FEATURE:
On the Other Side from You
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Eight
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THERE is a lot of excitement…
and anticipation around the release of Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film, Wuthering Heights. Starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, it is going to be interesting to see what she does with Emily Brontë’s sole novel. Kate Bush released her incredible debut single, Wuthering Heights, on 20th January, 1978. There are parallels between Emily Brontë and Kate Bush. They were born on 30th July. Bush in 1985; Brontë in 1818. Kate Bush’s full first name is Catherine. Catherine Earnshaw is the heroine of Wuthering Heights. In Wuthering Heights, Bush sings in the chorus: “Heathcliff, it’s me–Cathy/Come home. I’m so cold!”. Almost this autobiographical edge. A teenage Kate Bush imagining herself to be the Cathy of the song. I am going to write more deeply about Bush’s debut single before trying to manifest this viral moment. Let’s get to some background regarding the song (courtesy of the Kate Bush Encyclopedia), in addition to some words from Kate Bush about one of the most important debut singles ever:
“The song was recorded with Andrew Powell producing. According to him, the vocal performance was done in one take, “a complete perfomance” with no overdubs. “There was no compiling,” engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning.” The guitar solo that fades away with the track in the outro was recorded by Edinburgh musician Ian Bairnson, a session guitarist.
Originally, record company EMI’s Bob Mercer had chosen another track, James And The Cold Gun as the lead single, but Kate Bush was determined that ‘Wuthering Heights’ would be her first release. She won out eventually in a surprising show of determination for a young musician against a major record company, and this would not be the only time she took a stand against them to control her career.
The release date for the single was initially scheduled to be 4 November 1977. However, Bush was unhappy with the picture being used for the single’s cover and insisted it be replaced. Some copies of the single had already been sent out to radio stations, but EMI relented and put back the single’s launch until the New Year. Ultimately, this proved to be a wise choice, as the earlier release would have had to compete with Wings’ latest release, ‘Mull of Kintyre’, which became the biggest-selling single in UK history up to this point in December 1977.
‘Wuthering Heights’ was finally released on 20 January 1978, was immediately playlisted by Capital Radio and entered their chart at no. 39 on 27 January. It crept into the national Top 50 in week ending 11 February at No.42. The following week it rose to No.27 and Bush made her first appearance on Top of the Pops (“It was like watching myself die”, recalls Bush), The song was finally added to Radio One’s playlist the following week and became one of the most played records on radio. When the song reached number 1, it was the first UK number 1 written and performed by a female artist”.
“When I first read Wuthering Heights I thought the story was so strong. This young girl in an era when the female role was so inferior and she was coming out with this passionate, heavy stuff. Great subject matter for a song.
I loved writing it. It was a real challenge to precis the whole mood of a book into such a short piece of prose. Also when I was a child I was always called Cathy not Kate and I just found myself able to relate to her as a character. It’s so important to put yourself in the role of the person in a song. There’s no half measures. When I sing that song I am Cathy.
(Her face collapses back into smiles.) Gosh I sound so intense. Wuthering Heights is so important to me. It had to be the single. To me it was the only one. I had to fight off a few other people’s opinions but in the end they agreed with me. I was amazed at the response though, truly overwhelmed.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn’t link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it. I was really pleased, because it was the first song I had written for a while, as I’d been busy rehearsing with the KT Band.
I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn’t relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.
It’s funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she didn’t know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct. A similar thing happened with ‘Wuthering Heights’: I put lines in the song that I found in the book when I read it later.
I’ve never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it’s supposed to be.
One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from the song, though I’ve heard that the Bronte Society think it’s a disgrace. A lot of people have read the book because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about it for me. I didn’t know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song helped them. I’m really happy about that.
There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song. When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song. Also, when I was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him. When I came back I had this urge to switch on the TV – it was about one in the morning – because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on. I tuned in to a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, playing channel roulette, until I found it. I came in at the moment Cathy was dying, so that’s all I saw of the film. It was an amazing coincidence.
Kate Bush Club Newsletter, January 1979”.
