FEATURE:
Take My Shoes Off, And Throw Them in the Lake
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love Title Track at Thirty-Seven
_________
ALTHOUGH not a big anniversary…
there is one coming up that I needed to mark. The Hounds of Love album has been getting love since it was released in 1985. One of the best albums ever, there is no doubting its place in music history. Its amazing title track saw Kate Bush directing her first video. I know she assisted and would say she’d co-directed videos before then (including Sat in Your Lap from The Dreaming, in addition to the album’s title track), but this was her vision. Released on 24th February, 1986, I wanted to mark thirty-seven years of a masterful song that does not get the same attention and play as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). That said, Hounds of Love is still cherished and played. That said, when selecting Bush’s fifty best songs, MOJO placed Hounds of Love at one. This is what they said:
“No matter how refined the circumstances of its creation – built at leisure in Bush’s new 48-track studio – or how newfangled its production – still tangible in the hi-tech stabs and pads of Fairlight, and the crispness of Jonathan Williams’ cello – Hounds Of Love is red in tooth and claw, its breathless, atavistic fear of capture mixed with almost supernatural rapture. Love is thundering through the psychosexual woods, hunting down somebody terrified of what it means to surrender to another person. The song opens with a quote from British horror film Night Of The Demon but that’s the only moment it feels like theatre. From then on, Hounds Of Love maintains a dizzying emotional velocity, the relentless double drumming of Charlie Morgan and Stuart Elliott stamping down on the accelerator. Bush’s voice might dip and soften, but those drums are merciless, while the strident backing vocals, like a hunting horn call, goad her on if introspection threatens to slow her down. It never lets up, every line heightening the pitch, closing the distance between song and listener. It ends with a suddenness that makes it seem like she’s hit the ground and you’ve hit it with her, breathlessly waiting for an answer to the question: “Do you know what I really need?” The uncertainty, however, is not reflected in the confidence – the perfect, dazzling completeness – of the song’s execution. On Hounds Of Love, Kate Bush is going at full pelt, chasing the horizon, running her vision to ground. Not really the hunted, but the hunter all along”.
The idea of love being like you’re chased by a pack of hounds, it talks about lust, fear, timidity and bravery. It is a track that can be interpreted a few different ways. The third single released from the album, Hounds of Love is one of Bush’s best songs. I love how, for Bush’s first sol music video directing, she went for something quite ambitious and filmic. Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, it is shot beautifully and looks wonderful! I love the colour palette and the storyline. It is definitely one of her greatest videos. Subsequent videos she directed have their own style, but they are all fantastic and ones you keep coming back to.
Before continuing on, it is worth hearing what Bush herself had to say about Hounds of Love. An iconic song without any doubt, you are pulled into this incredibly powerful world. I always immerse myself in the song. Because of Bush’s incredible production, you feel every word and note to its fullest. I always thought hat Hounds of Love deserved to chart higher than eighteen (in the U.K.) as a single. It is such a strong and memorable track, it warrants a place in the top ten. Thanks to the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia for sourcing interviews where Bush discussed the meaning behind the title track to the majestic Hounds of Love:
“The ideas for 'Hounds Of Love', the title track, are very much to do with love itself and people being afraid of it, the idea of wanting to run away from love, not to let love catch them, and trap them, in case the hounds might want to tear them to pieces and it's very much using the imagery of love as something coming to get you and you've got to run away from it or you won't survive. (Conversation Disc Series, ABCD012, 1985)
When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)
In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?
Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.
But why not "three steps"?
It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)”.
On 24th February, it will be thirty-seven years since Hounds of Love came out as a single. Even though I am not a big fan of a lot of the Kate Bush covers out there, The Futureheads’ 2005 cover did get into the top ten - and no doubt introduced a lot of people to the song. The lyrics are fascinating throughout. There is this hesitation and fear. Bush actually admits that she has always been a coward. “When I was a child: Running in the night/Afraid of what might be”. Looking back at childhood fears, but also relating them to now. The fact that there is something she is afraid of. A sense she is still running or not willing to confront something. Of course, the hounds in the song seem to be more emotions and not anything physical. Bush did put two hounds, her dogs Bonnie and Clyde, on the Hounds of Love album cover. There is that duality. Hounds she embraces and gets comfort from, and the chasing pack who are ripping out her heart. There are all sorts of obstacles and vivid scenes that provoke the imagination. “Take my shoes off/And throw them in the lake/And I'll be/Two steps on the water” are lines that are so powerful and clever. Bush sees a fox that was caught by dogs. With its heart beating fast, she confesses to being afraid of running away. Again, here is something that seems physical and this wild and scary scene. Maybe just a metaphor for courage or her younger self being chased or defeated. This need to confront fears and the need to run away. Just embracing love. Bush brought the song to the stage for 2014’s Before the Dawn residency. A truly remarkable and important song in Kate Bush’ catalogue, I think that it perfectly showcases her talents as a producer, singer, songwriter and director. A complete and magnificent musical moment, Hounds of Love is most certainly…
ONE of her very best.