FEATURE:
Blown Away
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush circa 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Angelo Deligio/Mondadori via Getty Images
How Kate Bush Adapted and Moved Forward Following the Release of Never for Ever
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I am about to write a feature…
about Charli xcx (which would have already been published by the time you are reading this feature), as she has recently said how she was spent after recording BRAT. Nothing left in the tank. Like trying to get blood form a stone. Maybe she had put all of her creativity into that album and it was hard to do anything else. Charli xcx has said how she is more influenced by film at the moment than anything else – including other music. It reminds me of Kate Bush and her ongoing link to film. How that inspire her. In terms of the creativity drain or at least a feeling of being spent, that happened especially notably after two of her albums. She was diagnosed with exhaustion after completing The Dreaming. That came out in 1982. The album before that, 1980’s Never for Ever, found her similarly detached or affected. In different ways. These two albums were her first as producer. Never for Ever was a co-produce with Jon Kelly. Bush, keen to establish her own sound and exert more control over her music, perhaps spent more time she would have imagined in the studio. I am interested in a section of Graeme Thomson's biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. This is a book I have referred to a lot through the years. He writes about the period after Never for Ever’s release. 1980 was a period where Kate Bush was living a pretty normal life. She was smoking a packet of cigarettes a day – something she gave up later in life – and was eating fruit and yoghurt but, as Thomson notes, mostly chocolate, tea, toast and chips. This quick-hit diet was common when she was recording The Dreaming too. She was watching films and T.V. in her Lewisham flat with her boyfriend, Del Palmer.
I think a level of fame and attention did change things. It was clear that the effort needed to finish Never for Ever took something out of her. How she found it hard to instantly move on. Sitting down to the piano and nothing coming out. In addition, Bush was being offered acting roles, including a part as the Wicked Witch in Wurzel Gummidge. There was this contrast of Bush having a personal driver (even though she knew how to drive) but bringing her laundry around to her parents’ house and stopping in for a tea and natter! I think that the growing attention and popularity was never comfortable. Bush never wanted fame. In 1981, when she was at Abbey Road Studios to mark its fiftieth anniversary, people were trying to get to her. Bush was with David Paton (who played with her on her albums) and asked if they could escape to Studio Three (the smallest studio). Bush was soon discovered and she was then the centre of attention! That clash between unable to find too much private time and live a normal life and moving on from Never for Ever. The album, whilst not particular political in nature (bar a couple of songs), was still challenging and multi-layered. Pushing herself more as a songwriter and producer, all the hard work paid off. The album went to number one and Bush broke a record in the meantime. The first female artist to reach the top of the U.K. album chart at number one. Whilst it all sounds normal on the surface, there was this sense that she came off of 1979’s The Tour of Life and started work too quickly. That tour was a chance for Bush to play her first two albums (1978’s The Kick Inside and its same-year follow-up, Lionheart) and have a big say in terms of visuals, design, sound and nearly every aspect. The idea of recording a third album and producing herself. Maybe she should have taken some more time.
However, she did record this incredible album. In September 1980, when Never for Ever came out, I am not sure whether it was EMI or Kate Bush who felt the need to put a new album out. Keep that momentum going. She had this period of writer’s block that was solved when she saw Stevie Wonder play at Wembley Arena. Bush was so inspired that she wrote Sat in Your Lap. That was released as a single in 1981 and was the first taste of The Dreaming (1982). Something that Bush revealed that will apply to artists today, there was this deflation. As Graeme Thomson writes: “She descried the period immediately after finishing Never for Ever as “sort of a terrible introverted depression. The anti-climax after all the work really set in in a bad way, and that can be very damaging as an artist”. Bush went on to say she sat at the piano to play but nothing came out. She bought a property on Court Road in Eltham, south London, across the road from Royal Blackheath Golf Club. It was close to her childhood home at East Wickham Farm but quite low-key. Paddy Bush (her brother) was next door and Jay (John), her other older brother, was at his sister’s place a lot. Like when they lived in the same property on different floors at 44 Wickham Road before, this was siblings all together. That was important to give Bush some sort of comfort and support. However, it is clear that what Bush felt after releasing this amazing album can be applied to so many artists of today. Including Charli xcx.
For Bush, there was this period of change and progress. In her own place, she could write and perform music in this flat. Rather than being at a studio for hours or at her family home, there was a cross of independence, space and having her family nearby. It is clear that there was a sense that there was more to life than music. She did have to take a step back at time and find ways to separate herself from music. However, that Stevie Wonder gig was a case of a social event and night out reigniting some inspiration! It is worrying that there was this depression that Bush experience after Never for Ever. How she maybe felt like music would never come again. Flip forward to the period right after The Dreaming and how that hit her. Rest, family and space helped with Never for Ever. Rest and time off after The Dreaming. It is clear that the routine and reality of producing her first two albums of the 1980s was a learning curve. She threw everything into and maybe felt she had to. To provide to critics, EMI or whoever that she was a serious artist. Or that she could and should produce her own work! The studio sessions were probably more chilled and sociable for Never for Ever, but the hours put in for each album were brutal. The periods right after the albums’ releases was strange and tough. That introverted depression and drying-up after Never for Ever is really affecting and sobering. It did take Bush a while until she could write new material. However, I think moving into a new space and having her brothers near did help. Spending time with Del Palmer and enjoying a bit more of a normal life. Alongside that, she had some of the trappings of a major artist. Demands from film and T.V. Bush allowing some luxury too. Never for Ever turned forty-five in September. It was a chance to re-explore her third studio album. Even if she cleared had wrung every morsel of inspiration and creativity, she did get back to writing in the end. It is clear, though, that 1980’s Never for Ever is…
A true masterpiece.