FEATURE:
Washing Machines and a Small Brown Jug
The Domestic and Homely: Kate Bush’s Aerial at Eighteen
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I may have touched on this…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005
when writing about Kate Bush’s Aerial before. It turns eighteen on 7th November. Her only double album, it arrived twelve years after The Red Shoes. If that album was sort of personal but had flaws in terms of the sound and consistency – it is a great album but there are a couple of filler songs -, then Aerial was a mighty return. More revitalised and refreshed, it is one of Bush’s most celebrated and finest albums. What always strikes name about Aerial is how close to home it is. That thread of domesticity and the home seeps through all the songs. It is like Kate Bush opening her house and garden. If there are few explicitly personal songs, you do get more of her than in other albums. I will highlight a few songs in particular where that is true. It is a masterful work from an artist who announced her eighth studio album when few expected her to. After twelve years with no album, to get this double gem was a real pleasure! Produced by Kate Bush and reaching three in the U.K., Aerial still sounds remarkable and so accomplished. With its first disc, A Sea of Honey, providing tracks like the single, King of the Mountain, plus real highlights such as How to Be Invisible, it is an album that stands up to repeated listens. A Sky of Honey is Bush utilising a concept. Like she did with Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave, Aerial’s (conceptual suite) pertains to something less dramatic and tense. We get the joys and varieties of a full summer’s day. That may sound boring, though when you immerse yourself in the suite and really let the music take you over, it is very powerful and beautiful!
I want to spotlight a few songs that have a domestic heart. That relate to family and the home. I think that Bertie is the most personal and pure song on Aerial. Bush’s son was a toddler when Aerial came out. It is a paen to him. I think that a lot of Aerial is Bush reflecting on the simplicity, importance and pleasure of being at home. Surrounded by loved ones and the comfort of a garden and nice home. There is a more fantastical domesticity on the album. Bertie is a lot more direct. The Kate Bush Encyclopedia has sourced part of an interview where Bush discussed a song that obviously has great weight and personal significance to her:
“He's such a big part of my life so, you know, he's a very big part of my work. It's such a great thing, being able to spend as much time with him as I can. And, you know, he won't be young for very long. And already he's starting to grow up and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out on that, that I spent as much time with his as I could.
So, the idea was that he would come first, and then the record would come next, which is also one reasons why it's taken a long time (laughs). It always takes me a long time anyway, but trying to fit that in around the edges that were left over from the time that I wanted to spend with him.
It's a wonderful thing, having such a lovely son. Really, you know with a song like that, you could never be special enough from my point of view, and I wanted to try and give it an arrangement that wasn't terribly obvious, so I went for the sort of early music... (Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 3 November 2005)”.
Maybe others will see Aerial as a less clear-cut album in terms of themes and an arc. I think this was Kate Bush reacting to past albums that were a little less open. Maybe more experimental and broad in lyrical terms. Whilst there is some of that through Aerial (π and Joanni spring to mind), even the single and lead-off track, King of the Mountain, seems to be as much about Kate Bush and this so-called reclusiveness that the media tag onto her. Less about Elvis Presley and more about her as this mythical figure who has sort of returned from the mountain and was perhaps assumed to be past or disappeared. One song that does have a familial connection is A Coral Room. In fact, there is a lyric about a little brown jug that belonged to her late mother (who died in 1992). A lot of the songs on The Red Shoes were written before Hannah Bush became ill and died. Maybe A Coral Room was an important side closer. A song that would end that first half/disc with something a bit weighty and heavier in a sense. Even so, the imagery and imagination through the song is amazing! Once more, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia collected part of an interview where Kate Bush revealed more about the song:
“There was a little brown jug actually, yeah. The song is really about the passing of time. I like the idea of coming from this big expansive, outside world of sea and cities into, again, this very small space where, er, it's talking about a memory of my mother and this little brown jug. I always remember hearing years ago this thing about a sort of Zen approach to life, where, you would hold something in your hand, knowing that, at some point, it would break, it would no longer be there. (Front Row, BBC4, 4 November 2005)”.
