FEATURE:
They Want to Hunt You Down
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s Wild Man at Eleven
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EVEN though…
I am looking at 50 Words for Snow closer to its anniversary in November, I am keen to spotlight its single release. Wild Man was released on 11th October, 2011. Ahead of its eleventh anniversary, it is a good idea to go into more detail. I will mention Wild Man again when writing about 50 Words for Snow’s anniversary, but there are some interesting things to note about Bush’s incredible single. Aside from a re-release of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in 2012 and this year, I am counting Wild Man as her most recent original single (not including the A-side 10″ vinyl release of Lake Tahoe/Among Angels from 50 Words for Snow). This is the latest taste of new music we have had form her. Bush’s two singles from 2011, Deeper Understanding (from Director’s Cut) and Wild Man didn’t chart too high. Wild Man got to seventy-three in the U.K. As you would expect, there was a disparity between the single placing and the album position. 50 Words for Snow reached five in the U.K. and was the recipient of huge critical praise. In terms of commercial releases, there is nothing really on the album that stands out. Wild Man, I suspect, was released as the single because it is relatively short compared to the rest of the tracks. The album version of the song is over seven minutes so, as you can imagine, even a radio edit is a bit too long to get a lot of play.
It will not have worried Bush that the single didn’t chart high, as she has always wanted the album to be enjoyed as a whole work. It seems like it certainly was (as it reached five in the U.K. and it was a success around the world). I really like Wild Man, and it is almost a shame we did not get a live action video of Bush in the wild trying to find this unknown figure. Searching through the snow for a Yeti or animal that resembles a man, it would have made for a really great video! As it was, Finn and Patrick at Brandt Animation created a short animation for the single that was put on YouTube. Before carrying on, this is what Bush said about the remarkable Wild Man and its origins:
“Well, the first verse of the song is just quickly going through some of the terms that the Yeti is known by and one of those names is the Kangchenjunga Demon. He’s also known as Wild Man and Abominable Snowman. (...) I don’t refer to the Yeti as a man in the song. But it is meant to be an empathetic view of a creature of great mystery really. And I suppose it’s the idea really that mankind wants to grab hold of something [like the Yeti] and stick it in a cage or a box and make money out of it. And to go back to your question, I think we’re very arrogant in our separation from the animal kingdom and generally as a species we are enormously arrogant and aggressive. Look at the way we treat the planet and animals and it’s pretty terrible isn’t it? (John Doran, 'A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed'. The Quietus, 2011)”.
A lot of Wild Man’s beauty and sense of atmosphere relies on Bush’s amazing production and the composition. With some excellent percussion from Steve Gadd, there is this environment and scenery projected that really takes you into the song. Bush’s lyrics on the song are among her most intelligent and itinerant. I imagine her lying awake thinking about this maligned and hunted beast that is actually quite friendly and wants to be left alone: “They call you an animal, the Kangchenjunga Demon, Wild Man, Metoh-Kangmi/Lying in my tent, I can hear your cry echoing round the mountainside/You sound lonely/While crossing the Lhakpa-La something jumped down from the rocks/In the remote Garo Hills by Dipu Marak we found footprints in the snow”. The digital download single finds Kate Bush in typically compassionate mood. Feeling that we treat animals and anything wild with contempt and cruelty, Wild Man embraces and celebrates almost something that is mythologised. You get the sense that Bush actually believes there is a Yeti or something out there similar to her subject in Wild Man. That doesn’t surprise me. Ever since her debut album in 1978, she has had this openness to the unknown, mystical, and spiritual. I get the feeling that the song came about when looking at the news or a report about cruelty towards animals or others. Being Kate Bush, this did not manifest itself in something literal or simple! Instead, because she was writing an album around snow, she took that thought out into the woods and mountains. This hunted wild man is being warned by Bush: “They want to know you. They will hunt you down, then they will kill you/Run away, run away, run away”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
50 Words for Snow is quite a collaborative album in terms of guest vocalists. Aside from her son Bertie, she also introduces Michael Wood and Stefan Roberts, Stephen Fry, Elton John and, on Wild Man, the legendary Andy Fairweather Low. Formerly of Amen Corner, he is a great choice to lend his voice. Whether voicing the wild man or one of the protectors, he combines with Bush beautifully. The percussion has a warm roll and pitter-patter and tone that mixes superbly with the exotic and almost strange keyboard sound. Bush’s vocals are almost sensuous and husky. She has this sense of foreboding and worry, but there is also this allure coming from her voice. Definitely one of the best tracks from Bush’s tenth studio album, Wild Man turns eleven on 11th October. Wild Man received some really positive reviews. This is what NME wrote:
“As for the the chorus, it bursts forth mid-eruption; a choir of strange voices; echoing the ‘Wild Man”s own explosion out of habitation into civilization in the narrative of the song. Bush tackles this by a multiple layering of voices, creating several personas and the atmosphere of a village set adrift by the sudden intrusion. It’s a style which recalls some of her most classic work.
Musically, we’ve moved on subtly from the pared down production of ‘Director’s Cut’, and on ‘Wild Man’ a guitar riff-plays pan-Asian and ponderous, but there’s also a layering of sounds in the chorus (tinkling percussion, a bedrock of organs), which suggests her 80s heyday.
Multiple listens on, the references just keep coming; there’s ‘Scary Monsters And Super Creeps’ era Bowie and some of the ‘Tusk’ era Fleetwood Mac and her own ‘Sensual World’ and ‘The Dreaming’.
After the domestic bliss of ‘Aerial’, it’s a deep joy to have Kate roam the narrative wiles of her imagination. The result is her strongest single for decades”.
Let’s hope that 50 Words for Snow is not Kate Bush’s last studio album, as it is among her very best! Seven longer tracks built around the theme of snow (apart from Among Angels), Wild Man is right in the middle of the album and comes after the two longest songs, Lake Tahoe, and Misty. Misty is about a night of lust with a snowman. Wild Man has passion at its heart, but it is more about protection and keeping safe something being tracked and hunted in its natural environment. Even though this Yeti or wild man is fictional, Bush makes it real and makes you feel there is something out there. I guess that he is…
STILL out there now.