FEATURE:
Deeper Understanding Through Moments of Pleasure
Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Twelve
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IT is not often I get to…
write about a Kate Bush anniversary in May. She normally releases albums in the autumn and winter months, so to mark a rare spring release is great. Her ninth studio album, Director’s Cut, was released on 16th May, 2011. Comprised of reworked versions of songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes, three of the songs on the album were re-recorded completely. All the lead vocals on the album and some of the backing vocals have been entirely re-recorded; some of the songs transposed to a lower key to accommodate Bush's matured voice. Additionally, the drum tracks were reconceived and re-recorded. It is a great album that was a first for Bush. She had not reconstructed and reworked her older songs before. Reaching number two in the U.K., I wanted to look ahead to the twelfth anniversary of Director’s Cut – and there may be one or two other features about it in the week or so. There are no interview transcripts that I could find, so I wanted to bring in a couple of features/reviews that praise the incredible and unexpected release from Kate Bush. I think that, after 2005’s double album, Aerial, maybe there would be a new album from her a year ore two later. After twelve years, Aerial was a huge relief for those wondering if Bush was still recording! Maybe there were nerves that this was it after we got into 2011. Not only did Bush provide an album in May. In November, she released her current studio album, 50 Words for Snow!
I want to bring in this DIG! feature from 2021. They note how we get this snapshot about how far Bush had come as an artist. You get moments of pleasure from these new versions. Depths to tracks that might not have been there originally on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Also (ands forgive the pun!), one gets a deeper understanding of an artist who reworked songs many might not have heard. I also think that Director’s Cut compelled people to check out The Sensual World and The Red Shoes:
“With hindsight, the move looks like a warm-up for Bush’s next album proper, 50 Words For Snow, which followed Director’s Cut’s in November. Revamping her old material also gave Bush the opportunity to right some creative wrongs from her past. Since originally releasing them, she’d grown dissatisfied with the production of both The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.
“I just kind of felt like there were songs on those two albums that were quite interesting but that they could really benefit from having new life breathed into them,” she told Dimitri Ehrlich for Interview magazine. “There was generally a bit of an edgy sound to it, which was mainly due to the digital equipment that we were using, which was state-of-the-art at the time – and I think everyone felt pressured to be working that way. But I still remain a huge fan of [analogue]. There were elements of the production that I felt were either a little bit dated or a bit cluttered. So, what I wanted to do was empty them out and let the songs breathe more.”
Three of the songs (This Woman’s Work, Moments Of Pleasure, Rubberband Girl) were re-recorded completely for Director’s Cut, while the drums on all of the tracks were replaced by studio ace Steve Gadd (Aretha Franklin, Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra, Steely Dan). Danny Thompson was brought in on bass, and new backing vocals were provided by Mica Paris, Jacob Thorn and Kate’s son, Bertie McIntosh. Most importantly, Bush herself re-recorded her lead vocals for each of the song. Taken together, the overhauls give a new perspective on the material – the studio sheen associated with the late 80s and early 90s is stripped back, and the songs feel warmer and more welcoming. What’s more, they better suit Bush’s more mature, less dramatic vocals, bringing out new meaning in her lyrics.
The only song with “new” lyrics was Flower Of The Mountain (originally recorded as The Sensual World’s title track), which, in place of her original lyrics, now used an extract from James Joyce’s Ulysses – just as Bush has originally conceived the song. While the writer’s estate had blocked her from using his text back in 1989, come the recording of Director’s Cut, she was finally granted permission. Joyce’s words – drawn from the novel’s closing soliloquy by Molly Bloom – helped transform the track from a glossy, radio-friendly single into something more considered and languid. A similar effect was achieved on much of the rest of Director’s Cut, notably with a moving take on Moments Of Pleasure which, once an ecstatic celebration of friends and family who had passed away, had been transformed into a hushed elegy.
Meanwhile, Bush saved the most radical reinvention for one of her most-loved songs, This Woman’s Work. Recast as an ethereal ambient ballad, with Bush’s lower vocal range and thoughtful delivery lending it an air of tangible vulnerability, the re-recording also demonstrated Bush’s artistic confidence – at this point in her career, she was free to follow her muse without considering a song’s hit potential. The results led to some glorious music.
Released on 16 May 2011, Director’s Cut may at first have seemed like a curio, but a closer listen reveals a richly rewarding, often emotionally overwhelming set that emphasises how creative and headstrong Bush remained as a writer, musician and producer at the top of her game”.
