FEATURE:
Kate Bush: Them Heavy People: The Extraordinary Characters in Her Songs
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow
Rocket (Rocket’s Tail)/Misty (Misty)
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IN future features…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I will explore some real-life characters that have gone into Kate Bush songs. However, there is something unusual about the pairing for this outing. I am teaming an animal influence for Rocket’s Tail from 1989’s The Sensual World with a snowman for Misty. That song appeared on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. Neither are human and both are quite unusual, though it is typical of Kate Bush that she would pull influence from such unusual source. Let’s start out with the central figure from the penultimate song on The Sensual World. In terms of the tracklisting from her sixth studio album, there are a couple of huge songs on each side together with a few deeper cuts. On the first side, we have The Sensual World then Love and Anger. The Fog, Reaching Out and Heads We’re Dancing complete that side. On the second side, there is Deeper Understanding and This Woman’s Work. Whilst the first side puts its two singles as the first and second tracks, the two best-known tracks from the second side are at the top and bottom. I may well feature The Sensual World again for this character-driven series as The Sensual World suggests itself. No named characters, though it does revolve around a woman who breached during pregnancy and the father has to step up and be responsible and strong. Featuring ‘The Father’, I will explore the themes of the song and Bush’s use of birth, life and reproduction through the years. On The Sensual World, there is a mix of deeply emotional, romantic and songs based more in fantasy. Deeper Understanding is a warning about the lure and obsession with technology. Heads We’re Dancing is about a woman who unwittingly is at a dance/dinner back in the 1940s and dances with Hitler. How would you put Hitler into a song and build from that? It is a song that demands discussion.
There are songs that deal more broadly with love and loss. Ones that are about relations. Between a Man and a Woman and Never Be Mine. Even The Fog and Reaching Out are about human psychology and relationships. Reaching Out includes these lines: “See how the child reaches out instinctively/To feel how fire will feel/See how the man reaches out instinctively/For what he cannot have”. The Fog includes these lines: “Just like a feeling that you're sending out/I pick it up/But I can't let you go/If I let you go/You slip into the fog”. Rocket’s Tail seems to be one of the most whimsical songs on The Sensual World. An animal connection. Rocket was the name of a cat Kate Bush had at the time. Immortalised in Rocket’s Tail, the song is actually one of the standouts from The Sensual Word. It is also notable because it features the vocals of the Trio Bulgarka. They also appear on Deeper Understanding and Never Be Mine. For this first half, I will discuss Bush’s connection with them and animals in Kate Bush’s musical world. Rocket’s Tail is also notable because it features David Gilmour on guitar. Bush’s mentor and friend, its central character is one that fascinates me. Let’s lead with some interview archives, where Bush talked about the track:
“Rocket is one of my cats, and he was the inspiration for the subject matter for the song, because he’s dead cute [laughs]. And it’s very strange subject matter because the song isn’t exactly about Rocket, it’s kind of inspired by him and for him, but the song, it’s about anything. I guess it’s saying there’s nothing wrong with being right here at this moment, and just enjoying this moment to its absolute fullest, and if that’s it, that’s ok, you know. And it’s kind of using the idea of a rocket that’s so exciting for maybe 3 seconds and then it’s gone, you know that’s it, but so what, it had 3 seconds of absolutely wonderful… [laughs]
Roger Scott, BBC Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989
“It was a vehicle to get their voices on a track in as dominant a way as possible. So I put this down with a DX7 choir sound so it had this kind of vocal feel. Then we got a drummer in and got this big Rock ‘n’ Roll thing going. Then I got some friends in to hear what it would sound like with big block vocals singing behind my voice, and although they were English people that sing completely differently, it still gave me a sense of vocal intensity. So these two friends must have spent all day trying to sing like Bulgarians. But it was so useful, because there were so many things I immediately understood we couldn’t do, and lots of things it felt like we could do.
So we took it to Bulgaria and started working with this arranger. I told him what I wanted, and he just went off and said “what about this?” and they were great. He kept giving me all these things to choose from, and we worked so well together. It was so good that we decided to hold the drum kit – it was originally starting much earlier in the song. Then we let Dave Gilmour rip on it, so we’d have this really extreme change from just vocals to this hopefully big Rock ‘n’ Roll kit, with bass, and guitar solos.
Tony Horkins, ‘What Katie Did Next’. International Musician, December 1989”.
