FEATURE:
In the Warm Rooms
PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Kate Bush: The Private and the Personal
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UNLIKE any other artist…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed on 3rd October, 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Sunday Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images
there has been, Kate Bush seems to straddle the superstar and surreal with the normal and domestic. Touching on this before, it is so hard to remain grounded and private when you are a massive success. Some major artists do love the fame and attention, though most prefer to be left alone and let the music speak. That idea that you have to be flash and out all of the time. For Kate Bush, the ambition was to make music. She did not want to be this megastar and get a load of press attention. Kate Bush is this classic example of someone who definitely can be seen as a major artist but managed to remain humble and private. Some would say hidden. With that, there was a lot of press rumours and intrusion. One of her songs, Mrs. Bartolozzi from 2005’s Aerial, is about a woman who is washing the floor and doing the laundry but is seeing the clothes flap in the breeze and entwine in the washing machine. However, she also seems like this extraordinary and almost filmic character. Bush is no stranger to the finer things in life. She lives in these incredible homes and has definitely indulged in luxury now and then. However, it is the way she conducted her life away from music. The domestic side. I am thinking back to 1983 and how she implemented life changes and had this blissful summer. Moving away from London and to the countryside – her family home in Welling, Kent -, Bush also spent time gardening, hanging with friends and her boyfriend (Del Palmer) and going to films. She built her own studio, took up dance again and prepared one healthy meal a day. Moving to a farmhouse in the Kent countryside in 1983, this was a transformative year. Rather than rehash that old subject about Bush and the domestic, I wanted to tie it to work. How, when Bush was putting her personal life and happiness first, she was very much at her best as a creative.
That may seem obvious. If artists are contended and calm, then that will affect thew quality of their work. Prior to 1983, Bush was moving between studios, working all hours and not living the healthiest life. I feel 1983 was the first time Bush had to concentrate on her personal life, as she was on the promotional treadmill since 1978! However, as someone dedicated to work and always looking at the next album, it was perhaps a sacrifice changing things. I do wonder about London today and the lure for creatives. You have access to venues and a lot of like-minded people. However, how much of a healthy stimulus is the city? Its smog and busyness is not necessarily conducive to better mental health. However, the countryside and quieter areas might not be stimulating enough. With Kate Bush, she did produce a lot of tremendous work when she was working in London. She managed to enjoy downtime and was happy there, though I feel it was when she moved away and bought property away from the capital when she really began to feel settled and had that balance right. When Bush moved to the countryside and spent the summer of 1983 outside of the house, she did confirm she was dating Del Palmer and confirmed that commitment. I think Bush was perhaps happier when the domestic took more of a lead than the professional. Could Kate Bush ever be private and enjoy a normal life?! I feel she can now and, as she does not need to give regular interviews, she can truly be private. However, in the 1980s especially, she was never truly able to escape celebrity and the demands of the industry. The most wonderful moments and images are when you think about Kate Bush enjoying the normal and almost mundane. Her in the garden in 1983 just before Hounds of Love came together. How she and Del would watch Saturday night game shows and how he gifted her with an antique watch on her birthday. The late Del Palmer revealed how there were two sides to Kate Bush. This superstar who was one of the biggest artists in the world; someone who was just Kate around the house and had no airs and graces.
Palmer asked what she saw in him. That was him being modest. Clearly, she wanted someone who was a good influence and understood her. He was a musician and engineer for her for most of her career. Bush was singing, dancing and writing in 1983 and it was that perfect balance of work and home life. Taking her back to 1976 and a happy time then. I feel Bush was also quite settled and domestic around making The Sensual World. Towards the end of the 1980s, maybe Bush feeling she was at a stage in her life when things needed to change. In spite of the fact Kate Bush was able to find a great home and live this relatively normal and happy life away from the spotlight, she was still someone who was being written about and had professional commitments. I am strangely fascinated by the ordinariness of Kate Bush’s life, as she is this extraordinary artist who was very much at the forefront and in the spotlight for such a long time. I love all those minor details and how it has not really been written about enough. All of this harmony and focus on the personal directly feeds into her work. One might feel that too much focus on the private and personal can damage a career. However, a comparative lack of output from Kate Bush from the end of the 1980s through to 2005 was actually beneficial. Rather than produce multiple albums and the quality dipping and her career being affected, Bush was actually ensuring that her career could continue. You look at mainstream artists today and whether they are allowed a balance. Committing so much time to touring, social media and releasing music, they also live in cities and there is perhaps not the opportunity or space to focus on the domestic and their private lives, Putting that first. Few artists have the same flexibility as Kate Bush when it comes to take time between albums. However, there is something about her career that we should apply to modern artists. So much focus on constant output. How healthy is it for artists to be always be working and have to commit so much of themselves to their careers?! Even if some of Kate Bush’s best work came early in her career, I think the importance of her home and what she was doing away from music was essential when it came to her most influential work. The minor and domestic very much influenced and effected the major and commercial. Kate Bush is a major artist who has released some of the greatest albums ever, yet she has also managed to have autonomy and think about her personal life and change things for the better. A big reason to admire and highlight…
A remarkable human.