FEATURE: But That Dream Is Your Enemy: Kate Bush’s Experiment IV at Thirty-Seven

FEATURE:

 

 

But That Dream Is Your Enemy

  

Kate Bush’s Experiment IV at Thirty-Seven

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I don’t have too much extra…

to add to previous features about Experiment IV. It is thirty-seven on 27th October, so I feel compelled to revisit it. Many Kate Bush fans might not know about this track. There have been some classics that never made it onto a studio album or were B-sides. I have argued before how Experiment IV would have sounded great on Hounds of Love. Even if Bush wrote Experiment IV too late in that respect, it would seem to fit nicely on the first side. Given that this song came out not long after Hounds of Love and yet does not receive the same sort of love and airplay is confusing. The track was a special single/addition to Bush’s greatest hits album, The Whole Story, It is usually the case that when an artist releases a greatest hits collection, there is a new track. Maybe a single or new song that didn’t fit onto a studio album. Normally they are not too much to write home about. I have always liked Experiment IV. Reaching number thirty-seven in the U.K. when it was released as a single, here is an extract from when Kate Bush posted to ger official website to discuss the song:

“This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.

The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine - a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.

We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used - me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft. Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result. (KateBush.com, February 2019)”.

The Whole Story – which I shall write about closer to its anniversary in November – has two interesting facts. Apart from Experiment IV being the only new song on the collection, there is a new recording of Wuthering Heights. A new vocal. That was the B-side on the U.K. 7” release of Experiment IV. I have written before claiming the track is one of Kate Bush’s most underrated. It is definitely one that does not get a whole load of attention.

There are a few bits out there. This webpage has some interesting observations and details. It did seem like the music press were favourable towards Experiment IV in 1986. There is a lot of horror baked into the song’s sound and lyrics. The video – directed by Kate Bush – is quite frightening and intense. With images and screenshots that could be matched to Stranger Things or Aphex Twin’s video for Come to Daddy, it is definitely influential and iconic.

“Throughout the song the listener is fed snippets of exactly what has gone into creating this devastating sound – From the painful cries of mothers, To the terrifying scream... We recorded it and put it into our machine. The dark subject matter of both the lyrics and the video - sinister music that can harm and kill the listener, coupled with the strange technology the scientists use to create it (most hauntingly of all it’s never revealed why) - calls to mind the work of British sci-fi/horror writer Nigel Kneale, who frequently blended science and supernaturalism with anti-authoritarian undertones. In works such as Halloween III and The Woman in Black – and indeed John Carpenter’s homage to the work of Neale, Prince of Darkness – technology is presented as a quasi-magical force with severely sinister connotations.

Dawn French and Hugh Laurie provide a little comic relief as two scientists ensconced in the dubious research, and the reluctant Professor overseeing the research is named Jerry Coe; perhaps a reference to Jericho, the walls of which crumbled at the sound of the Israelites’ trumpets at the end of a war, as described in the biblical book of Joshua.

 The horrific effects of the scientists’ research is featured throughout the video, as various test-subjects are shown writhing around in straitjackets after hearing the sound. Finally, when the sound is 'unveiled', it appears as a spectral siren which suddenly takes on the form of a terrifying winged ghoul, which then proceeds to wreck havoc in the lab, slaughtering the scientists and test-subjects alike. The camera then assumes the role of the creature and pursues various scientists along the starkly lit and increasingly chaotic corridors of the facility, eventually tracking outside to reveal the rather apocalyptic aftermath of the incident – pre-empting ‘contagion horrors’ such as 28 Days Later etc. A cordoned-off vicinity around a music shop (revealed to be a front for the shady government project) – in which the shopkeeper is displaying copies of Experiment IV – is strewn with the bodies of the dead. Lastly, we see Ms Bush hitch-hiking on a nearby stretch of road and clambering into a van, but before she does, she turns to wink at us knowingly, suggesting this is only the beginning of her deadly mission… It could sing you to sleep, But that dream is your enemy! Incidentally, the sound of the helicopter heard at the end of the song as the military make a hasty retreat, is the very same helicopter sound heard in Pink Floyd's The Happiest Days of Our Lives from The Wall. Dave Gilmour and Kate are good friends.

Experiment IV is also notable for its hauntingly beautiful violin work courtesy of Nigel Kennedy, who at one point replicates Bernard Herrmann's famous stabbing strings from the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho”.

In 2022, GQ noted how Stranger Things could have been inspired by Kate Bush’s video for Experiment IV. That Netflix show featured Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and sent it to the top of the singles chart in the U.K. I think Experiment IV is influential in its impact on T.V. and music videos. I do really love the lyrics. This experiment being devised in a lab or secret location. Never mentioned whether this was a warfare device or torture machine, it is one that can produce sounds that kill people. A song that emphasises how Bush’s inspirations are never traditional or predictable! The lines of “But they told us/All they wanted/Was a sound that could kill someone/From a distance/So we go ahead/And the meters are over in the red/It's a mistake we've made” really stick in my mind. Bush’s vocal delivery summons up chills and beauty at the same time. Even though it was not ignored, Experiment IV does feel like a lesser-known and slightly overlooked part of her history. She was doubtful about a greatest hits album coming out. When it went to number one and was really popular, it appeared any cynicism was misplaced. I always wonder whether she had a view of doing something more with Experiment IV. There are so many of her songs that could be threaded together into a short film. Bush’s original video is great though, as shows such as Stranger Things seem to nod to it, a modern-day updating would be interesting. A song never performed live – except an appearance on Wogan around its release -, this is something I would love to see realised for the stage. On 26th October, the majestic and haunting Experiment IV is thirty-seven. I think people should check it out. Its video was banned by Top of The Pops because it was considered too violent. It was also nominated for the Best Concept Music Video at the 1988 Grammy Awards. This compelling and hugely interesting track – with its star-studded video – is one that should get…

A lot more attention.

Sam Liddicott