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It’s Just My Job Five Days a Week
Kate Bush’s Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) at Thirty-Five
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WHILST Kate Bush…
has not appeared on an Elton John album, he has appeared on one of hers. On 21st November, it will be fifteen years since 50 Words for Snow was released. This is her most recent album. John appeared on Snowed in At Wheeler Street. I am writing anniversary features around that album. Elton John has always been a big hero for Kate Bush. Respect both ways. Elton John said how her duet with Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up, was a huge moment for him. In terms of saving his life. That song turned forty in October. All these anniversaries! Bush grew up listening to Elton John and the fact that this major artist was successful and was a piano player. That appealed to her and might have been a reason why her earliest work was piano-led. If Kate Bush never appeared on an Elton John studio album, she did contribute to a tribute album in 1991. Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin saw artists such as Sinéad O'Connor, George Michael, and The Beach Boys cover a classic. As Kate Bush’s take on Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) was released as a single on 25th November, 1991, I wanted to mark thirty-five years. The original appeared on Elton John’s 1972 album, Honky Château. I always thought that Kate Bush directed the video for the single, though Kate Bush Encyclopedia cite Julian Doyle as director. It was always going to be a risk covering a song like this and doing it in a different way. Bush felt attached to Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time), but she took it away from the original. I have mentioned some of these reviews before but, when it came out, there was mixed reaction.
If St. Etienne, reviewing for NME, shat all over it and Melody Maker were cold, there was more positive reception from Billboard. This is what Boston Phoenix said about an inventive and interesting cover: “Kate Bush certainly renders the most imaginative contributions, blending a reggae beat, touches of harp, and uillean pipes… her inimitable siren’s voice arching up like a missile every time she approaches the title”. Perhaps people felt Bush was too quirky here. That it stripped some of the emotion and heaviness from the original. She has huge affection for the song and Elton John, so she did not simply want to repeat what he sung. Also, switching genders too. It gives the song this new twist and dynamic: “She packed my bags last night pre-flight/Zero hour nine a.m./And I’m gonna be high as a kite by then/I miss the earth so much I miss my wife”. Intentional or not, Bush maybe nodding to L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ people. She is an idol in the community. Elton John as a homosexual referring to his wife packing his bags. Maybe not putting himself in the song, you sort of feel like artists for decades had to hide their sexuality. Bush switched things and we do, at least, get this female astronaut ascend to the heavens. Kate Bush’s version got to number twelve. Quite an impressive feat, considering that not everyone loved what she did with the song. I did want to bring some interview archive in. The second interview mentions how Bush directed the video, which I always felt. This was not her randomly choosing an Elton John song. It is one she admired when it came out in 1972. One she bought as a single:
“I was really knocked out to be asked to be involved with this project, because I was such a big fan of Elton’s when I was little. I really loved his stuff. It’s like he’s my biggest hero, really. And when I was just starting to write songs, he was the only songwriter I knew of that played the piano and sang and wrote songs. So he was very much my idol, and one of my favourite songs of his was ‘Rocket Man’. Now, if I had known then that I would have been asked to be involved in this project, I would have just died… They basically said, ‘Would we like to be involved?’ I could choose which track I wanted… ‘Rocket Man’ was my favourite. And I hoped it hadn’t gone, actually – I hoped no one else was going to do it… I actually haven’t heard the original for a very long time. ‘A long, long time’ (laughs). It was just that I wanted to do it differently. I do think that if you cover records, you should try and make them different. It’s like remaking movies: you’ve got to try and give it something that makes it worth re-releasing. And the reggae treatment just seemed to happen, really. I just tried to put the chords together on the piano, and it just seemed to want to take off in the choruses. So we gave it the reggae treatment. It’s even more extraordinary (that the song was a hit) because we actually recorded the track over two years ago. Probably just after my last telly appearance. We were quite astounded when they wanted to release it as a single just recently.
BBC Radio 1 interview, 14 December 1991
I remember buying this when it came out as a single by Elton John. I couldn’t stop playing it – I loved it so much. Most artists in the mid seventies played guitar but Elton played piano and I dreamed of being able to play like him. Years later in 1989, Elton and Bernie Taupin were putting together an album called Two Rooms, which was a collection of cover versions of their songs, each featuring a different singer. To my delight they asked me to be involved and I chose Rocket Man. They gave me complete creative control and although it was a bit daunting to be let loose on one of my favourite tracks ever, it was really exciting. I wanted to make it different from the original and thought it could be fun to turn it into a reggae version. It meant a great deal to me that they chose it to be the first single release from the album.
That meant I also had the chance to direct the video which I loved doing – making it a performance video, shot on black and white film, featuring all the musicians and… the Moon!
Alan Murphy played guitars on the track. He was a truly special musician and a very dear friend. Tragically, he died just before we made the video so he wasn’t able to be there with us but you’ll see his guitar was placed on an empty chair to show he was there in spirit.
I do love how the song has this Reggae vibe to it. Bush also bringing Irish sounds into the mix. I guess that makes sense. She recorded the song in 1989, which was when The Sensual World was released. That album’s title track also featured Irish instruments and I think that she was keen to give this new light to a song that many people might have forgotten about. Concertina played by Alistair Anderson. Uilleann pipes from Davy Spillane. Beyond the album and a live appearance, you do not hear people talk about the song that much. When ranking her twenty-nine singles in 2018, The Guardian placed Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) last: “Few of Kate Bush’s professed influences – David Bowie, Roy Harper, Pink Floyd – are really audible in the music she makes, but she paid homage to her childhood hero Elton John on this cover, a rare misstep that misses the original’s unease in favour of an oddly twee reggae-ish lilt”. I think it is unfair. Whist not perhaps as impactful as the original, I do feel it is a brilliant rendition. The Observer put it inside the top fifty covers of all time in 2009. The song was included on last year’s Best of the Other Sides. Kate Bush recorded a few covers in her career. I do think that Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time) is a brilliant song. One of Elton John’s best. Kate Bush choosing this song when she was part of the star-studded tribute album in 1991. A single that did pretty well but has never received huge critical appreciation, I did want to show some love ahead of its thirty-fifth anniversary on 25th November. A typically unique and interesting take on this established song, what Kate Bush did with this gem is…
FITTINGLY impressive and impassioned.