I started out by mentioning the Emerald Fennell film, as I did think that Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights would be included. I do think that the film will draw attention to Bush’s 1978 single. It is from her 1978 album, The Kick Inside. Perhaps more importantly, new people will read Emily Brontë’s novel. It is a masterpiece. There are a couple of mysteries around Wuthering Heights that intrigue me. One relates to the exact source of inspiration. I have seen some say Bush was watching a 1970 film with Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff. I think that it was actually a 1967 T.V. adaptation with Ian McShane as Heathcliff. The late great Angela Scoular as Catherine Earnshaw. I am not sure whether Kate Bush would remember if it was the 1970 or 1967 adaptation that she saw, though I do think it was the 1967 series. The final ten or fifteen minutes, where we get this very powerful moment of the ghostly Cathy reaching through the window and trying to grab Heathcliff. I think she actually lunges for Joseph. Another mystery surround the versions of the video. Two were shot and released. One where Bush is in a white dress in a studio. The second is her in a red dress where she dances on Salisbury Plain. Many did not know when the red dress version was shot. Debate as to which was shot first and what was released first. I am going to get to an article from Kate Bush News. First, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia provide some timeline clarification:
“In the first verison, directed by Keef, Kate can be seen performing the song in a dark room filled with white mist while wearing a white dress. According to Kate: “the video we made for ‘Wuthering Heights’ was probably amongst the first ever made, certainly here in this country in terms of a video, and I was very influenced at that time still by Lindsay Kemp. So it was very much the dance influence that I was expressing. So it was really working out choreography that would just look interesting, that would kind of create a persona of Cathy. “ (VH-1 interview, January 1990)
The second version, directed by Nicholas Abson, sees Kate dancing on Salisbury Plain while wearing a red dress. It was filmed before the projected November 1977 release date”.
For decades, nobody quite knew when the red dress version was filmed. The most famous version, it is immortalised by the annual The Most Wuthering Heights Day, where people congregate dressed like Bush in that video and dance to Wuthering Heights en masse. The date the red dress version was filmed was 26th October, 1977. In 2018, cameraman Mike Miles recalled shooting the video and provided some fascinating recollections:
“Kate Bush … ‘Wuthering Heights Promo’ … Salisbury Plain… Wednesday 26th October 1977
From around 1976 to 1982 I worked as a freelance Lighting Cameraman, for Nick Abson’s company, ‘Rockflicks’, making pop promo and concert films with Nick . All the productions we made were shot on 16mm film. (no ‘videos’ in those days). From 3rd October to 5th November 1977, I was working with Nick on the first Stiff Records UK tour .. ‘The Live Stiffs Tour’… featuring Ian Dury and the Blockheads, Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric and Larry Wallis. We were making a Feature length ‘fly on the wall’ film of the tour… ’If It Ain’t Stiff ..It Ain’t Worth a F…’ We travelled around the UK with the band on their coach, driven of course, by Trevor. I won’t elaborate on the antics that we all got up to during the tour, some of which are in the film. Other than to say, that it was the film crew who were thrown out of the infamous Watford Gap ‘Blue Boar’ motorway service station on the M1, for bad behaviour.
During the tour’s progress to the West and Wales we had a free day. To fill the gap, Nick had arranged to shoot a promo while we were travelling to the next Stiff gig. The promo was for an unknown singer called Kate Bush. The track was called ‘Wuthering Heights’. I remember hearing the track for the first time and thinking Kate was a bit squeaky! Because we had to shoot on the way West (the next gig may have been Cardiff, but not sure), Nick had found a grass field with a stand of trees in the middle of Salisbury Plain, which was convenient for continuing our journey after we had finished.
The night before, we stayed in a hotel in Salisbury, where we met Kate Bush and all had dinner together. I also discovered she grew up in Welling, Kent, which was only about 2 miles from where I grew up. It was probably quite daunting for young Kate, her first promo and in a strange hotel surrounded by an admiring bunch of blokes. She sensibly went to bed early and declined our request for her to join us for a drink in the bar.
Early the next morning we met up with a Grips who had driven down from London in an old white van, carrying an Elemack Spyder Dolly and a whole load of curved track. Once we found the location we had to get the van into the field. It was Autumn and had been raining. The entrance was very muddy, the van was very heavy. After a number of attempts to drive into the field, the van became completely stuck in the mud. We couldn’t unload it and carry the dolly to the location, it was too far and weighed half a ton. The only solution was to find a local farmer with a tractor and get the van towed out of the mud and down to the location. About 2 or 3 hours later, we had found a friendly farmer with a tractor. It was a dull grey morning and the field, although covered in grass, appeared as though it had once been ploughed. It was very uneven and also on a slope. We set up the track in a large semi-circle, checked that it was level, which was quite a feat and placed the dolly and camera in position. The sound play-back equipment, for the recording Kate would mime to, was all set up and tested. We were sort of ready to go.
