FEATURE:
Never for Ever, Always in My Heart…
Why I Keep Coming Back to Kate Bush’s Sublime 1980 Album
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AS there is still a lot of concentration…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Phillips
on Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love, because Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is a chart-topper, I wanted to move away from that album and look back to 1980’s Never for Ever. This is an album I have talked about generally; I have also looked at all the songs on their own. I have asked people on Twitter which albums of hers they feel is underrated. Certainly, Lionheart (1978) makes that list. I think that a hugely impressive album that never really gets a lot of depth and discussion is Never for Ever. Many people can identity its three biggest songs: Babooshka, Army Dreamers and Breathing. It is amazing to think that, only two years after Bush released two studio albums – her debut, The Kick Inside, and Lionheart – there was a sense of wondering whether she would return. A certain impatience and fickleness meant that, then (and now to an extent) artists really did get sidelined if they were not putting albums out regularly. Never for Ever was Bush's second foray into production (her first was for the On Stage E.P. the previous year). Her most personal album, she was producing alongside Jon Kelly and got to have more say and input. I think you can really hear the diversity and broadening sounds on her third album. After a hectic touring schedule with the previous year’s The Tour of Life, Bush’s first album of the 1980s was an artist intent on adopting more influence over her music.
As such, I think Never for Ever is one of her deepest and most rewarding albums. It is the beauty and warmth of some songs, coupled with such exceptional production work and compositional ambition on others that makes me really love Never for Ever. Definitely in my five favourite Bush studio albums, this is me making another pitch to people. I am going to end with more about why Never for Ever is such a treat. Before that, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia collated interviews and press where Bush discussed Never for Ever. I have chosen a couple that are especially interesting and insightful:
“Now, after all this waiting it is here. It's strange when I think back to the first album. I thought it would never feel as new or as special again. This one has proved me wrong. It's been the most exciting. Its name is Never For Ever, and I've called it this because I've tried to make it reflective of all that happens to you and me. Life, love, hate, we are all transient. All things pass, neither good [n]or evil lasts. So we must tell our hearts that it is "never for ever", and be happy that it's like that!
The album cover has been beautifully created by Nick Price (you may remember that he designed the front of the Tour programme). On the cover of Never For Ever Nick takes us on an intricate journey of our emotions: inside gets outside, as we flood people and things with our desires and problems. These black and white thoughts, these bats and doves, freeze-framed in flight, swoop into the album and out of your hi-fis. Then it's for you to bring them to life. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)
Each song has a very different personality, and so much of the production was allowing the songs to speak with their own voices - not for them to be used purely as objects to decorate with "buttons and bows". Choosing sounds is so like trying to be psychic, seeing into the future, looking in the "crystal ball of arrangements", "scattering a little bit of stardust", to quote the immortal words of the Troggs. Every time a musical vision comes true, it's like having my feet tickled. When it works, it helps me to feel a bit braver. Of course, it doesn't always work, but experiments and ideas in a studio are never wasted; they will always find a place sometime.
I never really felt like a producer, I just felt closer to my loves - felt good, free, although a little raw, and sometimes paranoia would pop up. But when working with emotion, which is what music is, really, it can be so unpredictable - the human element, that fire. But all my friends, the Jons, and now you will make all the pieces of the Never For Ever jigsaw slot together, and It will be born and It will begin Breathing. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, September 1980)”.
An album that was hugely popular – Never for Ever was released in September 1980 -, Bush went on a record shop signing tour and, when she was at Oxford Street, crowds lined down the street! It reached number one in the U.K. and remained there for one week. Never for Ever was Bush's first to reach the top position on the U.K. album chart - also making her the first female British solo artist to achieve that status. Bush said in interviews how it was the first album to the point where she could sit back and appreciate it. She also was at the start of a progressive run of albums where, with each, Bush was building her sound. The reviews for the album have been a mixed of mixed and positive. From the iconic Babooshka opening the album to the beautiful tracks of Delius (Song of Summer) and Blow (Away for Bill), with her voice so entrancing; the beautiful and short segue of Night Scented Stock, to the more political closing tracks of Army Dreamers and Breathing, it is such an accomplished and broad album. It keeps that more light vocal register – except for Breathing -, but there are more shades and layers to it. The songwriting is more detailed, in respect of its characters and poetry. It is such a wonderful album I keep coming back to because it soothes me, but also makes me think. At eleven tracks, Never for Ever does not outstay its welcome. In fact, you wonder if there was a twelfth track planned that didn’t make it. I put the album on and feel better. As a load of new young fans are discovering Hounds of Love because of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) charting high, I hope that Never for Ever reaches…
A new generation.