FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Director’s Cut at Fifteen
Never Be Mine: The Selection Process
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ALTHOUGH we do not have…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for the 2011 album, Director’s Cut
any big anniversaries to celebrate around Kate Bush’s work this year, there are some minor ones. Two of her albums turn fifteen. In November, her most recent studio album, 50 Words for Snow. On 16th May, Director’s Cut is fifteen. This is often so as a lesser work. One that is not essential. However, I do feel like it is an important album that was a definite turning point. The first time Bush had really done this amount of retrospection. The album is comprised of reworked or rerecorded versions of songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. Artists more and more do look back at their albums and rerecord songs. Maybe not as common in 2011, we do hear cases of these major acts combing taking another shot at songs or albums maybe they were not completely happy with. It might seem strange that Kate Bush was unhappy or felt this sense of dissatisfaction with her work. She produced The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, so she would have had control over the sound. However, she did say that you can do the best you can at the time. Certain things out of her control. Maybe feeling overwhelmed by the technology on The Sensual World or finding it hard to follow Hounds of Love, I have always felt the album warm and exceptional. Thought you can sympathise with Bush in the sense it may not have sounded like she imagined. The Red Shoes is edgier and is a bit compressed or artificial. Not as natural or warm-sounding as it could have been. Before she could move on and release new material, there was this lingering sense of rectification. There are a couple of interesting aspects around Director’s Cut. This was the first album since 2005’s Aerial. It was important to Bush that drummer Steve Gadd was at the centre. That his drums would be this new heartbeat. A pacemaker or transplant that would give these previous songs new flow and vitality. As a big fan of his work, getting him on board was a must.
Also, having previously been denied permission from the James Joyce estate for Kate Bush to use the words from Ulysses for the title track for The Sensual World, she did get permission this time. It was about to go out of copyright anyway, so they had this opportunity to make some money whilst they could. A book goes out of copyright seventy years after an author dies. Joyce died on 13th January, 1941, so Bush could have used the words freely if she had waited a little longer. However, now free to use the original text, it did give her this foundation. Many would argue about the track inclusions and which songs could have been included. That selection process is important. I want to source from Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Mica Paris was one of the artists who featured on Director’s Cut. She was sworn to secrecy by Kate Bush. Not wanting anyone to know she was working on something new. Bush is someone who has in years since reproached her work. However, this was the first major overhaul. Maybe feeling some of the aspects of that late-1980s/1990s production was cluttered and overproduced, she wanted something that was perhaps more organic, laidback and expansive. A certain sense of commercial pressure for The Sensual World meant she did not give the songs the consideration or space they needed. Maybe a little burned-out and tired during recording The Red Shoes. Feeling the production had to sound the way it did as the album came out in 1993. Why choose these two albums?! Bush could have gone back and tackled 1978’s Lionheart or even done something different with 1982’s The Dreaming. However, she had this feeling that moments on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes could have been bettered. Many argue that Flower of the Mountain – the new title for the re-worked version of The Sensual World – does not match the original. You can see why Bush wanted to include this song. Graeme Thomson notes how the production sound on these albums was more beholden to the trends of the time. Bush perhaps trapped in that sense. Having regained control and ownership of these albums from EMI – alongside The Dreaming and Hounds of Love -, she had an opportunity to update tracks from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes.
As producer and songwriter, Kate Bush had this authority over her own work. However, there does seem to have been this real sense of creative ‘compromise’ or a feeling of unease between Hounds of Love (1985) and Aerial (2005). The fact songs on The Red Shoes were recorded on digital equipment stripped a degree of warmth and depth to them. It was clear that the majority of songs from Director’s Cut would be from The Red Shoes. There was not this precise process when it came to the tracklisting. Bush did write the first things that came into her head. In terms of the most-streamed songs from Director’s Cut, the top three songs (as of the date I am writing this, 21st February), are This Woman’s Work, Flower of the Mountain and Deeper Understanding. Three songs that originally appeared on The Sensual World. Given that the majority of the songs on Director’s Cut are from The Red Shoes, does this suggest fans still did not love the reworked versions or they felt that these three cuts from The Sensual World were especially exceptional? Perhaps both. Bush transferred all the digital recordings to tape. Removing the original drum parts, vocals and backing. On some songs, instrumental layers were stripped to. She had access to old valve amps and ProTools. There was now this free space to start again and rebuild these tracks. Steve Gadd said how he would come and work for five days or a week each visit (as an American artist, it was perhaps not convenient coming to and for Bush’s home in Theale, Berkshire). It would often be just Kate Bush and Del Palmer in the studio. The late Palmer was Bush’s engineer and musician on many of her albums. He was also in a long-term relationship with her. Bush did struggle at times to get the project to gel.