Soloist Yanka Rupkhina adds something gorgeous to the song. What Bush said about her cute cat inspiring the song, but it was also about that brief excitement and moment of pleasure. One that might then fizzle out. In a way, there is a bit of Kate Bush channelling David Bowie and Elton John. Bush covered Elton John’s Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time) for a 1991 compilation tribute album to him and Bernie Taupin. She was a big fan of David Bowie. Bowie wrote Starman and Space Oddity. Lines in Rocket’s Tail where Bush explores space flight and rockets, albeit one that is London-based and a bit more low-key and less grand: “And, dressed as a rocket on Waterloo Bridge–/Nobody seems to see me/Then, with the fuse in my hand/And now shooting into the night/And still as a rocket/I land in the river”. Even if Rocket the cat does not feature heavily in the song, the delight in seeing the cat’s tail and that excitement the cat gets and the way the tail swishes put Bush in mind of a firework perhaps. These thoughts from a Substack post are interesting:
“I once heard that Rocket was Kate’s cat, but it doesn’t really matter, because it’s such a pretty story. I mean, it MUST be true, right? Anyone who’s seen cat zoomies can attest that they’d shoot across the sky like a meteor if they could, and who better than a cat can demonstrate a tail on fire?
But it seemed to me the saddest thing I'd ever seen
And I thought you were crazy wishing such a thing
I saw only a stick on fire
Alone on its journey
Home to the quickening ground
With no one there to catch it
The poignance of this set of lines blew me away, that where the intrepid cat saw excitement and adventure and the sheer thrill of adrenaline-inducing hijinks, the speaker would see isolation in the vast chill of space”.
There is a lot of interesting takes you can get from Rocket’s Tail. How Bush connected with animals and they have been in her music through the years. Her dogs, Bonnie and Clyde, feature on the cover for Hounds of Love. Little Shrew (Snowflake) used a cute animal as a symbol for something much bigger. Whale song opens Moving. That is the first sound we hear on a Kate Bush album. The heroine dreaming of sheep on one of Hounds of Love’s best songs. A kangaroo mention on The Dreaming’s title track. Percey Edwards impersonating animal noises for that track. Kate Bush using birds and birdsong throughout Aerial. Her own label, Fish People, and how the fish people visuals were a part of her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn. Animals and wildlife a big part of her visual and sonic world. Rocket as the unusual inspiration for Rocket’s Tail. The aspect of Bush embracing international inspiration. The Bulgarian trio that appear on The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. This is what Bush remarked about Stoyanka Boneva, Yanka Rupkina, and Eva Georgieva:
“Suddenly, there I was working with these three ladies from a completely different culture. I’ve never worked with women on such an intense creative level, and it was something strange to feel this very strong female energy in the studio. It was interesting to see the way the men in the studio reacted to this. Instead of just one female, there was a very strong female presence.
Terry Atkinson, The Baffling, Alluring World of Kate Bush, Los Angeles Times, 28 January 1990”.
Kate Bush mixing in the personal and local with the international. Irish music and sounds connected her to her mother and upbringing. Irish musicians and sounds. From 1982’s The Dreaming onwards, Kate Bush brought more influences in that originating from other countries. Malagasy and African music inspire moments on The Red Shoes (1993). Australian Aboriginal music on The Dreaming. Balearic influences on Aerial. The balalaika, a Russian stringed instrument, was part of her incredible and world-hopping instrumental arsenal. Bush looking beyond the human for her song inspiration and beyond the traditional and conventional in terms of the instruments and sonic palette.
