, Egypt is one of the longest songs in Never for Ever, and it is often listed alongside Violin as one of the weaker efforts on the album. I really love Egypt and, whilst it was strange seeing the song on Kate Bush’s Christmas special – the song got its premier there in 1979 -, I think the best way to enjoy the song is on the album - and after a run of four terrific songs on Never for Ever’s opening side. I want to bring in the excellent Dreams of Orgonon, who have gone deep with Egypt. There are some compelling insights:
“Having just completed her triumphant European tour, Kate Bush was entering her imperial phase. Instead of working with producer Andrew Powell and the band of her first two albums again, she established control of her work by appointing herself co-producer with Jon Kelly, and finally using her own band for a whole LP. The result was a more authored album than her first two, one with the mark of its creator in its every facet. Never for Ever is a weird step forward: for one thing, it’s much more in line with the synthesizer music that was beginning to surface in British pop. It’s the album where she discovers her long-term ally, the Fairlight, a classic synth which would direct much of her music.
Never for Ever’s interest in soundscapes is greater than that of its predecessors, sometimes letting songwriting take a backseat to more spatial ideas of music and composition. The technology of music takes greater import in her work as she starts composing with synths. Never for Ever is the point where Bush’s songs start sounding like their concepts. Rather than only singing about the magical forces of the universe, she’s now able to implement its sounds into her music. Now in addition to her idiosyncratic vocals and unorthodox compositions, she has the technology to match her songs too.
Speaking of “strange creatures,” let’s talk about “Egypt” (the song more than the country, although we’ll be talking about the latter soon). Its treats the country as an enigma: it is seductress, serpent and sigil. “She’s got me with that feline guise/got me in those desert eyes,” the chorus says, “Oh, I’m in love with Egypt.” Bush’s Egypt is that of Ancient One of the Pharaohs, necropolises and the Sphinx, which Bush refers to in the best fucking lyric ever with “my pussy queen knows all my secrets.” The perception of Egypt is occidental: Bush is captivated by the myth of Egypt, the country that’s found in history books rather than the one that actually exists on the Sinai Peninsula. She’s dealing with iconography more than actual lived history once again. Falling into the pervasive Western trope of depicting Eastern landscapes minus the people (The Lion King, anyone?), she sings about an unpopulated landscape, a playground for colonizers rather than a place where people live. In his classic text Orientalism, Edward Said describes the East as “a theatrical stage affixed to Europe,” where the interests of Western imperial powers are acted out. The ever-theatrical Kate Bush operates similarly.
This is no surprise given that “Egypt” was the first new song written for Never for Ever (“Violin” was recycled from the Phoenix years). It’s oddly shaped and difficult to parse — it sounds outright unfinished, with its sparse lyric and chorus. More than likely it was written in between Lionheart and the Tour of Life, as it made its first appearance on that tour, where it was introduced as visual spectacle instead of an album track. As a result the song is more something to be seen than heard, as it was originally written for the stage. In concert, Bush strove up to the audience draped in full Cleopatra-meets-Captain-Marvel, draped in the red, blue, and gold livery, heralded by pipes and Preston Heyman’s powerful drumming. The subsequent performance is tense and distant — its frantic arrangement keeps it from getting dull, and it’s more driving and catchy than its record counterpart. The tour’s punchy and often acoustic arrangements give “Egypt” more weight than it would later have, and the song would be worse off without it.
Yet therein lies the problem of “Egypt”: in striving to dispel myths of Egypt, it imitates them. Musically it’s host to a number of caricatures found in Western imitations of “Oriental” music: the live versions of the song have this zig-zaggy four-note riff which is akin to plenty of Hollywood scores for epic movies set in Southern Asia or Northern Africa (note this was shortly before Raiders of the Lost Ark was released). It’s not just a crass idea of what European musicians think Egyptian music sounds like; it’s a tacky-sounding riff as well. Paddy Bush’s strumento de porco doesn’t help much with its ringing scrape of a sound either (“Oriental” music sounds like things been scraped on other things, didn’t you know?)”.
I have argued how many of Kate Bush’s deeper cuts have not been explored and played on the radio. Even if Egypt is not in many peoples top-twenty, I think it is a bit of an underrated gem. I think Bush’s vocal is sublime; Preston Heyman’s percussion gives the song rumble and mystique, whilst Paddy Bush adds plenty of atmosphere with the strumento de porco (which he deployed on Kashka from Baghdad from 1978’s Lionheart) and backing vocals. I feel what makes it is the addition of the Prophet 5 from Mike Moran. The Prophet 5 came out in January 1978. It was the last synthesizer made by the Sequential Circuits Corporation (SCI). Sounds were produced through voltage-controlled oscillators rather than digital samples. The collection of sounds and vocals is quite heady and, though the intentions behind the track are not necessarily realised, it was Bush pushing her ambition and stepping into territory few other artists were exploring at the time! Even Bush’s less successful songs were far more interesting and original than what was happening around her. I don’t think I have ever heard Egypt played on the radio. It is long overdue an outing! If you have not heard the song before then check it out and, if you can, play Never for Ever in its entirety and…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing Never For Ever at London's Virgin Megastore/PHOTO CREDIT: Chas Sime/Getty Images
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