FEATURE:
The Rare and the Wonderful
IN THIS ILLUSTRATION: Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection
used to music being about self-promotion all of the time. It is part of the cycle. When it comes to albums and singles, artists have to be online and social media. There is so much competition that you cannot really pick and choose too much. That involves doing a lot of press and promotion. If you are a legacy or long-serving artist, perhaps you have the luxury of not having to do as much. When it comes to Kate Bush, this is an artist who has served her time. So many interviews through her career, now, she can be selective. This decade is the only one since the 1970s that she has not released an album in. We hope that she does put out her eleventh studio album before the end of the 2020s. That is likely. However, this decade has not exactly been quiet for Bush. She has spent the time looking back for the most part. Reissuing her studio albums, she has also been an Ambassador for Record Store Day and she has given her time and efforts to charity. Lasty year, Bush released a video for Little Shrew (Snowflake). The track originally appeared on her most recent album, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, as Snowflake. Directing its animated video, she released it as a standalone single to raise money for War Child. Recently, the video was shown at the end of the Together for Palestine concert in London. A message from Bush was shown at the end: “Please stop the killing and the starvation of children in Gaza”. Last year, Little Shrew (Snowflake) won multiple awards at the World Film Festival in Cannes in October 2024, including Best Animation Film, Best Cause-Driven Film, and Best Female Director Short Film. That is just a flavour of what Kate Bush has been doing in the 2020s. Of course, go back to 2022 and how Stranger Things used Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and it shot it to the top of the charts and, in the process, it introduced new listeners to her work.
With that, we did get a brilliant interview from Kate Bush. I think her first interview since 2016. It was a rare and wonderful chance to hear from Bush. She spoke with Emma Barnett for Woman’s Hour in 2022. I recently heard Barnett speak and discuss how she got that interview. She got in contact with Bush’s P.R. team and was told that she could be put in touch with her. Perhaps unexpected given the infrequency of Kate Bush interviews, Barnett also spoke with Bush last year. I will end with these. However, as busy as Kate Bush has been this decade with various projects, there have not been a load of interviews. That is understandable. No new music since 2011, I do wonder how many requests there. Hounds of Love turned forty in September, so you wonder whether anyone approached her to talk about the album. Bush rereleasing her albums could have come with some interviews. Maybe there were requests but Bush did not want to do press around them. I think the interviews she has given in the 2020s have been great. However, there was a recent interview that I was not expecting. I want to drop some of it in. It was about Bush’s Little Shrew (Snowflake) video. It was with Ramin Zahed at Animation Magazine. Little Shrew (Snowflake) screened as part of the rich animated shorts program of this year's Woodstock Film Festival on 18th October:
“You have experimented with animation before (Elder Falls at Lake Tahoe, Wild Man) What do you love about creating art in this medium?
I’ve really loved animation ever since I saw my first Disney animation in the cinema. When I was a little girl that was the only way to see a Disney Film. They were never shown on TV and you could only see whichever film was doing the ’rounds’. This had the effect of making them very special. Something precious. I guess that feeling of them being special has stuck. In the context of Little Shrew, animation was the perfect medium – allowing us to create a tiny little creature who could travel through exactly the environment I imagined. It would never have had the same hit in live action. That’s the beauty of animation…anything and everything is possible.
What are some of your favorite animated shorts and movies, the ones that left a deep impression on you?
Like I said, the magic of those early Disney movies never really goes away. Snow White, Dumbo, The Jungle Book have especially stayed with me. I’d have to add Pixar’s Ratatouille and Monsters Inc. to the list. I also love Allegro non Troppo and Belleville Rendez-Vous (The Triplets of Belleville).
How did you decide which song to accompany the anti-war message of the short and why?
When I was trying to think of what the music would be, “Snowflake” just popped into my head and I thought – yeah, that could work. I knew we’d have to edit it down. The original track ran at over seven minutes and as animation is a very expensive medium, I knew it would need to be no more than three or four minutes long. I think the main reason I thought of that track is because the lead vocal was sung by my son when he was a little boy, so the presence of a little child is already center stage.
I felt the vulnerability of a young boy’s descant voice could work very well as the companion to the poor little shrew. They both have a tenderness about them.
Your music has always inspired hope and the exploration of a spiritual world beyond this material one. What is your take on the sorry state of the world in 2025? What gives you hope?
Thank you very much. what a really lovely thing to say. I guess it’s hard not to feel that this is the most frightening time I’ve ever known. Not just because of the wars, the reckless and arrogant attitudes of many of the world’s leaders, but also our fragility, both physically and mentally. I feel we’re losing our resilience .I worry how social media is encouraging people to become more narcissistic. It’s also making people anxious. What gives me hope are the wonderful people like the doctors who work in the middle of war zones, children who are finding ways they might be able to save the planet… As long as people’s hearts can still be touched, then there is hope. Then they can be moved to act in a way that could really make a difference”.