The second song, rather than taking the name of a feline and building out, instead features a snowman. The title character in Misty is one that appears very briefly and melts in the morning. In terms of exploring angles in terms of this character study, we could think about the imaginative, filmic and child-like wonder. Misty is an epic track. One of seven on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, it is a story about a woman who spends the night with a snowman and then it melts in the morning. One might think it has Christmas origins. Maybe a more adult version of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman. Instead, this is Bush exploring sensuality and sex in a very different way. Drawing right back to her debut album, 1978’s The Kick Inside, it is this extraordinary artist talking about desire and passion but not doing it in the way her peers do. The Kick Inside mixed gothic romance, romantic fiction-inspired trysts and even an incestuous relationship. 50 Words for Snow longest song is the only one that is strictly about sex and the physical. Elsewhere, Bush explored fifty words for snow, mythical beings, and a ghost in a lake. Actually, Snowed in at Wheeler Street is about lover separated through periods in history. However, there is something magical about Misty. Fantastical and child-like – a woman who built a snowman is like a child getting excited about snow – fuses with something much more grown-up. I also want to discuss that fantast and make-believe element. Bush much more curious about the unexplained and departed. Lake Tahoe about a woman’s ghost. Wild Man about a yeti and this empathetical narrative about a Himalayan creature. Among Angels and its title suggest something heavenly. There is romance and death explored. Love and real longing. I think a lot of parallels with The Kick Inside and what she was covering then. Bush almost going back to her teenager years and debut album. The piano much more a focal point than before. Stepping things back, though giving these longer songs more cinema and grandeur. The longest track Kate Bush has ever released, it is my standout from 50 Words for Snow. This encounter in a 2011 interview is why I love Kate Bush:
“It’s a silly idea. But I hope that what has happened is that there’s almost a sense of tenderness. I think it’s quite a dark song. And so I hope that I’ve made it work. But in a lot of ways it shouldn’t because… It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, the idea of the snowman visiting this woman and climbing into bed with her.
But I took him as a purely symbolic snowman, it was about…
No John, he’s REAL (laughs).
If some perceive Misty to be about this strange sexual encounter, maybe it is about a feverish dream. Bush inhabiting the mind of a child. Rather than an attraction to a snowman, it is bringing something to life. Perhaps trying to connect with something ephemeral and transient: “I turn off the light/Switch on a starry night/My window flies open/My bedroom fills with falling snow/Should be a dream but I’m not sleepy/I see his snowy white face but I’m not afraid/He lies down beside me/So cold next to me/I can feel him melting in my hand”. Misty talks of a window and a ledge. Reminding me of Wuthering Heights from 1978. That ghostly Catherine Earnshaw beckoning Heathcliff to the window. Here, another tale of departure, relates to the disappearance of a once-real snowman: “He must be somewhere/Open window closing/Oh but wait, it’s still snowing/If you’re out there/I’m coming out on the ledge/I’m going out on the ledge”. I wonder where Kate Bush got the name of Misty from. I would love to know more about that. If some people find the song silly and a little insubstantial, it is also fascinating and hugely emotional. This woman who might be lonely and has lost a lover dreams of a night with a snowman. More symbolic than literal, however, there does seem to be remnants of this ‘lover’ on her sheets. Again, maybe more symbolism and imagined than real, the logistics and odd physics of a human-snowman night of passion is humorous and also quite uncomfortable. This article shows some love for a song that is among the most delirious, brilliant, mad and beautiful Kate Bush ever recorded:
“Perhaps the only person in the world who could do it or would do it is Kate Bush, who in her 30+ year career has consistently pushed the boundaries of art and has an affinity for oddball subject matter. A very underrated trait among great artists, especially ones I admire, is the willingness to go through with ideas that seem insane on the surface. As someone who has a lot of half-finished posts sitting in my drafts folder on this blog, I feel a lot of respect towards Bush, who sat down at her piano and hammered this song out because she knew it would be good. I imagine her picking up the phone during the writing process and having to tell whoever called “I can’t speak right now. I’m working on my song about loving a snowman.” She probably put off other real-life responsibilities while writing her snowman song, confident that people would want to listen to it when it was finished. To me, that is pretty much the definition of an artist.
Now, when you read that the song is about falling in love with a snowman, you probably figured “oh, it’s a metaphor for being with a cold, distant lover or something.” Nope. Another reason why this song is great is that Bush attacks the subject matter head-on instead of using bland, figurative language. Above a recurring piano figure, she recounts building the snowman, then how the snowman ends up in her bed.
Unfortunately, like all one-night affairs with snowmen, Bush’s tryst was doomed to end in heartbreak. “I can feel him melting in my hand,” she laments, knowing that you only have a limited amount of time to be with a snowman. At about the 8-minute mark, a guitar and some light strings join the piano as the song picks up in tempo. “I can’t find him… the sheets are soaking,” Bush sings, her voice full of very real yearning. The seriousness with which Bush sings the song is just another way that I think she’s in on the “joke” and is aware of the song’s dark comedy and absurdity.
But even though this song is absurd, it has a genuine emotional impact. Once you let the initial concept sink in (and since the song is so long, it will if you have the patience), it becomes a pretty stirring tale of two star-crossed lovers who obviously can never have a future. She was the good girl from the high-class family who wanted the best things in life. He was three balls of snow stacked on top of each other with a mouth full of dead leaves. You can see why it would never work out”.
