INTERVIEW:
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985
Kate Bush and Me: Maggie Boccella
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IN such a fascinating, deep…
PHOTO CREDIT: Maggie Boccella
and remarkable interview, writer, journalist, and editor Maggie Boccella discusses her love of Kate Bush’s music. Based out of Pennsylvania, U.S.A., it is interesting getting the perspective from someone who lives in a nation that has a different relationship with Kate Bush than us in the U.K. Go and follow Boccella on Instagram and Twitter. Her work is amazing! I ask her about how Bush has impacted her as a woman and feminist, what she feels about the recent controversy concerning the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame omitting women when it comes to their inductees, Bush largely being associated (especially in America) with one song, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), and whether the media need to broaden their scope, what new material from her might sound like were we lucky enough to receive any, and which album of Bush’s Boccella has a special place in her heart for. Clearly someone who has a deep passion for and special relationship with Kate Bush’s music, it has been a pleasure to find out what this icon’s work means to Maggie Boccella. She has taught me quite a lot, given me new perspective and understanding regarding a few subjects and concerns I had, and also opened my minds to aspects of Kate Bush’s remarkable career and legacy I had not considered. Sit down and have a read of this interview from…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the German T.V. show Rock Pop on 13th September, 1980 performing Babooshka
A true Kate Bush superfan.
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Hi Maggie. To start, tell me when Kate Bush first came into your life. Can you recall the moment or song that opened your eyes to her music?
Admittedly, the first time I came in contact with Kate’s music, it was almost a fluke. I was a senior in high school studying Wuthering Heights in AP (Advanced Placement ) English, and when I admitted to my then-stepmother that I was really enjoying the book (morbid taste in classic lit, I know), she showed me the music video for Kate’s eponymous song, specifically the red dress version that’s become so iconic. I was so captivated (and admittedly, confused) that I showed it to my teacher, and it became a bit of a running joke for the rest of the unit.
But it wasn’t until I moved to London to study abroad in the spring of 2019 that I really took a full deep dive into her work, inspired by my new surroundings and the fact that she showed up in some capacity practically everywhere — record shops, conversations, even my Shakespeare professor being in love with her work. I happened to be on a New Wave kick at the time too (though I’d argue that Kate doesn't necessarily fit the genre the way some people think she does), and the obsession seemed to hit me all at once, starting with Hounds of Love and then spiraling out from there.
As someone who is young and did not experience most of her albums the first time around, how did you approach tackling her catalogue? How did it compare to everything else you were listening to at the time?
Any time I find a new artist, particularly someone like Kate with such a large discography, I tend to take advantage of the blessing that is Spotify and work my way back to front, oldest work to newest, album by album. That’s the approach I took with Kate: once I’d heard her tentpole songs and knew I wanted more — it’s the approach that allows me to engage with B-sides and songs that might get blown off as filler for an album rather than just the massive stuff, and I credit that as the reason why songs like Violin and Get Out of My House are some of my favorites of hers.
“Bush’s lack of success in America (at least comparably to her success in Europe) is likely another major factor at play here; most people here are not familiar with her work beyond ‘Stranger Things’…”
Like I said, at the time I was listening to what I can only describe as a metric f*ck ton of New Wave, Punk, and British artists from the ‘80s — full immersion, right? Adam Ant, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Duran Duran, you name it, it was either on my playlists or in the ever-increasing pile of vinyl records I was collecting. So Kate wasn’t too far out of that ballpark, nor was she too far away from a lot of the contemporary female singers I was listening to at the time as well. (I would argue she laid the groundwork for a lot of them.) I was raised on loads of David Bowie and Lady Gaga, so both Kate’s sound and her aesthetic seemed like they fit in perfectly with what I knew and loved, which is perhaps why I grew to love her work so much, among other reasons. She was a natural addition to the catalogue.
There has been a lot of recent controversy around the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the lack of female inductees. Courtney Love Cobain took to Twitter to voice her disgust – including the ignorance when it comes to Kate Bush’s value and legacy. Why do you feel the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has ignored Bush until now?
There’s been a systematic ignorance and oppression of women in music essentially since the business became commercialised the way it is now — we all know Elvis “borrowed” his biggest hits from Black singers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, etc. etc. The Hall’s lack of female inductees in general can largely be credited to that, and to the fact that what the Hall of Fame considered “Rock” for a very long period of time was an incredibly specific genre of music, defined by hair Metal bands like Def Leppard and Poison and established by men like Jim Morrison and Syd Barrett in the 1960s. It’s only relatively recently (especially since the Hall itself was only founded in 1986) that they’ve begun to broaden the scope of what they consider to be impactful music, and therefore the artists that make those kinds of music. (See: Whitney Houston, Eminen, and Dolly Parton, all inducted in the last three years.)
