FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Wordless Wonder
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush circa 1980
The Curious and Brilliant Night Scented Stock
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I have talked about this song before…
but, when you think about, there is not much you can say about the actual piece itself. It is a beautiful wordless segue that appears on Kate Bush’s third studio album, Never for Ever. The reason I want to spend more time with this song is it was a bit of a one-off. Many artists today do skits and have short tracks on albums. Whether they call it a mixtape of you get these short interludes that break up the tracks, how common was it in Pop in the 1980s? Kate Bush was never going to be an artist who was doing spoken interludes or skits between songs. There are incidences where there are shorter tracks. Think about 2005’s Aerial. That is a double album. On the second disc, A Sky of Honey, there is a song called Aerial Tal. That is basically a minute-long song where Bush mimics birdsong. Singing along delightfully, it comes between Sunset and Somewhere in Between. Those tracks are almost six minutes so, rather than have them side by side and it being quite heavy perhaps, she thought of inserting this little break of light. Though I think Aerial Tal naturally fits into this native of a summer’s day unfolding. Most artists would not include a short track like Aerial Tal. It allowed Bush to do something different. Giving that moment of brief brilliance in between two songs. A sort of bridge and maybe giving some room for breath. Sunset is this passionate and energetic track. It is quite epic and, as the title implies, the end of the day. Aerial Tal is this new dawn and awakening. Bush could have added birdsong to the start of Somewhere in Between or not done it at all. I also feel like it was a way of enriching tracks either side of it. I feel Aerial Tal adds something to Sunset and Somewhere in Between. Somehow makes those tracks weightier or gives them new light.
For Never for Ever, you could see why Night Scented Stock followed The Infant Kiss and came before Army Dreamers. Both those tracks are quarte heavy in their own way. The Infant Kiss has this darker and sinister edge. Some might say sworded or perverse. Speaking with Paul Gambaccini in December 1980, Bush said this: “It was based on the film, The Innocents. I saw it years ago, when I was very young, and it scared me, and when films scare you as a kid, I think they really hang there. It’s a beautiful film, quite extraordinary. This governess is supposed to look after these children, a little boy and a girl, and they are actually possessed by the spirits of the people who were in the house before. And they keep appearing to the children. It’s really scary – as scary on some levels as the idea of The Exorcist, and that terrified me. The idea of this young girl, speaking and behaving like she did was very disturbing, very distorted. But I quite like that song”. Army Dreamers is bouncier in tone, though it is a song about young men going to war. The futility of it. How they never grow up and lives are wasted. Each song packs a punch. Not only might it psychologically be a lot to hear those songs together, Breathing ends Never for Ever. The heaviest Kate Bush song to that point, it is this 5:30 track that is symphonic in a way. But that is dealing with nuclear fallout and is quite horrifying. Violin comes before The Infant Kiss. That is almost Punk-like. Bush’s voice raw and wild. So there did need to be something in the middle of all of this. Babooshka opens Never for Ever, and that song is quite charged and has an energy to it. But there are four songs after that – Delius (Song of Summer), Blow Away (For Bill), All We Ever Look For, and Egypt – that are more mellow. The Wedding List comes next, so really, if it were not for Night Scented Stock, there would be five tracks that all are quite powerful and have this force to them. I am not sure how far into the recording she thought of Night Scented Stock.
You listen to this song, all fifty-two seconds of it, and want more at the end. I would love to have heard it expand and open more. Take it to ninety seconds or longer. What we do get is this change of tone. If Aerial Tal is the light of a new day or going from sunset to the call of birdsong, Night Scented Stock does not so much as represent a change of time or light level. I think it is more of a psychological thing. Bringing something beautiful to the mix between songs that are a bit tenser and have an emotional punch. I am keeping track of Spectrum Culture and their incredible Kate Bush song ranking. They are providing a detailed look at 146 songs. This includes covers and collaborations where she is a featured vocalist. Night Scented Stock was never going to rank too high. I would be interested to say what Spectrum Culture say of Aerial Tal. That song wont rank high either. But Night Scented Stock was the first occasions where Bush recorded a short track to provide a bridge or rest. I can’t think if she did it again. You would have thought The Dreaming could have benefited from a Night Scented Stock-like song. Maybe coming after All the Love and before the final two tracks, Houdini and Get Out of My House. Or even after Get Out of My House. Ending on something sweeter and calmer, as that final track s absolutely brutal! Perhaps it would take something away from The Dreaming; Night Scented Stock definitely adds to Never for Ever. This is what Spectrum Culture said of a song they ranked at 129:
“It’s probably unfair to judge “Night Scented Stock” by the standards of a song meant to stand on its own. A lyric-free vocal exercise consisting of Bush’s multi-tracked harmonies, “Night Scented Stock” doesn’t even last a minute. As an interlude, it’s just about perfect, its cloistral reverb and Benedictine-monk intonations summoning a cleansing, meditative atmosphere that nonetheless contains a flicker of tension. The overheated drama of the song that precedes it, “The Infant Kiss,” is washed away, and the stage is set for the nervy narrative waltz of the following track, “Army Dreamers.” With a melodic resemblance to “Blow Away (For Bill)” from earlier in the album, it carries a hint of the familiar, presented in a fresh, intriguing manner. Though brief and sparse—besides the drone of a violin that appears in the beginning, Bush’s octave-spanning vocal parts make up the entire palette—it makes a big impression. Most of that’s due to the surprisingly authentic way in which Bush and producer Jon Kelly capture the polyphonic serenity of choral plainsong mixed with the modern edge given to the form by composers like Benjamin Britten, to whom the faint, growing dissonance in the highest vocal part of the song’s middle section owes a clear debt. The biggest flaw of “Night Scented Stock” might just be that it leaves you wanting more of it. – Reed Jackson”.
Given how Night Scented Stock could have been forgotten and not seen as essential, people have written about it. Rather than this brief and forgettable thing, there is some real substance to Night Scented Stock. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios in 1980, this song has function. Adding words to the song could have taken something away. Night Scented Stock says so much without words. This is what Dreams of Orgonon wrote in 2020: “Drifting towards a global denouement, “Never for Ever” unites its two halves with “Night Scented Stock.” Atavistic echoes of “Blow Away (For Bill)” echo through its not-even-minute-long lifespan; ephemeral reminders of the past foreboding the impact of the past’s deceased artists on the music of the presents. There’s no longer a rockist tribute to Moonie: Billie and Buddy have become spectres of Bush’s past in pop music. They’re no longer symptoms of the death of American popular music; now they’re signs of what’s to come. An eternalist proposition stated without a word”. This is a song that will never be played on the radio. Not many will discuss it isolation. I think it works on its own, thought it is most affecting when you listen to it as part of Never for Ever. More context. You realise how important and substantial Night Scented Stock is. Out of the eleven tracks on that album, Night Scented Stock is the tenth-most-streamed song on Spotify (ahead of The Infant Kiss). It has over three-million streams. That leads me to believe it is being heard as people listen to the entire album, rather than specifically people picking this one track to listen on its own. It is this beautiful piece of work that deserves more words said about it. Great that Spectrum Culture had kind things to say about it – even if they ranked it low in Bush’s discography. The sublime Night Scented Stock is a thing…
OF breathless beauty.