FEATURE:
Life for the Room
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in London in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush’s Music and How Dance Inspired Her Sense of Expression and Curiosity
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BY next summer…
I hope to have recorded and produced something that celebrates forty-five years of The Kick Inside’s existence. Kate Bush’s debut album was released in February 1978, though it was recorded in the summer in 1977. I have been spending a lot of time with the album lately. I will move on very soon. Whilst researching and reading (for the nth time!) Graeme Thomson’s must-read biography of Bush, Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush, new things jumped to life and got inside my head. Whilst I am not going to quote from the book directly, most of the observations and thoughts here are from that book. One listens to albums such as 1982’s The Dreaming or 1985’s Hounds of Love and experiences these immersive songs and moments that are so expressive and otherworldly. One might not be aware of the importance of dance and movement that Bush acquired at a young age. Listen to The Kick Inside, and there are songs from a young woman who is free and unabashed. She talks about lust and sexual desire in a frank, honest and beautiful way. She was raised in a liberal household where she was encouraged to be free-spirited. Her brother, John (Jay) wrote poetry that was explicit and sensual. It showed that she did not have to be limited and could explore her desires and fantasies in a very personal, adult and original way.
Compared to a lot of what was in mainstream music in 1978, songs from The Kick Inside explored sex and physical exploration in a different and refreshingly memorable way. Bush was encouraged to poeticise her life. Because of that, her wordplay, imagery and sense of expression is vivacious, imaginative and unhindered by convention. Folk music that was abundant in her house portrayed images of spirts, ghosts, strange characters and the extraordinary. It was not escapism. It was the opposite of that. One can hear this influence through The Kick Inside. When it comes to the captivating early videos and how physical and expressive her lyrics are, dance classes played a big role. Although Bush was invested and interested in dance as a young child, one can look back to 1973. There was interest in her in 1973 (and before). In that year, she recorded with Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour in the summer. Ten-twenty songs were recorded then. It was not until 1975 when Bush reconnected with Gilmour, where she recorded professional at AIR Studios, London with producer Andrew Powell (who produced The Kick Inside). It was took until July 1976 when Bush was signed to EMI Records (at just sixteen years old; she was put on retainer for two years by Bob Mercer. They give her an advance of £3,000 to develop and widen her talent). I am going off on a tangent a bit. Between 1973-1975 there was this period of limbo, where Bush was spotted and eager but she was a long way from being ready to record a full album.
In the time, she practised dance at East Wickham Farm. Whilst quite modest and fairly basic, it was Bush understanding the importance of dance and movement. In terms of what she was dancing to, I think The Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby was one. It was not exactly intense, theatrical or especially upbeat! The lightbulb moment came when Bush saw a production of Lindsay Kemp’s Flowers. She saw it at the Collegiate Theatre, Bloomsbury in 1975. This was a show that opened Bush’s mind and spirit. Here is some information regarding the production:
“Inspiration: Kemp’s extremely free interpretation of Genet’s novel “Our Lady of the Flowers”, with himself playing the central role of Divine, a transvestite transcending gender in a world of criminals, whores and angels: prisons and sexual fantasies, Genet’s verbal violence and poetry transformed into music and gesture, silence and stillness. A dreamlike journey to destruction, through seduction, shock, laughter, poetry and total emotion”.
With nothing like this on her school curriculum at the time (as you’d imagine!), the experience influenced her decision to leave school. In 1976, at the cost of 50 pence per session, she attended Lindsay Kemp’s mime class. Bush also took dance classes at the Dance Center, Covent Garden. The late Kemp recalls seeing Bush at his classes and observing a shy-but-eager student. Soon enough, she started to come out of herself and became more confident – a long way from the coy student who would stand at the back of the room and needed to be brought out of a state of meekness.
Another instrumental moment came when Bush started working alongside American dance instructor, Robin Kovac. She helped Bush deflate her inhibitions. There was real growth in terms of Bush’s creative output from 1973. Her songs were less melancholic and had stronger melodic hooks. It is no coincidence that dance entering Bush’s world resulted in huge creativity. The more she explored and practiced, the better her work became; the more distinct and original work she produced. Songs written at 44 Wickham Road included Hammer Horror, Oh, to Be in Love and Them Heavy People. Not that Bush’s songs were ordinary or lacked expression before she became more engaged with dance. I don’t think the world would have witnessed songs as moving and physical as Them Heavy People were it not for dance and how Bush became far less constricted. Robin Kovac’s teachings and instruction is interesting. Martha Graham’s ‘contraction’ technique was adapted by Kovac. Among the techniques taught was a movement that was akin to being stabbed in the stomach and then rounding the back (similar, in a sense, to a contraction). The choreography for Bush’s Wuthering Heights (her debut single released January 1978) was rehearsed quickly at a flat in Archway Road for a modest £30. Even though, when asked in an interview, Bush credited Lindsay Kemp as being important in terms of Wuthering Heights’ choreography, it was Kovac who should have got credit (Bush wrote her a letter of apology later and mentioned her in some big interviews).
This new world of dance and experimentation linked into the music and created this fascinated sonic world full of life and movement. Bush was not keen on overly-confessional and emotive female songwriters who were stuck on the piano (Carole King was one artist Bush named who fell into this mould). If EMI wanted Bush to be more like Joni Mitchell (her obvious femininity and striking looks led them to think this way), Bush had other plans! Perhaps more inspired by artists like David Bowie, Roxy Music and Captain Beefheart, her music and style was much more dynamic and physical; far less about traditional love songs and static heartbreak. Graeme Thomson noted, in his biography of Bush, how two intense periods of dance (1978-1977 and 1983-1984) coincide with a flourish and explosion of songwriting creativity. The second spell was when Bush reconnected with dance prior to recording Hounds of Love. I think that the likes of Lindsay Kemp and Robin Kovac were crucial when it came to Bush evolving as a songwriter and performer. Her live experience with the KT Bush Band (as the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia explains: “When Kate Bush started recording her debut album The Kick Inside, she actually recorded versions of 'Them Heavy People' and 'James And The Cold Gun' at De Wolfe Studios in London with the KT Bush Band, but in the end, the band members were not used for the album recordings. Also, an attempt to release a single of the KT Bush Band's version of Johnny Winter's 'Shame Shame Shame', recorded at Graphic Sound studios in Catford was halted either by Kate's family or EMI Records. Although many of the band's gigs were filmed, photographed and recorded, none of these have surfaced” ) also helped when it came to her sense of expression and movement in her songwriting - in addition to when she was in the studio. Bush dedicated The Kick Inside’s opening track, Moving (where she talks about the lily in her soul being crushed as she blossomed and bloomed), to Lindsay Kemp. The love of dance and mime Bush adopted very early in her career took her music and career…
TO new heights.