I couldn’t really do much to enhance the look of the film. I did use a soft, light, diffusion filter, but had to be careful because of possible flaring from the sky. I couldn’t put graduated filters on the lens to control the sky, which was dull, but brighter than everything else, because of the trees and the fairly continuous tracking and camera framing. I didn’t have a light powerful enough to light Kate’s face from a distance and there was no sun to reflect light into her eyes. I did manage to use a hand held reflector for some of the close-ups. We also had a small smoke machine. Unfortunately it was quite windy, so the smoke blew quickly past Kate’s face. While we were assembling all the equipment, Kate had come over to me and said that she had been told that the Cameraman was the person to ask about how she looked! She had lovely long hair and had an artificial flower pinned into it. She asked me if I thought it was a good idea and if it looked all right. At the time it looked pretty good, she also seemed to want to keep it in if she could. I said it looked lovely and should keep it in her hair. Nick couldn’t wait any longer and we went straight into the filming with little rehearsal. We were already running out of time because of the delayed start. We had to get to the Stiff gig later that afternoon.
Once we started filming, Kate soon got into her dance routine and had obviously been working on it for some time. We covered the whole number as many times as possible, tracking back and forth, with occasional stops, filming different frame sizes from very wide to extreme close-up. Kate’s dance moves became pretty energetic. The flower in her hair slowly worked loose and started to flop around a bit. Her hair sometimes became caught up in it. By now it was too late to stop, remove it and start everything all over again. We just didn’t have time. I was feeling bad about my advice regarding the flower. Kate was also becoming tired after all the dancing on a ploughed grassy field. It was getting cold. After numerous takes we had to stop and pack up. Considering the early morning start, the long hold up with the van getting stuck, the difficult terrain for dancing and the dull, cold weather; Kate couldn’t have been more helpful, patient and friendly to everyone. I had got used to her voice and decided I liked it. However I wasn’t so sure if it would be a hit, or if she would become popular. Shows how much I knew. The crew accompanied Kate to Salisbury station and just as she was about to board the train back to London, she gave me a lovely hug and a kiss on the cheek. We were all in love with her by now. We then set off for the rest of the Stiff tour.
Mike Miles Director of Photography”.
I want to move to an article from Literary Hub that I have sourced before. In terms of the impact of Wuthering Heights as an educational tool. The song and video from Kate Bush. How it is a modern and more accessible way into this track. I am not sure, given the more adult nature of her version, whether Emerald Fennell’s film will be shown to students. However, the power of the Wuthering Heights videos and Bush’s interpretation of the novel is spellbinding:
“But as Bush borrowed from the dialogue, she made a crucial transposition in the point of view. When she sings, “You had a temper, like my jealousy / too hot too greedy,” the my refers to Cathy and the you to Heathcliff, the novel’s brooding protagonist/antagonist/antihero/villain (depending on your point of view). But the novel itself never inhabits Cathy’s consciousness: she is seen and heard, her rages and threats vividly reported, but everything we know about her comes from either Nelly Dean, a longtime housekeeper for the Earnshaw and Linton families, or through Lockwood, a hapless visitor to the Yorkshire moorlands and the principle first-person narrator of the novel (most of the novel consists of Nelly’s quoted speech to Lockwood, who is eager to hear the complete history of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and its neighboring property, Thrushcross Grange). Although the novel spans decades and multiple generations of Earnshaws and Lintons, Kate Bush’s shift into Cathy’s point of view centers the song entirely on Cathy and Heathcliff—which is fittingly how Cathy, in the novel, views the world. She and Heathcliff share one soul, she claims; everyone else, including her husband Edgar, is little more than scenery.
With this choice, Bush gives voice to a female character who—though an electric presence in the novel—is denied the agency of self-narrating, or even of being narrated through a close third person. Nelly may be presented to us by Lockwood as a simple, transparently objective narrator, but the novel is littered with moments where Nelly complicates the lives of those around her by revealing or concealing what she knows. Bush’s musical interpretation of the novel makes visible the questions that surround point of view: who does the telling? What is their agenda? Who can we really trust?”.
