FEATURE:
The Fine Purple
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993
Kate Bush and Prince
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I am doing a run of Prince features…
IN THIS PHOTO: Prince in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith
through March and into April. On 21st April, it will be five years since the world lost Prince. Although that date is quite a way off, I though that a feature or two a week would just about get close to exploring the man’s genius and why he is so influential. Rather than focus on Prince solely, I want to mention him alongside Kate Bush. I think it is one of the great missed opportunities that Kate Bush and Prince did not work together more. There are these collaborations that you hear and wonder what could have been if more songs had come from those artists. I am going to get to the song from Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes where Prince features. I think the two are sort of kindred in a way, in terms of their talent and musical diversity. Bush did joke, when she was interviewed by Matt Everitt in 2016 (she was reflecting on the loss of Prince) how, by the time she had got an album together, Prince would have been on world tours, had a film or two out and an album! Maybe the two were different in terms of the speed in which they worked - though there was a clear respect and affection between them that would have been fascinating to hear exploited and explored more. I will come to the song, Why Should I Love You?, where one can hear Prince’s touch and direction in spades.
Just before then, I want to bring in a feature from Far Out Magazine from last December. They compared the differences in productivity and working practices – and how Bush felt when Prince died:
“Of course, their approach to music was another huge difference between the two. Prince was tirelessly prolific, relentlessly slaving away in the studio or, if not, he was out on tour with the band. Bush, however, famously works at her own pace and is more than happy to take her time making sure her creations are perfect before letting out into the universe. Due to the contrasting working methods, when Kate Bush and Prince did end up working together in 1991, the chances of the collaboration ending in success felt relatively slim. The result of their time together was the track ‘Why Should I Love You’ which, depending on who you speak to, is either the definition of mercurial artistry or a song that you try your hardest to forget in order to retain your love for Prince and Kate Bush. To say the material splits the audience is an understatement.
On reflection, Bush certainly stepped more into the world of Prince more than he entered hers. Prince had been an ardent admirer of the work of Kate Bush for years but the two had never crossed paths before 1990, a time when he was in London Town to takeover Wembley Arena and two of music’s truest artists would finally meet backstage. After blowing the roof off the arena, Bush and Prince bonded over a mutual respect for one another’s music and the meeting went so well that Bush asked him to collaborate almost instantaneously. Putting her pitch forward, all she requested was for Prince to provide a few backing vocals to a song she had already created. Bush had, at the time, recently recorded the track in full at Abbey Road Studios and hoped Prince could add that special touch to take it up a notch.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Following his tragic death in 2016, Bush was left devastated and painfully wrote: “He was the most incredibly talented artist. A man in complete control of his work from writer and musician to producer and director. He was such an inspiration. Playful and mind-blowingly gifted. He was the most inventive and extraordinary live act I’ve seen. The world has lost someone truly magical. Goodnight dear Prince.”
She later opened up further to BBC 6 Music’s Matt Everitt, saying: “He was really playful and really sweet. What a talented man, what an artist. I think it’s a terrible loss that he should go at such a young age, it’s incredibly sad. He was so prolific, he used to make me laugh because whilst I was working on an album, he would have done 2 world tours, a couple of albums and a film”.
The story of Why Should I Love You? is an interesting one. The demo that Bush produced is very different to the one that we hear on The Red Shoes! There are some who are dissenting when it comes to their opinion and whether Prince spoiled the track or added too much. Others look at how, after receiving a lot of layers from Prince when the track was sent to him, Bush has to mould the song that sounded more like her. I think that there was clear trust and friendship between the two. The fact two such huge artists collaborated on a song is amazing!
It is an interesting story regarding how Kate Bush came to meet and work with Prince. VICE explored the story in a feature from 2016 (not long after Prince died):
“Bush was in a strange place when she met the Purple One. Her close friend and guitarist Alan Murphy had just died of AIDS-related pneumonia, she was going through the motions of a relationship breakdown, and was teetering on the cusp of a break from music, which, when it came, would actually last for 12 years. Prince, on the other hand, was going through one of his many spiritual rebirths. He had just emerged from the murky shadows of The Black Album, a creation he withdrew a week after release because he was convinced it was an evil, omnipotent force. He vaulted out of that hole, into a period of making music that was upbeat, pop-tinged and pumped up. In essence, the two artists’ headspaces could not really have been in more opposite places; Prince, artistically baptised and ready to change the world, and Kate Bush, surrounded by a fog of melancholia and disarray.
Prince had been a huge Kate Bush admirer for years. In emails exchanged in 1995 between Prince’s then-engineer Michael Koppelman and Bush’s then-engineer Del Palmer, Koppelman says that Prince described her as his “favourite woman”. But despite both artists being active since the 70s, it wasn’t until 1990 that they actually met in real life. Bush attended a Prince gig at Wembley during his monumental Nude Tour, asked to meet him backstage, and the rest is God-like genius collaboration history.