I see these lines not about a woman having sex with a snowman. Instead, more metaphor and symbolism. Poetically talking about fleeting or lost love and the memory of someone who was in her life very briefly. This fictional woman perhaps who lost someone dear but still imagines them: “I see his snowy white face but I’m not afraid / he lies down beside me / I can feel him melting in my hand”. In 2011, when Kate Bush was in her fifties, was writing in this way that you would associate with a younger artist. Love and sex less about settling and being comforting. More about electricity and the sensual. However, nobody in music was and is writing about a snowman! In the same way Bush broke ground and wrote about a famous novel for her debut song, over thirty tears later, she was bringing something as unique into Misty. I feel you can look at a song like this and see how it has inspired so many artists today. Pop artists that go beyond the boundaries. The likes of Chappell Roan. You can also feel an influence of Björk. An artist who is influenced by Kate Buh, the fantastical, icy and mysterious reminds me of Björk. Maybe Bush nodding to her. What is most striking about Misty is the sincerity. Bush never laughs or makes light of something as almost absurd as a snowman being brought to life and disappearing. It is oddly moving when you humanise something imagined or inanimate and then it dies. Again, like a children’s story or a fantasy film. So heartfelt and moving, you would feel less upset if a human got up and left the woman alone. A snowman alive that then melts and is gone seems more impactful. That is why Little Shrew (Snowflake) – which is Snowflake from 50 Words for Snow, but given a new lease – uses a shrew and not a human, as the thought of a small animal being in danger gets people more moved than they would be with a human.
50 Words for Snow is so filmic! The seven songs almost like short films in themselves. If Aerial’s cinema explored the skies and a summer’s day; the depths of an ocean and the allure of lover’s on the beach, the colder and more wintery cinema takes us to frozen lakes, snow falling from the sky and a Himalayan creature traipsing through the forest. Misty could be set in an English garden, though it is perhaps the most snow-filled and densest track on 50 Words for Snow. In terms of the atmosphere and visuals, you wonder how the snowman came to life. I do think that the song relates to a dream. However, I also think Misty is one of the most intriguing characters in Kate Bush’s songbook. Someone who has a child and has a husband perhaps not feeling the need to write like someone who was single or in a new relationship. Instead, this flight of fantasy sees her imagine this woman who spends the night with a snowman. You ask why that idea came to her mind and what it represents in a wider sense. If one might feel Misty was motivated by sadness and loss, when Bush spoke with Jamie Cullum in a 50 Words for Snow promotional interview in 2011, he said how Misty was his favourite track from the album. Its sense of imagination:
“JC: You’re a fantastic example of someone who can write within the world of the imagination, that you can go into deeply, kind of, uncharted waters. Is that something that comes, has always come quite naturally to you?
KB: Yeah I think it has, yeah. I think it just seemed to be something that I clicked with at a very early age, and I think also something that’s said a lot is that you have to be miserable to write something that’s good, and I’m not sure about that because I think, from my point of view I think some of my better work has been when I’ve been really happy, I mean, such as ‘Aerial’. I think of that as one of my best pieces of work, and it was very experimental and it was one of the happiest times of my life and I think, you know, that somehow has gone into the music”.
Two very different characters from two albums that share little sonic relationship. One of Kate Bush’s cats was the germ of an idea for Rocket’s Tail. She took that and then went beyond. I see her cat in the song and alongside her, though it is very much about a brief bang and pleasure. Perhaps a lust or spark that is temporary and thrilling but goes so quickly. Bush, in her thirties, exploring womanhood and her life at a stage when she was looking at love in different ways. Perhaps thinking about the future and family. Misty is similar too. However, its characters and inspiration is very much at the centre. However, it too is about this brief pleasure. Rocket’s Tail about heat, fireworks, bangs and colours in the night sky. Misty concerns the white and black. The cold and sombreness of a winter’s night. Less about gunpowder and that residue, sticks, snow and water are on the bed. Rocket’s Tail is this spirited and energised song that is more positive, in spite of its subject matter. Misty much more emotional and soulful. However, both songs very much have a child-like spirit. A silliness and throwaway element that is built into these rich and compelling songs. How Bush can use non-human characters and inspiration to incredible effect. Another reason why this genius is so influential. A songwriter whose pages are filled with these wonderful and diverse characters that…
LINGER in the mind.