Even though there have not been a lot of Kate Bush interviews in the 2020s, the ones she has been involved with have been fantastic. Two of them were conducted by Emma Barnett. The first interview with Bush was in 2022. This is when Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was experiencing a revival after it featured in Stranger Things. Emma Barnett spoke with Kate Bush on a landline. Bush was on the landline. When hearing Emma Barnett speak recently at an event in London, I think it was this interview where she recalled how Kate Bush rang in Woman’s Hour and said that it was Catherine (her full name). Not a case of someone calling her and it being passed to one of her team. Kate Bush called in like a regular caller! That sense of normality is rare for an artist of her stature. Bush reflected on the song placement on Stranger Things and how people have reacted to it. I have spoken about this before. Bush saying how she does not have a smartphone and instead has an old rick of a mobile. One people take the piss out of her for. Calling from a landline and recalling how she was so proud of what Stranger Things did and how her song scored this powerful scene involving Max Mayfield. In terms of protocol, an interviewer would not normally ask Bush if she was working on new music. I am not sure if that was mentioned before the interview, as the question did not come up. Instead, it was very much about the current time and Stranger Things. It seemed like a missed opportunity but, to be fair, Bush had no plans to record new music in 2022. She was busy with other stuff. The same is partly true last year. Busy with retrospection and reissuing, it was also a moment when she revealed she wanted to do something new.
Emma Barnett once again spoke with Bush about another occasion when her music was used in this bigger project. Whereas 2022 was about this T.V. show and the reaction there, last year seemed more important. Little Shrew (Snowflake) and War Child. As The Guardian explained in their article, Bush was asked about new music. Perhaps was permitted this time. Or Barnett just had to go for it. It provoked the biggest revelation from her since 2014 and Bush announcing she would come to the stage for her Before the Dawn residency:
“Kate Bush has said she’s “very keen” to make a new album, saying, “I’ve got lots of ideas … it’s been a long time.”
In a rare interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, the 66-year-old English singer said there are “lots of ideas” she wants to pursue. “I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space,” she said.
Bush shot to fame in 1978 with her debut Wuthering Heights, and is best known for hits including Babooshka and King of the Mountain.
In 2022 she found a new generation of fans when her 1985 hit Running Up That Hill was featured on Netflix series Stranger Things and re-entered music charts around the world. Her last album was 2011’s 50 Words for Snow.
Bush, who has generally shied away from the spotlight across her career, spoke to BBC to promote a new short film she wrote and directed to raise money for children affected by war. The four-minute animation, titled Little Shrew, is set to her 2011 track Snowflake and encourages viewers to donate to international charity War Child. In the film, the titular animal searches for hope across a war-torn city.
A still from the short animated film Little Shrew, written and directed by Kate Bush. Illustration: Kate Bush
“I started working on it a couple of years ago, it was not long after the Ukrainian war broke out, and I think it was such a shock for all of us,” Bush told BBC. “It’s been such a long period of peace we’d all been living through. And I just felt I wanted to make a little animation … to draw attention to how horrific it is for children.”
The film is free to view and can be found on the singer’s website.
Asked if she was working on new material, Bush told Today host Emma Barnett: “Not at the moment, but I’ve been caught up doing a lot of archive work over the last few years, redesigning our website, putting a lyric book together. And I’m very keen to start working on a new album when I’ve got this finished. I’ve got lots of ideas and I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space, it’s been a long time.”
Asked if it was something she’d been thinking about for a while, Bush replied: “Yes it is, really. Particularly [in] the last year, I’ve felt really ready to start doing something new”.
We are over half-way through this decade. For Kate Bush, it has been a decade perhaps more varied and successful than the 1990s and ever the previous one. In terms of the impact she has had on people and what she has achieved without even releasing new music. There has been some looking back, through she has also raised money for charity and won awards. In terms of where we go from here, I feel we will see new music. Maybe not next year, though definitely by 2027. It has almost been fourteen years since 50 Words for Snow came out, so there is that demand. We will get some new interviews with that. The ones she has given (mainly audio) have been among the best I think. Not this pressure of promoting work and being on a bit of a treadmill. Aerial turns twenty next month, so I am curious whether there will be any interviews around that. Maybe not. Perhaps it will be new music that gets Bush talking more widely. It was great we got that recent exclusive, where Bush discussed Little Shrew (Snowflake) and this wonderful video. It is always a delight when we read or hear interviews. How this amazing and influential artist is active and she stuns and innovates constantly. Raising money and revisiting her music. Changing lives and making this big impact. There are very few artists like her. As we look towards 2026, I do wonder what the year will hold and whether we will hear from Kate Bush. It would be wonderful to imagine! In the meantime, I did want to look back on her 2020s so far and a few of the interviews conducted. Getting some rare and precious words from…
A music queen.