FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s The Sensual World at Thirty-Three
Returning to the Magnificent Deeper Understanding
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IN a series of features…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
I am going to look inside The Sensual World. In future pieces, I will take a look at songs like This Woman’s Work. When Bush rerecorded and reworked tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes (1993) for Director’s Cut in 2011, Deeper Understanding was one of those included. It was actually the only single from the album. I am not sure why the song was not selected as a single in 1989. I forgot to mention that these are anniversary features ahead of The Sensual World turning thirty-three on 17th October. I have already marked the three September anniversaries. Never for Ever, The Dreaming and Hounds of Love all marked their birthdays. The Sensual World is one of the most important, must-hear and acclaimed of Bush’s albums. I may cover old ground here, but I wanted to look back at the amazing side two opener from The Sensual World. It is a fabulous track and, as I say regularly, apologies if I repeat myself when it comes to sourcing information. One of the defining songs of Bush’s sixth studio album, let’s not forget that this was the album that followed Hounds of Love. In terms of expectation from fans and critics, I can only imagine what Bush was thinking when she started recording in September 1987. Having had a slight break from recording and promoting, she was afforded adequate time to make an album that was to her satisfaction.
Of course, we most also commend Bush as a producer. The third of her studio albums that she solo produced (1982’s The Dreaming was the first), the compositions and performances are simply stunning. Boasting one of her finest compositions and most remarkable set of lyrics, Deeper Understanding was Kate Bush in full-on psychic mode. In the same way David Bowie predicted the Internet would dominate our lives as early as 1999, Bush was right on the money a decade earlier when it came to the grip computers would have on us! With added vocals from the Trio Bulgarka (a Bulgarian Folk vocal ensemble, Bush worked with them for The Sensual World and The Red Shoes), there is something almost heavenly about Deeper Understanding. Thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia for collating interviews where Bush discussed The Sensual World’s diamond that is Deeper Understanding. I have chosen a couple of particular interest:
“This is about people... well, about the modern situation, where more and more people are having less contact with human beings. We spend all day with machines; all night with machines. You know, all day, you're on the phone, all night you're watching telly. Press a button, this happens. You can get your shopping from the Ceefax! It's like this long chain of machines that actually stop you going out into the world. It's like more and more humans are becoming isolated and contained in their homes. And this is the idea of someone who spends all their time with their computer and, like a lot of people, they spend an obsessive amount of time with their computer. People really build up heavy relationships with their computers!
And this person sees an ad in a magazine for a new program: a special program that's for lonely people, lost people. So this buff sends off for it, gets it, puts it in their computer and then like , it turns into this big voice that's saying to them, "Look, I know that you're not very happy, and I can offer you love: I'm her to love you. I love you!" And it's the idea of a divine energy coming through the least expected thing. For me, when I think of computers, it's such a cold contact and yet, at the same time, I really believe that computers could be a tremendous way for us to look at ourselves in a very spiritual way because I think computers could teach us more about ourselves than we've been able to look at, so far. I think there's a large part of us that is like a computer. I think in some ways, there's a lot of natural processes that are like programs... do you know what I mean? And I think that, more and more, the more we get into computers and science like that, the more we're going to open up our spirituality. And it was the idea of this that this... the last place you would expect to find love, you know, real love, is from a computer and, you know, this is almost like the voice of angels speaking to this person, saying they've come to save them: "Look, we're here, we love you, we're here to love you!" And it's just too much, really, because this is just a mere human being and they're being sucked into the machine and they have to be rescued from it. And all they want is that, because this is "real" contact. (Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1 interview, 14 October 1989)”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins
It's like today, a lot of people relate to machines, not to human beings, like they hear telephone [Makes ringing noise] and think "Is that for me?" I guess it playing with the idea of how people get more and more isolated from humans and spend a lot more time with machines. I suppose America's a really good example where there are some people who never go out, they watch television all day, they're surrounded by machines, they shop through television, they speak to people on the phone; it's just distant contact. The idea of the computer buffs who end up going through divorce cases because their wives can't cope with the attention the computer gets. They have an obsessive effect on people, and this track's about one of those types.
I was playing with the juxtaposition of high tech and spirituality. I suppose one inspiration was a program I saw last year about a scientist called Stephen Hawking who for years had been studying the universe, and his concepts are like the closest we've ever come to understanding the answer. But unfortunately he has a wasting-away disease, and the only way he can talk is through voice process. It was one of the most moving things I've ever heard. He was so close to the answers to everything, and yet his body was going on him - in some ways it was the closest I'd ever come to hearing God speak! The things he was saying were so spiritual, it was like he'd gone straight through science and come out the other end. It was like he'd gone beyond words, and I do think that there is this possibility with computers that we really could learn about ourselves on levels that could take us into much deeper areas. With my music, I like to combine both the old and the new, the high tech and the compassion from the human element, the combination of synths and acoustic instruments.(Will Johnson, 'A Slowly Blooming English Rose'. Pulse, December 1989)”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
This is a song that I would have loved to have seen Kate Bush perform live. This can be said of a few tracks on The Sensual World. I am not such a massive fan of the 2011 remake and its video. Nothing against Bush’s instinct and direction, but the song itself is powerful and impressive because of its prescience and incredible sound. Not only does a 2011 song about computers consuming out lives seem out of date; the new version with addition elements and voices (including the late great Terry Jones as ‘Professor Need’) makes the song too crowded and lacking in the same atmosphere and soul of the 1989 version. It makes me wonder why Bush felt the need to reversion the song. How could she possibly be disappointed with the original?! In my view, it features some of her greatest production work. That idea that human relationships were being replaced by machinery is such a visionary and perspective thought from Bush in 1989! Having that thought alone is amazing. Managing to put it into a song as incredible as Deeper Understanding is another thing! Whilst The Sensual World, This Woman’s Work and Love and Anger were released as the singles from The Sensual World, I wonder why Deeper Understanding was not considered. I think it could have been a chart success (the 2011 version only reached eighty-seven in the U.K.). One of the greatest things that Kate Bush ever put her name to, Deeper Understanding is…
A magnificent and future-predicting song.