FEATURE:
Remembering the Great David Bowie
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Humming: How the Icon Influenced Kate Bush
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ON 10th January…
IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 193/PHOTO CREDIT: Mick Rock
it is ten years since we lost David Bowie. The shock of his death really was savage. Nobody could see it coming. A decade since he died, he is still being talked about as one of the most influential artists ever. She even wrote a song, Humming about him: “‘Humming’ is a song written by Kate Bush. It was recorded as a demo, presumably in 1973. Also known as ‘Maybe’, the song was not released officially, but part of it was played during a radio interview in 1979 with Kate present. In 2018, the track was finally released as part of the Remastered box set, on the album The Other Side 2. The song has been interpreted to be a tribute to David Bowie, after he abruptly announced the ‘retirement’ of his alter ego Ziggy Stardust at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3 July 1973”. At the age of twelve, Bush witnessed one of the most iconic live performances ever. In a future feature, I might discuss Humming and dissect it for my character-led series. The fascination lasted until Bowie’s death in 2016. It is a shame that the two never worked together. There was interaction and this feeling they were on each other’s radars. In a recent feature, I mentioned how David Bowie was on breakfast T.V. in the 1990s admiring some artwork from Kate Bush that was being auctioned off for War Child. Kate Bush lost two music heroes in 2016. Prince died in April. They worked together more than once. However, you can feel David Bowie’s influence. The musical changes and fearlessness. Listening to his music when she was a child, and no doubt owning albums of his and playing them in a music nook and immersing herself in the notes, you can feel Bowie’s impact through Bush’s earliest albums. Many have compared moments on Lodger (1979) to The Dreaming of 1982.
The way Bowie could adopt these alter egos and do something fresh with each album. Step into different genres and create these strange cinematic worlds. This is something that Bush was definitely affected by. In January 2016, Kate Bush and a number of artists reacted to David Bowie’s death. This is what she wrote: “David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him. I’m struck by how the whole country has been flung into mourning and shock. Shock, because someone who had already transcended into immortality could actually die. He was ours. Wonderfully eccentric in a way that only an Englishman could be. Whatever journey his beautiful soul is now on, I hope he can somehow feel how much we all miss him”. As Far Out Magazine wrote in 2007, David Bowie fascinated Kate Bush very early in her life. One particular song that impacted her heavily:
“Bush opened up about Bowie’s impact on her in a 2007 interview. Recounting her experience as one of the fervent, screaming fans at Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ legendary last performance on July 3rd, 1973, she vividly reminisced about that iconic moment while emphasising that her initial encounter with Bowie’s music was truly transformative, on both her personal and professional endeavours
I was sitting in my bath, submerged in bubbles, listening to Radio Luxembourg when I heard David Bowie for the first time,” she said. “‘There’s a starman waiting in the sky’. I thought it was such an interesting song and that he had a really unusual voice. Soon, I was to hear that track everywhere, and Bowie’s music became a part of my life.”
She continued: “Was it Bo-Wie, Bowie or B’wee? Everything about him was intriguing. When I saw him on Top Of The Pops, he was almost insect-like; his clothing was theatrical and bizarre; was that a dress? No one was sure, but my conclusion was that he was quite beautiful. His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the sacred space reserved solely for my greatest love — Elton John.”
Adding: “A fantastic songwriter with a voice to match, Bowie had everything. He was just the right amount of weird, obviously intelligent and, of course, very sexy. Ziggy played guitar. And I was there to see his last show as Ziggy Stardust with The Spiders From Mars. The atmosphere was just so charged that at the end when he cried, we all cried with him”.
Another connection that Kate Bush and David Bowie have is that they were mentored by Lindsay Kemp. Bush studied dance and mime under him. Someone who was definitely influential in terms of Bush’s love of dance and movement, Kemp died in 2018. David Bowie also studied under Kemp. So it is clear that Bush and Bowie has this unknown relationship when she was attending dance classes as a teenager. Even though both artists were individual and innovators in their own way, you know that there was a part of Kate Bush that wanted to work with David Bowie. I wonder if that was ever discussed. You could only imagine what they could have come up with. Though Bush did work with a music idol of hers, Elton John, there are others that have not appeared on her albums. Even Peter Gabriel – who has appeared on his albums – has not been on one of hers. Or Paul McCartney. If Kate Bush does release another album, you would hope that there’d be a collaboration or two. I’d love to hear Bush and McCartney work together. Maybe it would have been difficult coming up with a song for David Bowie. However, that admiration that she had for him was life-long. I’d love to explore more the particular David Bowie albums and songs that you can feel in Kate Bush’s work. Shew showed her admiration for his final album, 2016’s Blackstar. Noting it was one of the best things he has ever done, I do feel like Young Americans might be the one for her. That album was released in 1975, when Bush was sixteen. It was an age when music was particularly impressionable. I feel like this year was important in terms of the artists and sounds that would soon impact her own music. Het first professional recording session was in 1975. David Gilmour paying for her to record at AIR Studios. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here came out in September 1975. It was a massive year.
I sort of look for clues of David Bowie in Kate Bush’s music. I feel like The Saxophone Song (originally called Berlin) from 1978’s The Kick Inside alludes to Bowie. Although it was recorded in 1975, it refers to Berlin and Kate Bush’s heroine being in a Berlin bar. David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy was released between 1977 and 1979. Influencing Bush later in life, I do think a couple of The Kick Inside songs channel David Bowie or nod to him. Maybe the pressure of his legacy and genius would have been too much for Kate Bush. Going back to that 2007 interview with MOJO, when they were celebrating sixty years of David Bowie, she did recall meeting him:
“Working at Abbey Road studios some years later, I popped in to see a friend on another session….I was stopped in my tracks. Standing elegantly poised behind the console was David Bowie. He was lit from above and smoking a cigarette. He said, “Hello Kate.” I froze on the spot and said, “Er…Hello,” and then left the room, caught my breath outside the door and didn’t dare to go back in again. We’ve met many times since then and I don’t have to leave the room any more….or do I?
He’s made all the right moves, each album exploring a new sound, a new way of looking at things, experimental and brave. Starring in The Man Who Fell To Earth made him a successful actor as well. His introduction to The Snowman animation, although brief, made the film more poignant, as if the whole thing somehow belonged to him. I just loved his hilarious Extras cameo, and the quirky Tesla in The Prestige. He is the quintessential artist, always different and ever surprising, an inspiration for us all”.
His theatricality and bravery definitely affected Kate Bush. Making each album very different and itas own thing. You can feel that with Kate Bush. Even though he died a decade ago, that is not to say he is no longer in Kate Bush’s life. His importance will remain with her for the rest of her life. From photoshoots through to various music videos and sounds through some of her albums, you can feel David Bowie in there. There were rumours he was in attendance for her residency, Before the Dawn in 2014, but I don’t think he was. However, you could tell Bowie respected Kate Bush a lot and would have followed her career. From childhood onwards, Kate Bush definitely looked up to…
THE Starman.