FEATURE:
To Hear Your Footsteps Saying…
Kate Bush’s December Will Be Magic Again and Home for Christmas
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I wrote about…
the Kate Bush Christmas single, December Will Be Magic Again, a while back. I think her two Christmas tracks are very underrated. Home for Christmas is also a very good song. I know it may be a bit early to talk about Christmas, but these are songs that are so warming and beautiful! There is more information about December Will Be Magic Again, so I will work my way up to that. Home for Christmas originally appeared in on The Comic Strip Presents film, Wild Turkey. That was screened on 24th December, 1992. I love the music Bush recorded between 1991 and 1993. Maybe not the most celebrated period of her career, she covered Elton John’s Rocket Man in 1991. She released The Red Shoes in 1993. This Christmas track in the middle is a delight that really evokes the spirit of the season! In the song, Bush projects this sweetness and child-like hope: “You know that I'll be waiting/To hear your footsteps saying/That you'll be coming home for Christmas/Please say you won't forget me/That every moment's empty/But only 'til you're coming home for Christmas”. There is this longing and sense of desire that runs through quite a few Christmas songs. Rather than wanting anything material or commercial, it is the hope of bring with someone. Like Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas Is You – though Bush is less impassioned and radiant; more sensual and smoky -, Bush has her eyes and desires on someone special. To be with them, in spite of everything.
Whereas Carey wanted to eschew presents just to be with one person, Bush is battling against the weather and distance. Home for Christmas was released as the B-side to the U.K. single, of Moments of Pleasure; also as the B-side to the U.S. single, Rubberband Girl. The vocal on Home for Christmas reminds me of the turn she would produce on The Man I Love in 1994. That was for a tribute album to George & Ira Gershwin, The Glory of Gershwin. In that song, Bush provides such a soulful, sexy and shivering vocal that is among her very best. Maybe Home for Christmas’ vocal inspired her a couple of years later. Although the lyrics are simple, they are picturesque and evocative: “If I only had wings/Then I would fly to you/Through all the snowy weather/We'd be together/No one makes me feel the way you do”. I wonder whether Bush has thought about a Christmas songs in the years since 1992. The song was included in the 2018 album, Section from The Other Sides, and 2019’s The Other Sides. That is a treasure trove of B-sides and rarities. Even her less-exposed and known songs have something special and original about them. I don’t think I have heard Home for Christmas played on the radio. That is a shame, as it is a really beautiful song that is worthy of some airplay this time of year!
The better-known Bush Christmas song, December Will Be Magic Again, was released as a standalone single on 17th November, 1980. I missed marking the forty-second anniversary. It is being played on radio now and, as we head through December, I guess it will be played even more – given how its title sort of suggests that this is the month it is suited for. Bush originally recorded the song in 1979 and premiered it during the Christmas Special in December 1979. December Will Be Magic Again was issued as the follow-up to Army Dreamers (a single from 1980’s Never for Ever). I wanted to hold off doing a feature about December Will Be Magic Again until after its anniversary, just so it was closer to Christmas and December itself. It is one of the great ‘lost’ singles that is low on critics’ list of her best releases. Even though one would (or would expect to) hear it in November and December, it is a beautiful track that should not be written off as a mere novelty. During the period where she recorded Never for Ever (September 1979 – May 1980), we got this one-off track that was not on that album. I am not sure whether there was demand from EMI for her to release her first Christmas single, or whether Bush herself felt that it was time. She has always had this child-like fascination with the wonder and magic of life. On 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, even though it is not a Christmas album, one can feel her immersed in winter and the highs and lows of snow. I almost expected to hear a Christmas song on that album!
December Will Be Magic Again reached thirteen in Ireland and twenty-nine in the U.K. That is surprisingly low. Army Dreamers got to number sixteen in the U.K., whilst the follow-up single from a studio album, Sat in Your Lap (from 1982’s The Dreaming) came out in June 1981, and it got to number eleven. This was, maybe, a period where people were waiting for a new Kate Bush album and she wasn’t as in the spotlight as much as she was prior to Never for Ever and The Dreaming. That said, December Will Be Magic Again came out only a couple of months after Never for Ever. Whatever the reason for a slightly low chart performance, it is a song that I really love! So many people have posted on social media the past week or two about how they enjoy hearing December Will Be Magic Again. I love how there was her Christmas Special, where Bush got to perform a selection of songs. In 1979 – when the show aired – she had come off the back of The Tour of Life. Ahead of Never for Ever, she still had enough material under her belt. With her first two albums, 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart, together with some other material, it was a brilliant (if curiously un-Christmas-like) T.V. special. Last December, this article came out that discussed Bush’s 1979 Special. December Will Be Magic Again was the only Christmas-related song on the bill:
“But then there’s the Kate Bush Christmas Special, “titled simply Kate on-screen,” writes Christine Pallon. The program, which “aired on the BBC on December 28th, 1979,” followed on the heels of the Tour of Life, the whirlwind debut concert series that promised, but did not deliver, so many more. “The Christmas special’s choreography borrows heavily from that tour. But where she sang live on the Tour of Life, she lip-syncs to pre-recorded tracks here and incorporates pre-recorded video segments. As a result, the Christmas special plays out more like a crazy, longform music video than a traditional stage show.”
Does Kate Bush sing Christmas songs? Does she sit on Santa’s lap? Does she mime, arms akimbo, before the yule log?
Does she lounge on a piano next to a Golden Age crooner?
C’mon…
Okay, she sings one Christmas song, “December Will Be Magic Again,” an original released as a UK single that year. The song pays earnest homage to traditional Christmas figures like Bing Crosby, Saint Nick, and Oscar Wilde before Kate turns into some kind of strange Santa-like being who drops down on “the white city” in a parachute to “cover the lovers.”
Otherwise, the Christmas Special draws on Bush’s first three albums. In addition to her entourage of dancers and backup lip-syncers, she also invites a special guest—Peter Gabriel, of course (who might just as well be called the male Kate Bush)—to sing his “Here Comes the Flood” and duet with her on the extremely downbeat “Another Day.”
Christmas spirit? Who needs it? This is Kate, answering the age-old question, Pallon writes, “what would happen if the BBC gave a Christmas special to an incredibly ambitious 21-year-old art rocker who also smokes a ton of weed?” See the full tracklist, with timestamps, just below. Enjoy, and Happy Kate Bush Christmas Special Day!
Kate Bush – Christmas Special Tracklist:
(Intro) 00:00
Violin 00:29
(Gymnopédie No.1 – composed by Erik Satie) 03:44
Symphony In Blue 04:44
Them Heavy People 08:20
(Intro for Peter Gabriel) 12:52
Here Comes The Flood (Peter Gabriel) 13:22
Ran Tan Waltz 17:02
December Will Be Magic Again 19:43
The Wedding List 23:35
Another Day (with Peter Gabriel) 28:05
Egypt 31:41
The Man With The Child In His Eyes 36:21
Don’t Push Your Foot On The Heartbreak 39:24”.
I love both of Kate Bush’s Christmas songs. It is the time of year where we are hearing a lot of Christmas tracks. I have heard December Will Be Magic Again played a few times. As we are now in December, it is the time to play the song loud! Both Home for Christmas and December Will Be Magic Again are beautiful tracks that convey and relate to that special time of year in different ways. The former is more sensual, lustful and deeper-sounding, whereas December Will Be Magic Again is more child-like and wide-eyed. With these two dreamy and underrated Christmas tracks out in the world, I hope that they get plenty of airtime! Whilst minor songs in the Kate Bush cannon, they are both too good…
TO be ignored.