I feel a general mood of contentment and the security of being at home runs right through A Sky of Honey. There is a lot of home and domesticity in various forms. Whether that is admiring family of new and those lost, or simply revelling in a sense of happiness from being at home, Aerial is quite an uplifting and nuanced album. The songs might seem quite straightforward on the surface, though I feel they offer so much richness and detail. My favourite song on the album, like King of the Mountain, seems to be about someone else. I think there is a bit of Kate Bush in there. Mrs. Bartolozzi is a woman doing the housework. Cleaning the floor and the laundry. Looking out of the window at clothes blowing in the breeze from the line. Maybe drifting ingo fantasy as she watches the clothes entwine and dance in the washing machine. A quintessential line of inspiration for Kate Bush, I do picture her as this new mum attending to all the things that need to be done around the house. If A Sky of Honey is about summer and the garden and nature, A Sea of Honey seems more spring-like perhaps? Perhaps the build-up to this glorious summer’s day we experience later. Anyway, again, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia give us some interview insight where Bush talked about one of her most fascinating songs:
“Is it about a washing machine? I think it's a song about Mrs. Bartolozzi. She's this lady in the song who...does a lot of washing (laughs). It's not me, but I wouldn't have written the song if I didn't spend a lot of time doing washing. But, um, it's fictitious. I suppose, as soon as you have a child, the washing suddenly increases. And uh, what I like too is that a lot of people think it's funny. I think that's great, because I think that actually, it's one of the heaviest songs I've ever written! (laughs)
Clothes are...very interesting things, aren't they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and...what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are...
So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting. And then it was the idea of this woman, who's kind of sitting there looking at all the washing going around, and she's got this new washing machine, and the idea of these clothes, sort of tumbling around in the water, and then the water becomes the sea and the clothes...and the sea...and the washing machine and the kitchen... I just thought it was an interesting idea to play with.
What I wanted to get was the sense of this journey, where you're sitting in front of this washing machine, and then almost as if in a daydream, you're suddenly standing in the sea. (Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 1 November 2005)
Well, I do do a lot of washing [chuckles]. I'm sure I would never have written the song if I didn't... You know, just this woman, in her house, with her washing. And then the idea of taking the water in the washing machine with all the clothes, and the water then becoming the sea... and I also think there's something very interesting about clothes. They're kind of people without the people in them, if you know what I mean? [Kate laughs] They all have our scent, and pieces of us on them, somehow. (Front Row, BBC4, 4 November 2005)”.
It is only natural that family should inspire a lot of what goes into Aerial. Life has changed substantially for Kate Bush since 1993. King of the Mountain was written around 1998, so she had ideas and intentions long before the album was released. Whereas some songs that are not about family or home, there are quite a few where I can see family, memories and daily duties infused into the lyrics. It is one of the most warming and memorable aspects of Aerial. Throw in some superb and stunning compositions. The always-fantastic production from Kate Bush, together with that extraordinary voice of hers. Sounding wonderful and full of emotions. On 7th November, it will be eighteen years since Bush released Aerial. The final album to be solely released through EMI – she set up her label, Fish People, and released her albums through that after -, I can imagine the combination of excitement, intrigue and a sense of tension from the label. Wondering when this much-needed album was going to arrive! What we did get was worth the wait. We are almost in the same situation as were in back in 2005. Another twelve-year wait between albums. No worries. We have heard from Kate Bush a lot over the past year or two, so we can be thankful of that! One of her most adored albums, I would say that new fans and old alike should listen. Maybe you will get the elements from the songs though, to me, family and her heart being at home is a dominant aspect. It is one which makes the album not only personal to her but relatable to the listeners. How things have changed once more since 2005! Older, wiser and in a slightly different frame of mind, I hope that Bush thinks about Aerial on 7th November and smiles. She gifted the world…
SOMETHING very special indeed.