FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty
Track Eight: All the Love
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ONE of my favourite Kate Bush tracks…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Clive Arrowsmith
All the Love is a masterpiece that contains some of her best production work and lyrics. I am going through all ten tracks of The Dreaming as it turns forty in September. Each track on the album is so different and has its own merits. I love songs like All the Love, as it seems to be more personal and revealing than other songs. Many people accuse Bush of not being revealing or personal in her songs, but I think that she was when it was required. Even though All the Love is not directly about her, you can feel a lot of her feelings, emotions and needs come to the surface. I am going to highlight a few lyrics in a minute. A song that could have been a single and been successful around the world, All the Love is a jewel in her musical crown. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia provides an extract where Bush discussed the background and themes of one of her greatest tracks:
“Although we are often surrounded by people and friends, we are all ultimately alone, and I feel sure everyone feels lonely at some time in their life. I wanted to write about feeling alone, and how having to hide emotions away or being too scared to show love can lead to being lonely as well. There are just some times when you can't cope and you just don't feel you can talk to anyone. I go and find a bathroom, a toilet or an empty room just to sit and let it out and try to put it all together in my mind. Then I go back and face it all again.
I think it's sad how we forget to tell people we love that we do love them. Often we think about these things when it's too late or when an extreme situation forces us to show those little things we're normally too shy or too lazy to reveal. One of the ideas for the song sparked when I came home from the studio late one night. I was using an answering machine to take the day's messages and it had been going wrong a lot, gradually growing worse with time. It would speed people's voices up beyond recognition, and I just used to hope they would ring back again one day at normal speed.
This particular night, I started to play back the tape, and the machine had neatly edited half a dozen messages together to leave "Goodbye", "See you!", "Cheers", "See you soon" .. It was a strange thing to sit and listen to your friends ringing up apparently just to say goodbye. I had several cassettes of peoples' messages all ending with authentic farewells, and by copying them onto 1/4'' tape and re-arranging the order, we managed to synchronize the 'callers' with the last verse of the song.
There are still quite a few of my friends who have not heard the album or who have not recognised themselves and are still wondering how they managed to appear in the album credits when they didn't even set foot into the studio. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)”.
One of Kate Bush’s albums that has gained a lot of respect but still is not as devoured and dissected as the much-discussed and adored Hounds of Love (1985), her fourth studio album is ripe and overflowing with genius. All the Love, like all the songs on The Dreaming, contains some truly beautiful lyrics! Featuring Richard Thornton as a choirboy, there is an etherealness and sense of the heavenly with All the Love. Definitely some skin to the spiritual. I love the real sense of meaning and power in Bush’s vocals. She embodies the song and makes every word stick! There are a few sections of the track that are even more powerful because of the lyrics. The first few lines, in fact, are up there with the best Bush has ever written: “The first time I died/Was in the arms of good friends of mine/They kiss me with tears/They hadn't been near me for years”. Whether there is a nod to her professional development and people thinking she was odd/too experimental, or whether there is a feeling of wanting to be alone and not have to rely on other people, these lines always get to me: “The next time I dedicate/My life's work to the friends I make/I give them what they want to hear/They think I'm up to something weird/And up rears the head of fear in me/So now when they ring/I get my machine to let them in/ "We needed you/To love me too/We wait for your move". All the Love is a spectacular song, and, to me, it is perfectly placed before the final two tracks – the stunning Houdini and the epic finale, Get Out of My House. Another blissful showcase of Kate Bush’s incredible production talents and her peerless songwriting, All the Love is one of my favourite songs from her. It is one that needs to be heard by more people and played on the radio more than it is (which is practically never!). I hold all the love…
FOR this sublime song.