Happily, the reviews for Director’s Cut were largely positive. It is different releasing an album where you re-record known songs compared to fresh material. It seemed Kate Bush wanted to set things in order and ‘right some wrongs’ before she ploughed ahead with 50 Words for Snow. As we wonder whether this will be the year we get new music from the legend, cast your mind back to 2011 when you discovered that Director’s Cut was coming out. Such an exciting time! This is what The Guardian wrote in their review of Bush’s ninth studio album:
“In the solitary phone interview she gave to promote her first album in six years, Kate Bush offered these TV appearances to explain why she was only giving a solitary phone interview to promote her first album in six years. Under the circumstances, she suggested, wouldn't you push off to the land of do-as-you-please as soon as possible? Nothing, it seems, inspires inscrutable behaviour quite like the bloke off That's Life! quizzing you about your pimples.
In 2011, with the whole nonpareil musical genius/dippy woman who says "wow" issue firmly sorted out in most people's minds, her behaviour seems to grow more inscrutable still. Her new album, which admittedly took only half as long to make as its predecessor, isn't actually a new album, despite Bush's insistence to the contrary: it consists entirely of new versions of songs from 1989's The Sensual World and 1993's The Red Shoes. In fairness, you can see why she's chosen to point them up. They tend to be overlooked in her oeuvre, more because they separate her twin masterpieces Hounds of Love and Aerial than because of their content, although The Red Shoes is perhaps more muddled than you might expect, given her legendary perfectionism. Nevertheless, the decision seems to have bamboozled even her diehard fans, whose trepidation was not much mollified by the single Deeper Understanding. Again, you can see why she wants to point it up: its lyric about abandoning social interaction in order to hunch over a computer seems very prescient in the age of Facebook and Twitter. But the new version's decision to overwhelm the haunting vocals of Trio Bulgarka with Kate Bush doing one of her patented Funny Voices through an Auto-Tune unit seems questionable at best.
In fact, it's the only moment when you can honestly say the rerecording pales next to the original. At worst, they sound as good as their predecessors, which leaves you wondering what the point is, even as you succumb to their manifold charms. It was obviously a bind that the Joyce estate refused permission to use Molly Bloom's concluding soliloquy from Ulysses as the lyrics to The Sensual World, but whether it's a vastly better song for finally having them in place of Bush's facsimile is rather a moot point. Song of Solomon, on which Bush finally abandoned her apparently bottomless store of metaphors for female sexuality in favour of a direct demand for a shag – "Don't want your bullshit," she cries, "I'll come in a hurricane for you" – is a fantastic song whether the rhythm track features pattering tom-toms or a lightly brushed snare. Occasionally, the changes genuinely add something, usually by taking things away. The force of The Red Shoes' depiction of Bush's troubled relationship with the creative impulse was always a little blunted by its presentation as a kind of perky Irish jig: with the Celtic pipes shifted to the background, it sounds sinister and more urgent. Moments of Pleasure's rumination on death is more introverted and affecting stripped of its dramatic orchestration, while This Woman's Work – the rerecording of which caused the most unease among fans – is amazing: emptier, darker and quieter than before, it's even more heart-rending. Given that the original was heart-rending enough to soundtrack a charity campaign against child abuse, that's no mean feat.
Is it worth spending six years making an emotionally wrenching song slightly more emotionally wrenching? Hmm. If Director's Cut really was a new album, if you were hearing these songs for the first time, then it probably would be considered among Kate Bush's masterpieces: certainly, the sheer quality of the songwriting makes every recent female artist who has been compared to her look pretty wan by comparison. But you're not, which means the Director's Cut ultimately amounts to faffing about, albeit faffing about of the most exquisite kind. Still, as anyone who's watched her putting up with Richard Stilgoe will tell you, Kate Bush has earned the right to do whatever she wants”.
Bush said that the songs on Director’s Cut have a new layer woven into them. I am fascinated by artists reapproaching their songs. Not one for looking back, it clearly meant a lot to her that these songs were given new light and treatment. Even if many critics and fans place Director’s Cut low in the rankings of the best Kate Bush albums, there is something unique and special about it. Ahead of its twelfth anniversary on 16th May, I wanted to spend a bit of time with Director’s Cut. Very fan will have their favourite from the album. I like Flower of the Mountain (the title track from The Sensual World was renamed by Bush when she finally got the right to use James Joyce’s Molly Bloom soliloquy from Ulysses in the song) and what she did with Top of the City. Bringing once-forgotten songs to life and adding something new to old classics, it is an album that everyone needs to hear! I have asked this before, but I wonder whether Bush would ever be tempted to revisit any other songs from her past. I guess she was maybe a bit unhappy with the originals that are transformed on Director’s Cut, but it would be fascinating to hear her tackle Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) – from 1985’s Hounds of Love – with a lower vocal today. Whatever comes next, there will be a lot of fascination and interest. As with every studio album before then, Director’s Cut was a top ten success. It goes to show that there has always been so much love out there…
FOR the music icon.