Bush’s lack of success in America (at least comparably to her success in Europe) is likely another major factor at play here; most people here are not familiar with her work beyond Stranger Things (more on that later), and as the foundation is largely concerned with the kind of music/musicians that have made a significant impact on American culture (because we, naturally, see ourselves as the pinnacle of Western culture, vain as we are), Bush thereby goes ignored. This is especially true when you factor in the fact that Hall inductees are (at least in part, and at least made out to be) chosen by public vote — if no one knows her name when someone like, say, Cyndi Lauper is on the list, what reason do they have to vote for her?
I’d say that, largely, the Rock Hall is a popularity contest more than it means anything for the cultural impact of an artist. Chic, a band I would argue is even more important to the history of music as we understand it than Bush (we wouldn’t have Let’s Dance without Nile Rodgers!), has been nominated a whopping eleven times to Bush’s four, and have never made it in. Female artists and artists of color will always be ignored for the T. Rex-es and Bon Jovis of the world, much as I love them.
“…so I’d say she’s found a better hold with contemporary American listeners much more than she did in her “prime,” so to speak”
What is America’s relationship with Kate Bush now? It was only after Hounds of Love came out in 1985 that she was being noticed/successful there. She has struggled to get a foothold or much recognition. Why do you think this is? Have things changed now that we are in 2023?
As far as I understand, when Bush was most active, charting in America was significantly more difficult than it was in the U.K. and Europe, for reasons beyond my understanding that have to do with a lot of math that I purposefully avoided when I got a comms degree. We are, pardon my French, a f*cking huge country, and getting a foothold’s tough even now, with the advent of TikTok and streaming making it easier to find an audience. Her work was and is experimental, for a female artist or an artist in general, and the way she fits into a space that isn’t quite Pop, isn’t quite New Wave, isn’t quite Folk makes her unique, and sometimes that uniqueness can hurt your ability to make a mark when it comes to radio.
In 2023, I think the musical landscape’s changed significantly since her debut in the late 1970s; kids can reach out to find whatever music fits their soul best, so I’d say she’s found a better hold with contemporary American listeners much more than she did in her “prime,” so to speak. I remember seeing a big trend on TikTok of people dancing to Wuthering Heights, specifically those on “witchtok,” which embraces the kind of experimental sound Kate is known for, alongside other artists like Stevie Nicks, and it brought me so much joy.
I find it infuriating that, when one mentions the name ‘Kate Bush’ people only say the one song: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). For someone so popular, only knowing one of her songs seems very poor and inexcusable! Does the media and radio stations need to do more to go deeper, thus avoiding such narrow accusation?
I’m a little biased, as I keep a SiriusXM subscription in my car, meaning I have more access to Kate Bush in the wild because of the kinds of programming on those shows. I hear her probably once a week on Walmart trips or going out to the mall, so it’s hard for me to judge the state of radio as it exists in the moment. But Top 40 is Top 40, and there’s only so much a D.J. can do unless they’re on a specialized content show like the ones on Sirius. (And the fact that she made it onto a lot of Top 40 stations last summer with the premiere of Stranger Things season four is insane, considering the song’s almost forty years old.) Really, it’s a generational thing, combined with what we discussed about her not hitting as big in America as some of her contemporaries. People have access to her catalogue through streaming, but if their parents, friends, co-workers aren’t talking about her, there’s no reason to dig.
I’d argue that people also know Wuthering Heights as much as they know Running Up That Hill, especially if they studied the novel the way I did, but it still feels like a massive credit to her legacy to me that so many more people are familiar with Running Up That Hill than they were just a year ago. The inclusion of that song in Stranger Things introduced her work to so many people, which, for a song released twenty, thirty years before most of the show’s audience was born, feels utterly massive to me. Not a single person I knew was familiar with her prior to that season four needle-drop, and now, I see her work being hailed by people even younger than me as something massively important, particularly in queer spaces.
Really, people knowing Running Up That Hill is a win I’ll take. If a little girl hears that song in Stranger Things and it changes her life the way Hounds of Love did for me, that’s one more person on this train. One more world changed for the better.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: John Stoddart
Kate Bush has changed Pop culture in so many ways. As a young woman living in America, how has she impacted you or inspired you as a writer and journalist, or as a feminist?
