FEATURE:
Kate Bush: Something Like a Song
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
Mrs. Bartolozzi (Aerial)
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THIS is a song that I have covered before…
but wanted to revisit here as it is one of my favourites from Kate Bush. Taken from her 2005 double album, Aerial, Mrs Bartolozzi always strikes me as a track that should have been released as a single. It could have had this amazing music video! I am going to go into more depth about this song. I have said how Aerial is an album that is not discussed and explored as much nearly as it should be. I am going to start out with this information from Kate Bush Encyclopedia. We get some interview archive from Kate Bush, where she talks about the inspiration behind Mrs. Bartolozzi:
“Kate about ‘Mrs. Bartolozzi’
Is it about a washing machine? I think it’s a song about Mrs. Bartolozzi. She’s this lady in the song who…does a lot of washing (laughs). It’s not me, but I wouldn’t have written the song if I didn’t spend a lot of time doing washing. But, um, it’s fictitious. I suppose, as soon as you have a child, the washing suddenly increases. And uh, what I like too is that a lot of people think it’s funny. I think that’s great, because I think that actually, it’s one of the heaviest songs I’ve ever written! (laughs)
Clothes are…very interesting things, aren’t they? Because they say such an enormous amount about the person that wears them. They have a little bit of that person all over them, little bits of skin cells and…what you wear says a lot about who you are, and who you think you are…
So I think clothes, in themselves are very interesting. And then it was the idea of this woman, who’s kind of sitting there looking at all the washing going around, and she’s got this new washing machine, and the idea of these clothes, sort of tumbling around in the water, and then the water becomes the sea and the clothes…and the sea…and the washing machine and the kitchen… I just thought it was an interesting idea to play with.
What I wanted to get was the sense of this journey, where you’re sitting in front of this washing machine, and then almost as if in a daydream, you’re suddenly standing in the sea.
Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 1 November 2005
Well, I do do a lot of washing [chuckles]. I’m sure I would never have written the song if I didn’t… You know, just this woman, in her house, with her washing. And then the idea of taking the water in the washing machine with all the clothes, and the water then becoming the sea… and I also think there’s something very interesting about clothes. They’re kind of people without the people in them, if you know what I mean? [Kate laughs] They all have our scent, and pieces of us on them, somehow.
Virtually nothing is written about the song! To be fair, it has never been performed live and did not get a single release. I am not sure whether I have ever heard it on the radio. That is a shame. Even if there is more written about A Coral Room and King of Mountain, there does need to be this focus on Mrs. Bartolozzi. One of the standout tracks from Aerial, I would rank it as one of her best songs. There are a few reasons for it. I think as Aerial as a domestic album. One where new motherhood (her son Bertie was born in 1998) was influencing Kate Bush. Apart from a track like Bertie, you can feel the joy and contentment of new motherhood play right throughout Aerial. The second disc, A Sky of Honey, and that summer’s day in the garden. Her thinking about family and the past on other songs. When it comes to reviews, I have seen some say that it is unique and unusual in a good way. It is distinctly the work of Kate Bush! However, it is different to anything she recorded before. The fourth track on Aerial, I think it is a perfect placement. Coming after Bertie, we get this fantasy. Something domestic but otherworldly. The mundane and ordinary made extraordinary. I always interpret the first verse as Bush casting herself as Mrs. Bartolozzi and talking about her new son (and perhaps her husband., Dan McIntosh) bringing mud into the house: “I remember it was that Wednesday/Oh when it rained and it rained/They traipsed mud all over the house/It took hours and hours to scrub it out/All over the hall carpet/I took my mop and my bucket/And I cleaned and I cleaned/The kitchen floor/Until it sparkled/Then I took my laundry basket/And put all the linen in it/And everything I could fit in it/All our dirty clothes that hadn’t gone into the wash/And all your shirts and jeans and things/And put them in the new washing machine”.
I shall try not to repeat too much of what I have said before. In 2025, almost twenty years since Mrs. Bartolozzi was included on Aerial, we have not really heard another song like it. Bush is masterful when it comes to making something quite everyday come alive. The way she delivers the lines and really immerses herself in the song. When Kate Bush sings about the washing machine and clothes becoming entwined, it becomes sexual. Bush discussing the erotic and sensual away from physical love or something traditional. Clothes in a washing machine. A woman and a snowman in 2011’s Misty. From the first verse about the chore of slopping the mop and cleaning mud that is all over the floor, there is that progress to the cleaning of clothes. Maybe representing a lover who has left or is gone, Bush sees the clothes on the line and imagines someone in them. Or she thinks there is someone there. I do think this is her immersed in a character. Whether it was random selecting the Bartolozzi surname or it was inspired by something, I do hanker to see a video for this! Maybe an animated one or an actress playing the part. As Aerial is twenty in November, it would be amazing if a few commissions went out so that a few tracks not released as single could get videos. Perhaps this, A Coral Room and maybe Aerial. In terms of casting and look, there are all kinds of possibilities for Mrs. Bartolozzi. It is alive with loss, desire, family, home, fantasy and so much more. A track I remember listening to a lot when I first heard Aerial. So moving and evocative. You cannot help but lose yourself in the scenes!
IN THIS PHOTO: Ella Purnell (a potential, fuure Mrs Bartoloizzi?)/PHOTO CREDIT: Ella Purnell
I love the lines “Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy/Get that dirty shirty clean/Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy/Make those cuffs and collars gleam/Everything clean and shiny”. It is cute and almost child-like. Quirky and fun. One of Kate Bush’s strengths is making something familiar and maybe boring and elevating it to almost operatic levels! She produced Aerial and I love her production on Mrs. Bartolozzi! Although there are other players and layers on various tracks, there is something singular and almost sparse about Mrs. Bartolozzi. Just Bush and her piano. I can imagine her recording this in the studio with the late Del Palmer engineering. Perhaps recalling a past autumn day when it was wet and she was at home cleaning. Even if it is not directly inspired by her own life and experiences, I do think that a young child and the domestic responsibilities affected her. It is shocking so little is written about the track. I think I have written more about it then everyone else in the world put together – and then some! I do hope that this song gets more coverage and airplay. Not long until Aerial turns twenty, I am sure people will write about it more. I disagree with anyone who feels Mrs. Bartolozzi is banal and basic. It is a song that nobody else was writing and it has so much in it. In a video, I can imagine a British actor like Michelle Ryan, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ella Purnell or Emilia Clarke playing Mrs Bartolozzi. Maybe having these flashbacks or a past lover. A family dog or child running through the house. Even though a video will never come, it is nice to imagine! An underrated gem from a masterpiece album, Mrs. Bartolozzi is a phenomenal and spellbinding Kate Bush tracks that…
NOBODY else could create.