FEATURE:
Our Arrows of Desire Rewrite the Speech
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s The Sensual World at Thirty-Six
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I will celebrate…
the album of the same name on 16th October. The Sensual World is the sixth studio album from Kate Bush. Coming four years after Hounds of Love, there was this expectation and anticipation. The lead single from it was the incredible title track. Released on 18th September, 1989, it reached number twelve in the U.K. I have covered the song quite a bit in the past, so I shall try to not repeat too much of what came before. People might not commemorate the single this year as its anniversary comes two days after the fortieth anniversary of Hounds of Love. I am going to spend some time with The Sensual World. As I have mentioned before, there is a long history to The Sensual World’s title track. Originally, Kate Bush wanted to take words from James Joyce’s Ulysses. Molly Bloom’s impassioned soliloquy. However, she weas refused permission. It was not until 2011, when she released Director’s Cut and renamed the song Flower of the Mountain, that these classic words finally appeared. I think that the original is best. Bush’s own words. The Sensual World was a hugely important single. She had released Experiment IV (in 1986) from her greatest hits album, The Whole Story. However, this was from a new studio album. Fans not sure what direction Kate Bush would take after Hounds of Love. There is a fair bit written about The Sensual World. It is amazing song that is so seductive and beautiful. Kate Bush spoke about this gorgeous song in 1989:
“The song is about someone from a book who steps out from this very black and white 2-D world into the real world. The immediate impressions was the sensuality of this world – the fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual – you know… the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand – the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that’s an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. But I’m sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing. (…) I love the sound of church bells. I think they are extraordinary – such a sound of celebration. The bells were put there because originally the lyrics of the song were taken from the bookUlyssesby James Joyce, the words at the end of the book by Molly Bloom, but we couldn’t get permission to use the words. I tried for a long time – probably about a year – and they wouldn’t let me use them, so I had to create something that sounded like those original word, had the same rhythm, the same kind of feel but obviously not being able to use them. It all kind of turned in to a pastiche of it and that’s why the book character, Molly Bloom, then steps out into the real world and becomes one of us.
Kerrang! were positive towards The Sensual World. This is what they noted: “She sings of a deep sensuality that ensures that I have to wear baggy trousers when I dance. Beautiful, warm, and ever-lasting”. Because The Sensual World was updated in 2011 and given a new title, there is this evolution. I am glad that Kate Bush got permission to use text from Ulysses. However, her own poetry stands out more. With Charlie Morgan on drums, Del Palmer on bass, Davy Spillane on uillean pipes, Dónal Lunny on bouzouki, John Shehan on fiddle and Paddy Bush on whips, there is this phenomenal sound. Irish instruments connecting to Ulysses. Irish instrumentation appeared on Hounds of Love. I think The Sensual World is the last song that it featured prominently. I am going to move on in a bit. However, I want to revisit an interview that appeared in NME. Len Brown spoke with Bush about her new album. Bush provided a guide to the tracks and her insightrs. It is interesting what she says about the stuinningly beautiful and sensual title track. One that still sends shivers nearly thirty-six years after its release:
"Because I couldn’t get permission to use a piece of Joyce it gradually turned into the songs about Molly Bloom the character stepping out of the book, into the real world and the impressions of sensuality," says Kate, softly, almost childlike. "Rather than being in this two dimensional world, she’s free, let loose to touch things, feel the ground under her feet, the sunsets, just how incredibly sensual a world it is.
"I originally heard the piece read by Siobhan McKenna years ago and I thought ‘My God! This is extraordinary, what a piece of writing!’ it’s a very unusual train of thought, very attractive. First I got the "mmh yes" and that made me think of Molly Bloom’s speech, and we had this piece of music in the studio already so it came together really quickly. Then, because I couldn’t get permission to use Joyce, it took another year changing it to what it is now. Typical innit!"
The result is extraordinarily sensual mouth music, far removed from the cod-pieced crassness that usually passes from physical love songs: "And at first with the charm around him, mmh yes / he loosened it so if it slipped between my breasts / He’d rescue it, mmh yes".
"In the original piece it’s just ‘Yes!" – a very interesting way of leading you in, it pulls you into the piece by the continual acceptance of all these sensual things. ‘Ooh wonderful!’ I was thinking I’d never write anything as obviously sensual as the original piece but when I had to rewrite the words I was trapped.
"How could you recreate that mood without going into that level of sensuality? So there I was writing stuff that months before I’d said I’d never write," she laughs. "I have to think of it in terms of pastiche and not that it’s me so much."
Having begun her career on The Kick Insider singing lines like, "Oh I need it oh oh feel it feel it my love" and "feeling of sticky love inside", and then gone on inLionheart to write a lyric like "the more I think of sex the better it gets", her reluctance to get too sensual, too fruity a decade later may seem a little strange.
But as Bush has increasingly gained control over the presentation of her music and her image during this period, stepping back from early marketing attempts to titillate (God, how they worked!) these reservations are understandable.
She claims The Sensual World contains the most "positive female energy" in her work to date and compositions like ‘This Woman’s Work’ tend to enforce that idea.
"I think it’s to do with me coming to terms with myself on different levels. In some ways, like on Hounds of Love, it was important for me to get across the sense of power in the songs that I’d associated with male energy and music. But I didn’t feel that this time and I was very much wanting to express myself as a woman in my music rather than as a woman wanting to sound as powerful as a man.
"And definitely ‘The Sensual World’, the track, was very much a female track for me. I felt it was a really new expression, feeling good about being a woman musically."
But isn’t it odd that this feminist or feminine perspective should have been inspired by a man, Joyce?