Perhaps it was the sheer distance between their headspaces at the time that led to what happened. Bush asked Prince to contribute a few background vocals to a song called “Why Should I Love You”, which she had just recorded in full at Abbey Road Studios. But when Prince received the track, he ignored the intructions and dismantled the entire thing like a crazed mechanic taking apart old cars on his backyard. He wanted to inject himself into the very heart of it, weaving his sound amongst her sound, giving it a new soul entirely. As Koppelman explains, “We essentially created a new song on a new piece of tape and then flew all of Kate's tracks back on top of it… Prince stacked a bunch of keys, guitars, bass, etc, on it, and then went to sing background vocals.”
Even today, the track is divisive, with some heralding it as a slice of profound art, and others filling fan forums with long rants that essentially boil down to: “It’s tripe.” But two decades later, we can look upon the final version with something resembling objectivity. It’s an endlessly fascinating creation that continues to sparkle with strangeness, forever flitting between blissfulness and an almost painful sadness upon every listen. Even the lyrics reveal an inner turmoil: “Have you ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing? Mmm, do you think he had a beautiful smile?” Kate Bush’s soaring voice wavers, as if she’s asking Prince to convince her”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
As this insightful article outlines, there was a member of the Kate Bush camp who was a big fan of Why Should I Love You? and the songs/vocals that appear:
“Del Palmer, Kate’s former partner and longtime engineer and bass player, spoke about the track to Future Music in 1993:
“This one actually was recorded in collaboration with Prince – Kate went to see him at a gig and was flattered to be asked to meet him after the show, when they discussed a collaboration. Unable to physically get together in the same room, they swapped multi-track tapes, with a slave reel returning from Prince’s Paisley Park studio covered in vocals, guitar solos and keyboards. The problem then was to put the track back together into something resembling its original form while retaining the best of what Prince had done. He hadn’t added one of the vocal parts which would have been particularly good for him, so it basically took two years to put it back together. What’s left is his lead guitar, some digital synths and some chorus vocals. Then Lenny Henry came in to do a vocal on the end – he’s really got a great voice and ought to be doing a serious record of his own“.
IN THIS PHOTO: Prince in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith
Like when Prince worked with Madonna (on the track, Love Song, from her 1989 album, Like a Prayer), I think there was more life in the Bush-Prince collaboration sphere. Bush did ‘return the favour’ and provided vocals for Prince later, but it would have been awesome hearing Prince and Bush on a more sensual or less fulsome track. I feel he could have been perfect on a 50 Words for Snow track. I sort of wonder whether an approach was made or, as the songs on that record are not as spirited and funky as some we hear on The Red Shoes, whether Bush felt that Prince would not be a great fit. I want to end with another snippet from the feature I have just sourced from. Maybe it should not be a surprise that the Prince camp were blown away getting to work with Kate Bush. Such is her reputation and quality, even artists like Prince are honoured! Prince’s engineer Michael Koppelman recalled his experience:
“It’s funny because Prince knew I was a huge KB fan. He was too, but not like me. The first time I asked him if he liked Kate Bush he said, she’s my favorite woman. I also made him a tape of all the KB b-sides, which fucking rule. When The Sensual World came out he had someone go get it and we listened to it in the studio. He didn’t dig it that much, but I knew you can’t always tell right away with a Kate album. TSW grew on me, but it is still not her best effort. This Woman’s Work is a masterpiece, though, and makes the whole album worth it. But I digress. Prince is weird, and a couple stories in this post prove it. I may be tooting my own horn here, but Prince has a weird ego. I think *part* of his motivation to work with Kate was the fact that I worshipped her, and he knew it would impress me that he could call her on the phone and work on her music and shit.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
ANYWAY, what led up to the phone conversation above: one day Prince’s assistant, Therese, told me as we were talking on the phone that Kate Bush had called. Therese also knew I was a big Kate fan. Then, in the studio that day, Prince said, guess who I talked to today. Me, being stupid and unable to keep my mouth shut, said, Kate Bush? Prince got a little miffed, and said How did you know that? And I said Therese told me, and he said, hmm, I should dock here for that. At that point I knew I fucked up and tried to say, no, she just knew I’m a big fan. As a side note, I told Therese that Prince was a little pissed that she had told me that, and she apologized to him. Therese is a really cool person. So, Prince tells me that he and Kate are going to work on a tune together. He also told me that while they were talking he told her that his engineer would rather work with her than him. (I thought, wow, Prince and Kate Bush talking about me!)”.
I think that Why Should I Love You? sounds great as a demo, but Prince’s input and aura does inject and sprinkle it with his particular magic. Some of the song’s lyrics are really interesting: “The fine purple/The purest gold/The red of the Sacred Heart/The grey of a ghost/The "L" of the lips are open/To the "O" of the Host/The "V" of the velvet/Of all of the people in the world/Why should I love you?/There's just something 'bout you/There's just something 'bout you/Of all the people in the world/Why should I love you?”. Maybe it is not the best cut from The Red Shoes, but I just love the fact that The Purple One, Prince, and Kate Bush shared an audio space! It brings me back to what could have come after 1993 (or 1996, when you consider Bush worked with Prince again then) and, if he were alive now, whether the two would be joining forces. On a brilliant (and underrated) album from Kate Bush, Prince added…
A touch of purple, red and gold.