FEATURE:
Worthy of More International Acclaim
Kate Bush’s The Red Shoes at Twenty-Nine
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I have been…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart
doing a run of anniversary features, as there are six Kate Bush albums celebrating birthdays next month (including four studio albums). The Red Shoes is one I have already featured, but I want to finish with this one ahead of its twenty-ninth anniversary on 2nd November. Here, I want to examine the chart positions. Most Kate Bush albums did well in multiple countries. She has always been at her most successful in the U.K. market, though the European nations have responded well, as have countries like Australia. There was a bit of a split when it came to The Red Shoes. I want to argue why The Red Shoes was deserving of greater acclaim and commercial success around the world. Before that, there is an interview from Vox from November 1993. Bush was asked about The Red Shoes, but she was also asked about her career and life in general:
“You don't normally release material unless you're totally satisfied...
"That's right. That doesn't necessarilly mean'perfect', but it's to the best of my ability. I've tried to say what needed to be said through the songs, the right structure, the shape, the sounds, the vocal performance--that is, the best I could do at the time."
When you've worked hard for something, you obviously don't want somebody interfering with it. In your cuttings, you've been described as the shyest megalomaniac on the planet, so how do yout work out the balance between that and being an incredibly quiet, private person
"I think it's quite true that most people are extreme contradictions. It's like this paradox that exists, and I think that on a lot of levels, I'm quiet and shy, and a quiet soul.
I like simple things in my life...I like gardening and things like that, but when it comes to my work, I am a creative megalomaniac again. I'm not after money or power but the creative power. I just love playing with ideas and watching them come together, or what you learn from something not coming together.
I'm fascinated by the whole creative process--I think you could probably say I was obsessed I'm not as bad as I used to be, I'm a little more balanced now."
What's calmed you down?
"Just life, I think... Life gets to you, doesn't it? I also think there's a part of me that's got fed up with working. I've worked so much that I'm starting to feel... I felt I needed to rebalance, which I think I did a bit, just to get a little bit more emphasis on me and my life."
Where did you get the idea of 'Rubberband Girl"?
"Well, it's playing with the idea of how putting up resistance... um... doesn't do any good, really. The whole thing is to sort of go with the flow."
What about the sexual content--'He can be a woman at heart, and not only women bleed?
"It's not really sexual, it's more to do with the whole idea of opening people up - not sexually, just revealing themselves. It's taking a man who is on the outside, very macho, and you open him up and he has this beautiful feminine heart."
Have you found many of those?
"I think I've seen a lot of them, yeah. I think there are a lot of men who are fantastically sensitive and gentle, and I think they are really scared to show it."
A father image often comes out in your work. Is that because you're particularly close to your father or does it merely represent somebody or something you respect?
"I think they're very archetypal images: the parents, the mother and the father... it's immediately symbolic of so many things. I'm very lucky to have had an extremely positive, loving and encouraging relationship with both my parents. And you know I feel very grateful... I feel very honoured, actually."
Who is the Douglas Fairbanks character in 'Moments Of Pleasure '?
'Ah... In a lot of ways that song, er.. well it's going back to that thing of paying homage to people who aren't with us any more. I was very lucky to get to meet Michael (Powell, the film-maker who directed the original The Red Shoes) in New York before he died, and he and his wife were extreme;y kind. I'd had few conversations with him and I'd been dying to meet him. As we came out of the lift, he was standing outside with his walking stick and he was pretending to be someone like Douglas Fairbanks. He was completely adorable and just the most beautiful spirit, and it was a very profound experience for me. It had quite an inspirational effect on a couple of the songs.
"There's a song called 'The Red Shoes'. It's not really to do with his film but rather the story from which he took his film. You have these red shoes that just want to dance and don't want to stop, and the story that I'm aware of is that there's this girl who goes to sleep in the fairy story and they can't work out why she's so tired. Every morning, she's more pale and tired, so they follow her one night and what's happening is these shoes... she's putting these shoes on at night before she goes to bed and they whisk her off to dance with the fairies."
