FEATURE:
Sleep to Dream
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris
August 1980: The Initial Seeds of Kate Bush’s Fourth Studio Album
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WHEN you think about it….
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush pictured at the British Rock and Pop Awards at the Café Royal, London on 26th February, 1980 (where Bush won for Best Female Singer)/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Kate Bush was often working on a new album when she was still promoting another one. That was the case with The Klick Inside and Lionheart. That time in 1978 when she was talking about her debut, but she was writing and recording her sophomore release. There was definitely some crossover in 1980. I was not aware of this before, yet August 1980 was quite an important month. It would be a very busy time for her. The following month – September 1980 -, Bush would undertake a heavy promotional schedule for her third album, Never for Ever. I think her taking on production duties (she and Andrew Powell, who was the producer on her first two albums, parted ways; she would produce Never for Ever with Jon Kelly) meant that she was determined to promote her albums heavily but effectively. I think she was thrown far and wide for the first two. It seems like the promotional experience for Never for Ever was a bit smoother and less chaotic. Even so, from September 1980, Bush was diving into making sure people knew about Never for Ever. The seeds of The Dreaming were planted in August 1980. It must have been a strange headspace starting to think about an experimental and dense album. Never for Ever is terrific, but it sounds completely different to The Dreaming. This was such a fertile period for Bush. I will talk about it later this month, because Never for Ever came out in September 1980.
Its second single, Babooshka, was out in June of that year. The excellent video could not be played, as there was a strike at the BBC. Even so, it was her most successful single since Wuthering Heights. It got to number five in the U.K. It actually got to number two in Australia! A slight tangent but, seeing the single do so well in Australia, I wonder whether The Dreaming’s title track – about indigenous Australians being displaced and seeing their land destroyed – was a love letter and thanks to the country?! Anyway, August 1980 was a pivotal moment. After Babooshka was released and there was a bit of a blow with the video not getting shown widely, it was an opportunity for some downtime. With a few weeks rest under her belt, that gave her a little bit of time to freshen and decompress. The promotional juggernaut for Never for Ever would continue, but she did get a bit of time to step away and get some much-needed rest. I wonder what the first ideas for The Dreaming were. We know that the first single, Sat in Your Lap, was released in June 1981. Perhaps the inspiration for that song was a little later. Bush said, of that track, that she already had the piano patterns, but they didn't turn into a song until the night after she saw Stevie Wonder in concert. Inspired by the feeling of his music, she set a rhythm on the Roland and worked in the piano riff to the high-hat and snare.
Bush had the verse and tune to work on. I know that Stevie Wonder played Wembley Arena on 7th September, 1980. Looking back, maybe 8th September was when Bush’s mind sparked and she finished Sat in Your Lap. That date, 8th September, 1980 is when Never for Ever was released. It is fascinating. Bush was having writer’s block and a bit of a hard time coming up with much inspiration until Sat in Your Lap was revealed and written. August 1980 was one where Bush was still involved with Never for Ever and was gearing up to release it into the world. Babooshka was just about fading from public consciousness. it would be September 1980 when she released the final single from the album, Army Dreamers. I wonder what compelled her to begin work on her fourth studio album before she released her third. Forty-three years ago, aged twenty-two, Bush was about to jot down ideas and thoughts that started the process that ended with the release of The Dreaming in September 1982. It is amazing that she was involved with that album for two years. Considering how full and complex it is, she must have been truly exhausted by the end! Knowing that she wanted to produce on her own, I guess that influenced how she wrote. If Sat in Your Lap took a jolt of Stevie Wonder’s magic and genius to get it to where it needed to be, she was at least committed to stepping into new sonic territory and taking big risks.
Thanks to this excellent website for giving me the idea for this feature. I may well return to it time to time, as it chronicles events in Bush’s career that are worth noting. I wanted something August-related and I came across this interesting crossover in 1980. I wonder if anyone knows the answer as to which song was the first she sketched for The Dreaming? If September 1980 is when Sat in Your Lap was finished, was it started the month before?! Tracing the origins of an album’s beginning is really interesting. August 1980 was a bridge between promotion and the release of Babooshka and that rest period; September 1980 saw Bush heavily immersed in Never for Ever. On 11th September, 1980, the album is played and presented at a huge party for dealers in Brimingham. Bush is busy with personal appearances. She takes in, among other cities, Newcastle and Manchester (where she is reported to have kissed more than six-hundred fans!). When was signing in London, there was a one-hundred-meter queue snaking down Oxford Street. On 16th September, Never for Ever reached number one – making Bush the first solo British female artist to hit number one on the British chart. Bush travels to Germany. There, she performs a wonderfully odd version of Army Dreamers. Bush also performed in France in September 1980.
She also performed a solo version of Babooshka on the show (RockPop). She then is in Italy. Before too long, she was back in England to film the video for Army Dreamers. The website I am referencing says that Bush saw Stevie Wonder play at the end of September, where she then kept working on Sat in Your Lap. I am not sure whether he was in the country then, as this website shows that he was performing in the U.K. at the start of September 1980. This website goes into more detail. In any case, from September 1980, Bush was frantic and living with Never for Ever but thinking about The Dreaming. that crossover started in August 1980. I was intrigued thinking what her initial notes were and which song was in her mind. The Dreaming is such a different beast to Never for Ever. Maybe something happened in August 1980 that got her thinking in a different way. Maybe it was a natural step and progression. July 1980 was a pretty eventful one in terms of British politics and society. The death of Peter Sellers, the gutting of Alexandra Palace (in London), miners threatening to strike, unemployment being at a high, areas of the country suffering deindustrialisation. Maybe this all contributed and affected Kate Bush. What we do know is that forty-three years ago, a young Kate Bush was beginning to work on The Dreaming. That two-year process resulted in…
ONE of her very best albums.