Almost considering setting the album aside, rather than covering her own songs, she lowered her voice and approached it almost like a live album. Dropping the key was the key to unlocking the potential! Songs like Lily and The Song of Solomon dropped by a semi-tone. Mica Paris, who sung backing vocals on Lily, fondly recalled Bush’s sharing energy and collaborative nature, but also her mastery of the studio. Recording for a day in 2010, it was an intense but fun session. Maybe Bush selected certain songs to re-explore as she felt they were too conventional first time around. Allowing herself to be weird and experimental again, The Song of Solomon, The Red Shoes, Lily and Top of the City seem reborn and revitalised in this new setting. With age, Bush had this new perspective and insight. This Woman’s Work was lengthened and transformed. Graeme Thomson notes how this glacial and ambient version of the song did not try to compete with or replace the original. You feel Bush’s selection was not as random and spontaneous as she revealed. Wanting to take classics and approach them from a new headspace and position in life, she also wanted to take some tracks that were perhaps not reviewed or mentioned when they appeared on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes and give them new life. On songs like Director’s Cut, she wanted to remove the stack of vocals and replace them with a solitary voice (the processed voice of her young son, Bertie, featured on the Director’s Cut version). If not everything worked or matched the original, Bush looking at her legacy and wanting to improve the sound and production on songs she felt lacked something the first time around is commendable. If it is not seen as a favourite album by many Kate Bush fans, I do think that it is important she did this. I would love to think Bush would do something like this again, though I feel there was something about The Sensual World and The Red Shoes that was disappointing or not up to scratch.
I do think there is relevance to a lot of the song selection. A modern take on Deeper Understanding and this idea of people being hooked on computers and addicted to technology. This Woman’s Work given a more mature and older voice really does add new perspective. And So Is Love and Never Be Mine perhaps seen as too negative or downbeat. Bush wanting to spotlight these songs and take them in a slightly new direction. I feel that some of the songs she chose provided an opportunity to take well-known classics and reinvent them. Songs about love, loss and paternal responsibility given new significance and e motional depth so many years after they were first heard. Perhaps The Red Shoes, Lily and Top of the City, in Bush’s mind, lacked a certain spark or energy first time around. The reviews were mixed. Many applauding Bush for undertaking the project and highlighting how she was this innovative and surprising artist. Others felt Director’s Cut was more curio than anything essential or worthy. This is what the BBC noted in their review: “As much as it’s fascinating to hear Bush the Elder look back at Bush the Younger, is the tinkering worth a full album? Yes, because it’s a sign Bush the Artist is still alive (she’s working on new songs too) and Director’s Cut (a less prosaic title would have been nice) is a gorgeous body of work”. That idea of Bush as a woman in her fifties looking back and updating songs she released when she was in her thirties. It is a fascinating album. Bush did say in promotional interviews how some of the songs did not get airing or attention first time around so she wanted to revisit them and give them focus. Transferring things to analogue so they were warmer recordings. Turning fifteen on 16th May, I will write other features around Director’s Cut. I have a lot of respect for Director’s Cut. I do think that some of the originals were great as they are, but the fact Bush wanted to strip them down and do something new with them is commendable. Do not ignore The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, as they are brilliant albums. However, Director’s Cut is this rare occasion of Bush looking back. A bold venture that, whilst not always brilliant, she felt she had to do, I applaud her for that. I think that Director’s Cut is an album that deserves more love and appreciation. Even if you do not like all of the new versions she presented in 2011, there is no arguing against the fact Director’s Cut contains…
MOMENTS of real gold.