Are you still as involved in dancing as you were?
"I've had a lot of periods off, unfortunately, because my music is so demanding and I went through a phase where I just had no desire to dance. The last couple of years, it really came back, and it's been very interesting working in an older body. Your brain seems better at dealing with certain kinds of information. And I think there's something about trying too hard which takes the dynamics out of everything.
I think I've become less conscious through dancing, because it's very confrontational in a positive way - standing in front of a mirror and looking at something that basically looks like a piece of you, and you've got to do something with it."
Does that mean looking like a piece of shit?
"It does at nine in the morning. When I started dancing again, a couple of years ago, I hadn't done anything for about three or four years and although I had the desire to dance again, I really didn't know if I had the energy, or whether I could be bothered to go through all that and my body being so sore. But I was aware that, although it was difficult for me, I always felt better after the classes than I did before. I'd get up grumpy, then after I'd feel really good."
Is it true you once planned to be a psychologist or psychiatrist?
"Yes I did. I really wanted to be a psychiatrist, I really did, but I knew I'd reached the point where I would never be able to do all the training. You have to train as a doctor, I think, and be good at chemistry, physics, etc. I was never any good at maths, I just knew I'd never make it."
Are there any parallels with what you do now?
"I've never really thought of it, but I suppose I really like the idea of helping people and that I was really fasdnated by people's minds and the way they work--I still am. I don't think I've ever got into people's minds, but I've always been interested in how people think”.
Singles like Rubberband Girl and Moments of Pleasure are compelling reasons to listen to The Red Shoes. Deeper cuts such as Eat the Music and Top of the City are fantastic. Maybe there are one or two slightly weaker songs, but The Red Shoes is a terrific album that has never got the respect it deserves. Whilst it did get to number two in the U.K. and an impressive twenty-eight in the U.S., the European and international chart positions were quite low. In terms of international acclaim, 1989’s The Sensual World made the top twenty in multiple countries. That album also, I feel, should have done better. Whereas top ten positions are not everything, Bush did struggle to earn those high places after Hounds of Love. The Sensual World got a lot of critical acclaim, so I feel like its chart positions did not do too much damage. Regarded now as one of Bush’s best albums, there is agreement that The Sensual World is incredible. The Red Shoes has not fared as well. I look at the chart positions and wonder why there were these divisions. A hit in the U.K., it reached fourteen in France, thirteen in Australia, and sixteen in Sweden. Even if The Red Shoes did get a lot of top forty attention, I wonder if there was a tapering off of the commercial success and adulation outside of the U.K. Of course, Bush has an enormous amount of fans around the world…but I do wonder if there was a bit of a dip in terms of that commercial appreciation. The Red Shoes did get some critical acclaim, but the mixed reviews might have put some people off. Even though 2005’s Aerial appeared outside the top ten in a lot of countries, it did score better than The Red Shoes. It seemed like fans were glad to have Kate Bush back!
The Red Shoes’ recording was a period where Bush was taking on a lot and experience stress and personal loss. It shows in a couple of songs and some elements of the sound/production, but I think The Red Shoes is a vastly underrated album that should have fared better. It was released on 2nd November, 1993. Ahead of its twenty-ninth anniversary, I wanted to re-investigate it. I keep saying there should be Special Edition versions of Bush’s studio albums. The Kick Inside (her debut) is forty-five in February. The Red Shoes is thirty next year. I would like to hear more from the recording sessions. I feel there is a relative lack of exposure when it comes to the songs. Rubberband Girl and Moments of Pleasure get played, but even songs like And So Is Love and Lily are slightly ignored! Doing very well in the U.K., I have tried to get to the bottom of why the album – plus The Sensual World – struggled a bit in the rest of the world. Of course, top forty album positions are great, but Bush’s work deserves much more! There have not really been that many podcasts about The Red Shoes, and many are content to let the album lie. Always at/near the bottom when it comes to rankings of Bush’s albums, I hope people listen to it ahead of the anniversary on 2nd November. In my view, The Red Shoes is…
A wonderful album.