"Yes, in some ways but it’s also the idea of Molly escaping from the author, out into the real world, being this real human rather than the character, stepping out of the page into the sensual world."
So is this concept of sensuality the most important thing to you at the moment, is it one of the life forces?
"Yes, it’s about contact with humans, it could all come down to the sensual level. Touch? Yes, even if it’s not physical touch, reaching out and touching people by moving them. I think it’s a very striking part of this planet, the fact there is so much for us to enjoy. The whole of nature is really designed for everything to have a good time doing what they should be doing…
"Fancy being a bee, leading an incredible existence, all these flowers designed just for you, flying into the runway, incredible colours, some trip…"
Mmh, buzz.
Many mumbles have breathed their last since Kate Bush first arrived on our screens, flouncing about in dry ice and funeral shroud, oddly crowing ‘Wuthering Heights’; obviously different and apart from any musical movement before or since. But whereas the all-conquering, universally acclaimed Hounds Of Love affair at least slotted into the-then pop world, The Sensual World is clearly even more out of step with the current piss poor post-SAW scene.
Probably because it’s got a slightly ethnic feel, founded on Kate’s use of Irish and Bulgarian musics and musicians in the creative process. Perhaps because she’s been free from pop for so long. Maybe because she’s crossed the threshold of 30?
"God! Yes, I’m sure it’s all tied in with it," she laughs. "I think it’s a very important time from 28 to 32-ish, where there’s some kind of turning point. Someone said in your teens you get the physical puberty and between 28 and 32 mental puberty. Let’s fact it, you’ve got to start growing up when you’re 30, it does make you feel differently, I feel very positive having gone through the last couple of years”.
I will wrap up soon. One reason why I want to highlight this piece from Kate Bush News from 2016 (actually, it was them re-publishing a piece they wrote years earlier) is because I learn new things about The Sensual World. Including how Paddy Bush was incorrectly credited as playing ‘whips’ on the song. Also, learning how Bush felt about being denied permission by the James Joyce estate to use text from Ulysses. She discussed that quite a bit and, with each answer, you can hear the frustration:
“The music was recorded at Windmill Lane studios in Dublin, arranged by Bill Whelan. The featured players were Davey Spillane on uilleann pipes, Donal Lunny on bouzuki, John Sheahan on fiddle, Charlie Morgan on drums and Del Palmer on bass. Kate’s brother Paddy would be credited on the sleeve-notes with playing ‘whips’ on the record, an error he quickly rectified. “I’m actually playing a pair of fishing rods. I wanted to get the impression of a beautiful Irish lakeland and the swishing sound of the rods should conjure the atmosphere of fly-fishing, tweed hats and long Wellingtons.”
Kate’s good cheer at this progress was short-lived however. The Joyce estate would not grant her permission to use the words directly from the book. Attempts to change their minds continued for about a year. “We approached the relevant people and they just would not let me use them. No way. I tried everything. Obviously, I was very disappointed. It was completely their prerogative, but it was very difficult for me, then, to re-approach the song. In some ways I wanted to just leave it off the album. But we’d put a lot of work into it. The Irish musicians had worked so hard.”
Despite this frustration Kate set about completely transforming her song. “I gradually rewrote it, keeping the same rhythm of the words and the same sounds but turning it into its own story.” The piece, now titled The Sensual World, became about Molly Bloom the character stepping out of the book world, a black and white two-dimensional world, into the real world. “The immediate impression was the sensuality of this world. The fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual – the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand, the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that is an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. I’m sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing.” Later in her career Kate returned to this theme, a euphoric appreciation of everyday experience, on her ‘Aerial’ album in 2005 to huge critical acclaim.
The song opens with the sound of church bells, perhaps echoing Leopold’s proposal to Molly on Howth Head. “I’ve got a thing about the sound of bells. It’s one of those fantastic sounds: a sound of celebration. They’re used to mark points in life; births, weddings, deaths, but they give this tremendous feeling of celebration. In the original speech Molly’s talking of the time when Leopold proposed to her, and I just had the image of bells, this image of them sitting on the hillside with the sound of bells in the distance. In hindsight I also think it’s a lovely way to start an album. A feeling of celebration that puts me on a hillside somewhere on a sunny afternoon.”
A piece of traditional Macedonian music (called ‘Antice’) was re-worked to fit the ‘stepping out…’ chorus in the song’s new structure. The song would become the lead single for her new album, also titled ‘The Sensual World’. The accompanying promotional video had Kate, swathed in a velvet gown, dancing hypnotically through woodland as the sunlight turns to dusk, moonlight and back to sunrise again. In interviews in the autumn of 1989 Kate explained that the song and album contained the most positive female energy of her work to date.
“In some ways, like on Hounds Of Love, it was important for me to get across the sense of power in the songs that I’d associated with male energy and music. I didn’t feel that this time. I wanted to express myself as a woman in my music, rather than as a woman wanting to sound as powerful as a man. And definitely the song The Sensual World was very much a female track for me. I felt it was a really new expression, feeling good about being a woman musically”.
Even if Hounds of Love’s fortieth anniversary on 16th September will capture a lot of people’s attention, two days later, The Sensual World turns thirty-six. It is important to mark the anniversary of this song. Such a bewitching song that you immerse yourself in, I love everything about it. The B-side, Walk Straight Down the Middle. The video, which Bush co-directed with The Comic Strip co-creator Peter Richardson, and the fact it did get reworked in 2011 for Director’s Cut. However, to me, the 1989 original version is…
IMPOSSIBLE to better.