Maybe there will be some new features written about Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights given the new film that is coming out. Bush wrote this classic song during a full moon on 5th March, 1977 when she was living at 44 Wickham Road, Brockley. I believe she had a few complaints from neighbours given the noise! I will move to my idea about a viral moment. Before that, earlier in the year, BBC revealed the surprising (in their words) story behind Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights:
“Wuthering Heights, with its lush, sweeping orchestration, its literary sensibilities, and Bush's soaring theatrical delivery, did not strike her record company as an obvious radio hit. EMI instead wanted the rockier sounding James and the Cold Gun, a favourite from her KT Bush Band's pub set, to be the first single from the album. But Bush was adamant that Wuthering Heights should be her debut – and EMI eventually relented.
To accompany its release, two music videos were filmed. One was studio-based and the other was shot outside, with Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, standing in for the novel's windswept Yorkshire moors. For the shoots, Bush used the interpretive dance instruction she had received to mesmerising effect. Both videos feature her gazing intensely at the camera, clad in floaty dresses while performing dramatic and emotive dance movements to express the spectral essence of Cathy. Her dance routine was so distinctive that it became something of a cultural touchstone, inspiring both comedic homages and an annual event called The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, at which Bush devotees recreate her performance from the videos.
The single would prove to be her breakthrough. Within three weeks of being released, it had reached number one, getting a boost from Bush's arresting mime-style performance on the BBC's music chart show, Top of the Pops. It knocked Abba's Take a Chance on Me off the UK singles chart's top spot, and stayed there for a month. It also topped the charts in Ireland, Italy, New Zealand and Australia. Her album, The Kick Inside, when it was released the following month, sold more than one million copies. She would go on to collect an Ivor Novello award in 1979 for The Man with The Child in His Eyes, released as her second single from the album.
WATCH: 'I use all kind of props like the makeup, the clothes and especially the piano. That's a really big prop'.
Wuthering Heights marked the start of Bush's innovative, critically acclaimed and shape-shifting musical career. She has now released a total of 10 studio albums, melding diverse influences, complex musical storytelling and new technologies, such as sampling, to spawn hit singles like Hounds of Love and Babooshka. She has also collaborated with artists including Prince and Elton John. Her duet with Peter Gabriel, Don't Give Up, would pick up another Ivor Novello award in 1987”.
I will do a series of features to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Wuthering Heights in 2028. New angles and some deeper diving. However, I wanted to revisit the track as it turns forty-eight on 20th January. One thing I always assumed is that Bush watched the 1967 BBC T.V. adaptation in 1977 and then wrote the song very soon after. Maybe watching it in 1967, reading the novel, and then being inspired years later to write a song. I would love to know whether that was the case. Did Kate Bush watch that adaptation aged nine and then recall it a decade later? As Stranger Things are about to feature again Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), it will bring another wave (smaller this time) of attention to that the track. In terms of viral moments and songs that create this huge reaction, Wuthering Heights is long overdue. It might see streaming numbers bump given the Wuthering Heights film. However, it made me think how we need this place for Kate Bush’s 1978 debut single on the screen. I might have pitched it before. I do think that one of the most loved and popular aspects of Wuthering Heights is its choreography. The dance moves by Kate Bush. Reproduced by a horde of fans each year, it would be amazing to see this song and its dance feature. If Stranger Things’ use of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) was epic and was used in this quite stirring and huge scene(s), that is not to say Wuthering Heights would need to be more low-key. I like the idea of a meet-cute where two people across a room/café/bar hear Wuthering Heights play and either mouth the words or they perform the moves (sat down). There could be some form of chaos or disruption in front of them, yet this song by Kate Bush plays. Something that cuts through the tension and noise. Or it plays after a tense or awful moment. I do think that this song has more life in it! More to give. Not that Kate Bush’s songs need viral moments or featured in films. However, I feel Wuthering Heights does deserve a bigger life. Used in a modern film. So that people realise its power and importance. It is great the song gets played on the radio, yet it would be incredible hearing this song on the big screen. Maybe it would be another time Kate Bush could enjoy this chart resurgence. Not only is this single, released on 20th January, 1978, one of Kate Bush’s best singles. It is one of the greatest songs…
IN music history.