FEATURE:
Kate Bush: Something Like a Song
Experiment IV (The Whole Story)
__________
THIS is another song…
that I am compelled to write about after Kate Bush brought out Best of the Other Sides last year. There was fan demand to hear these rarer tracks. The Other Sides was released in 2019, though I think that this compilation was not being made anymore. Or you could not easily get a copy. Honing it down to the essential songs, Experiment IV is one of them. You can get Best of the Other Sides on C.D. and vinyl. I have written about Experiment IV before but, as it is in all its remastered glory and it is available on streaming, then I wanted to reapproach it. Also, this was a single specifically written for her 1986 greatest hits album, The Whole Story. That turns forty on 10th November. Experiment IV was released on 27th October and that was the same day as her duet with Peter Gabriel – from his So album of 1986 -, Don’t Give Up, was released. It was an odd case of Bush being on two very different singles at the same time. Competing with herself! However, Experiment IV reached twenty-three in the U.K., whereas Don’t Give Up reached number nine. In any case, it did mean that, over a year after Hounds of Love came out, Bush was very much still at the forefront. Experiment IV would be her last single for a while. I do think that it is one that needs to be talked about, as you can stream it and it has been remastered. So it is more accessible and sounds better than perhaps it once did. The video is notable because Bush directed it, and it features comedy legends like Hugh Laurie and Dawn French. The late Del Palmer in quite a large role. Bush does appear in the video, but in different forms. As this ghostly figure that is summoned up after the scientists put this new machine into practice. Like something out of a Horror film, it is a startling moment. You can see that one image as Bush appearing as a ghost/demon and it inspiring shows like Stranger Things. We see her terrifying Del Palmer as he is stripped into a chair. She also appears as an army cadet or similar role and enters an office. There is a look to camera as we see that Bush in this form is the demon we saw earlier. The one that was terrifying everyone at this establishment, which we believe is an army base or testing facility. She has assumed this human form and has killed pretty much everyone there. Paddy Bush is seen in the video as a maddened patient in a psychiatric ward who presumingly has been tormented by this Experiment IV. This machine that could produce sound and music that kills. At the end, the action pans to the outside and this deserted area with a few shops muddy fields. A sign gets put up saying ‘Prohibited’ and a van pulls up and collects Kate Bush who opens the door, turns to the camera and puts her finer to lip as to shush us and keep the secret.
Before getting to some reviews and interpretation of the song, it is important to bring in Kate Bush Encyclopedia, as they collated some of the critical reviews for Experiment IV and what Bush posted to her website in 2019 when The Other Sides was out and there was this new interest in Experiment IV. I don’t think critics were expecting another single from Bush. She was still releasing material from Hounds of Love in 1986. The title track in February and The Bug Sky in April. As the Meteorological 12” Mix of The Big Sky is also on the Best of the Other Sides, I might feature that in another feature:
“The first lady of progressive rock warbles out another chilling fantasy. Kate crams more into seven inches of plastic than most science fiction writers could fit into a trilogy of novels. An epic to curl up with on some storm torn winters evening.
Edwin Pouncy, Sounds, 1 November 1986
Behind ethereal dreamy swirls of sound, a story line worthy of Stephen King.
Nancy Erlich, BillBoard (USA), 6 December 1986
This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.
The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine – a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.
We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used – me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft. Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result.
Around the digital release of Best of the Other Sides, Kate Bush shared some memories of particular tracks. Updating what she said in 2019, she discussed Experiment IV and the fact the shoot was not comfortable. You can imagine, given where they were and shooting something quite complex, it threw up plenty of challenges. I do really love the song and think that it has elements of Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel, but this is distinctly from the imagination of Kate Bush. Definitely the video! Cinematic and Horror-nodding, it follows from songs throughout her career where there are evil spirits, ghouls, ghosts and the dark lurking. This deadly experiment idea. I am not sure how she came up with it or whether it was a leftover idea from Hounds of Love that didn’t fit. A half-thought back then:
“This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.
The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine - a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.
We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Rd Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used - me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft.
Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result”.
It would be great to see the video in HD, as it is cinematic and needs to be viewed in the best form. In a year where Hounds of Love was ramping down and Bush was looking to her next album. Experiment IV and The Whole Story was a nice bridge. A chance to collate her hits for fans and ensure that there was this continuing momentum. And new people would have discovered here music. I will end with some thoughts and bring in some lyrics. I want to source one of the few reviews for the epic and majestic Experiment IV:
“In 1986, after years of trying to break Kate Bush in the States with only the minor Top 40 hit “Running Up That Hill” to show for it, EMI decided to capitalize on Kate’s recent success with Hounds of Love in the UK by releasing a best-of, which could also serve as a catch-up primer for the US.Á‚ The Whole Story collected various tracks from Bush’s first five albums, along with a newly recorded version of her first single, “Wuthering Heights,” and one new track which was issued as a single to promote the disc.
“Experiment IV” (download) was a creepy tune that told the story of a top secret military operation where scientists were attempting to create a weapon using only sound. Unfortunately for them, they succeed. The single was accompanied by an equally spooky video that was banned from Top of the Pops, but got plenty of MTV play Stateside.. It also featured Dawn French of French & Saunders and a relative unknown by the name of Hugh Laurie:
While “Experiment IV” did not repeat Bush’s Top 40 success in the States, it did chart nicely in the UK and The Whole Story went on to become her biggest selling album. But can you believe The Whole Story is currently out of print? Neither can I, but that’s what Amazon tells us, although there are plenty of used copies to go around.‚ Highly recommended, even if it’s in serious need of a remastering”.
It is interesting how the B-side for the single release of Experiment IV is the re-recorded vocal for Wuthering Heights. Another ‘new’ inclusion on a greatest hits album, maybe Kate Bush feeling self-conscious about the vocal and how high-pitched it is. I prefer the original always, though I can appreciate she wanted to produce a more mature and deeper vocal for the track. The concept of Experiment IV and its video lends itself to something bigger. I wonder if there is a specific film or show that has done something like this. “They told us/All they wanted/Was a sound that could kill someone/From a distance”. I have had a search around and there is nothing involving a military operation and a machine that could kill by sound. Recent films where making a sound could get you killed, then we have A Quiet Place (2018), which features blind aliens hunting humans by noise. The Silence (2019), where deadly creatures hunt by sound, though it focuses on a hearing-impaired family's survival. Nothing really like Experiment IV. I love the violin from Nigel Kennedy. It is aching, romantic and eerie at the same time. Some brilliant and electrifying guitar from Alan Murphy. Rolling and punchy drums from Stuart Elliott. I am not sure if there is a Fairlight CMI in there and whether that was used for sound effects and replicating certain instruments. Perhaps the best lines from the song are “It could feel like falling in love/It could feel so bad/But it could feel so good/It could sing you to sleep/But that dream is your enemy”. That idea that the sound being produced is seductive and could create all these different feelings. However, not to be lured by it at all, as it is designed to kill. It is a fascinating song from Kate Bush, and I am really glad Experiment IV is on Best of the Other Sides and that it is available to stream too. Anyone who is unaware of this brilliant Kate Bush song needs to…
LISTEN to it now.