There’s something about her work that makes me feel like I can accomplish anything, as basic as that sounds. I feel like she ought to be lauded as a feminist icon more than she should, considering the power she was able to wield over her own career in a way not many women in her time were — or even female artists now, for that matter. She never compromised her own, singular vision for the sake of anyone or anything, and it shows in a body of work that goes beyond simply Pop, both lyrically and from a production standpoint. There’s a kind of power in letting work like that influence you as an artist, both overtly and entirely subconsciously. I’ve written whole pieces about how much Kate’s works mean to me and to pop culture, but the things I’ve learned from her, the strength her work has imbued in me, fits in everywhere else where she’s not named, peeking in in the way I phrase things or the kinds of metaphors I use.
“To run up that hill, to dance in the rain, to create in whatever way my mind will allow”
For me, she’s a large part of the web of influences that make me the woman I am, as writer and a feminist and a human being in general, alongside the hundreds of other women who dared to strike out as artists the way she did. I often find myself returning to a lyric from Cloudbusting that gave me comfort when I originally discovered her, in a time when the future was terrifying and nothing made sense: “I just know that something good is gonna happen / I don't know when / But just saying it could even make it happen”. To me, Kate is the sound of hopefulness, the knowledge that the future is huge and intimidating, but also mine for the taking, and the only way to take it is to do. To run up that hill, to dance in the rain, to create in whatever way my mind will allow.
My favourite Kate Bush album is The Kick Inside. What is your favourite of hers and why?
It’s a cheesy answer, but it has to be Hounds of Love. I remember listening to the title track of that album for the first time and feeling like I’d been punched in the chest emotionally. The themes of that album, especially when you consider the entire B-side suite, hit deeper for me as a young woman, an artist, a feminist more than any of her other work. I’m partial to The Red Shoes too, and Aerial as well, but nothing will compare to the unique sound of Hounds of Love — so very ‘80s, fitting into the kind of production that I love from that era, but also outlasting anything that might make it dated, particularly thematically, with her use of themes that I’m sure fans of artists like Hozier, with his mythical lyrics and general European folkiness, would appreciate.
I have a feeling we may get new music from her soon. What direction do you think her music might change, and what sort of themes do you feel she might tackle?
There’s something unique about older women in music, the perspective of years and years of experience dealing with things far more complex than any male artist ever has. While I’ll happily take anything I can get from her, because I know whatever she’s going to offer is going to maintain the special kind of experimental sound and oeuvre she’s known for, I’d love to see songs from that perspective, about getting older and the world changing faster than you can keep up with. Because even at twenty-five, that’s a feeling I’m starting to understand, but that no one seems to want to talk about. Everyone’s afraid of women once they turn thirty.
While I can’t really speak to what direction I think the work will turn in if we get any, because she’s so notoriously private that there’s little to no detail about her current life (as it should be — good for her!), I’m interested to see what production techniques she’ll employ. She’s always been on the cutting edge of things, ever since 1979, and while I don’t work in music enough to really articulate the kinds of things I love about her work musically, I know that if we do get new music, it’s gonna change my life the same way getting new Bowie music in 2013 did after a lifetime of growing up on Let’s Dance.
“We’re brilliant, complex creatures, and her music is the only music that’s ever been able to fully express that for me”
Bush turns sixty-five in July. She is without doubt one of the most important artists ever. What does she personally mean to you?
She’s an artist who opened me up to a world of possibility I was never even aware of. I discovered her in a time that was incredibly tumultuous for me emotionally, and her treatment of womanhood both in her lyrics and performance, as well as her general outlook as an artist, are unique from every other female artist I’ve ever encountered, and really changed my perception of artistry and being a woman in today’s climate. Her femininity is her strength, and she is not beyond embracing that and saying that a woman can be feminine, but also strange and powerful and all kinds of complex at the same time. She’s the godmother of all the “weird girl” artists I grew up on, opening up doors for women in production as a headstrong, take no sh*t woman who also happens to be soft-spoken, like someone’s lovely aunt or neighbor next door, proving that women aren’t just one mythical pillar of a thing. We’re brilliant, complex creatures, and her music is the only music that’s ever been able to fully express that for me.
To finish, you can select any Kate Bush song (one available on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple) and I will play it here. What shall we go with?
Rubberband Girl, from 1993’s The Red Shoes. An underrated bop, imo.