FEATURE:
And If You’re Coming, Jump…
Kate Bush’s The Big Sky at Forty
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I have covered…
this track a fair few times through the year, so you will forgive me for repeating myself when it comes to the resources I bring in. In terms of interview archive where Kate Bush talks about the background to The Big Sky. My favourite track from her 1985 album, Hounds of Love, this was a difficult one to put together. Struggling to get it right or form, there was this struggle to get the song made. However, what we have seems effortless and completely natural. Testament to Kate Bush as a producer that she made this song that has no audible cracks, rough edges or sounds like it was pieced together or this mismatch. Arguably her most joyous and jubilant track, it is this child-like sense of wonder that comes through. Maybe people do not herald The Big Sky as much as other songs on Hounds of Love as they do not feel it is as serious or deep. I love everything about The Big Sky. How Bush fought to get this song made and it went through these changes. The composition especially is astonishing. Martin Glover (Youth) providing this wonderful bass part. So funky and pulsating, it gives this racing heartbeat to the song. Charlie Morgan sounding epic on the drums! Del Palmer and Charlie Morgan on handclaps. Paddy Bush is in the mix on the didgeridoo. Morris Pert providing some percussion, alongside Alan Murphy on guitars. There is a reason for coming back to The Big Sky. The fourth single released from Hounds of Love, it came out on 21st April, 1986. Marking forty years of the final single from her masterpiece. It reached thirty-seven in the U.K. It went to fifteen in Ireland. That is interesting, as Bush does mention Ireland in a lyric (a cloud that resembles the country). I am always surprised The Big Sky was not a top twenty. It is a song that has a commercial and accessible feel yet it is unmistakable distinct from anything that was out in 1986. This was the same sort of time as singles like Peter’s Gabriel’s Sledgehammer and Madonna’s Papa Don’t Preach (which came out in June 1986). It was an exciting time for music. Maybe people bought Hounds of Love so did not want to purchase The Big Sky separately.
I do feel that this classic track should get some new attention and admiration on its fortieth anniversary. Before I continue on, it is helpful to get some context from Kate Bush. How this difficult song started life and what Bush had to do to make it work. It is to the Kate Bush Encyclopedia for that invaluable information:
“Someone sitting looking at the sky, watching the clouds change. I used to do this a lot as a child, just watching the clouds go into different shapes. I think we forget these pleasures as adults. We don’t get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them; we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood – how perhaps the “fools on the hills” will be the wise ones. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)
‘The Big Sky’ was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I’m writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)”.
One of my favourite details is that Kate Bush directed the video for The Big Sky. This was not her debut directional outing. She had assisted and co-directed videos prior to Hounds of Love. However, on an album where she was very happy and wanted to go into directing and have more say on her visuals, the title track was the first she directed. That was the third single from the album. After Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Cloudbusting came out, with Bush watching the directors and learning, she stepped out as a director. I love what she did for The Big Sky!
There is some debate as to whether The Big Sky came out on 21st or 28th April, 1986. I am taking the date from Music Week and their edition from 19th April, 1986. They selected new singles coming out that week. Recorded at Wickham Farm Home Studios (Welling, England) and Windmill Lane Studios (Dublin, Ireland), critics were positive towards the song. As I have written before, Sounds declared that The Big Sky was a “moment of real, mad bravado" and "the best and most threatening thing this bizarre talent has ever done”. The video is something that charms me every time! Bush in all these different outfits. This mad editing that cuts between all these seemingly random scenes. It is a kaleidoscope and smorgasbord of fascinating characters, colours and imaginative visions. After the video for Hounds of Love, which was perhaps more grounded and had a different feel (and was partly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps), this was a chance for Bush to go sillier and bigger. Spending five weeks in the U.K. charts, most people will not realise that the B-side was Not This Time. An underrated and almost known track, it is important in the sense that The Big Sky was the final single from Hounds of Love. Not that Bush would leave a big gap until her next single came out. I will highlight it closer to the time but, later in 1986, she put out the greatest hits album, The Whole Story. Experiment IV was a new single she included on that. It was a hectic time for her. 1985-1986 saw her do so much promotion and put out arguably her most enduring videos. Even if The Big Sky does not get mentioned in the same breath as Cloudbusting and Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), I feel it is worthy of discussion. Highlight scenes from the video.
I love how Del Palmer features in it as an army major. Paddy Bush is in there too. We see finished videos but do not really know what it was like on set. Unique in terms of how fans were allowed access, the Kate Bush Encyclopedia also reveal how a select group of lucky fans were given the chance to be extras on the video: “The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the ‘crowd scenes’. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted”. At such an epic filming location, I wonder how quickly the video came together. It is like a film in a way. The scale and characters in the video. Bush speaking with her crew to make sure she got the right shots. Those fans maybe having to wait around for a while, but having this extraordinary and memorable day! Filmed so close to the single release, this was a hard song to visualise, I am sure. You listen to Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love and there are more obvious synopsises. However, The Big Sky’s video could have been as troublesome as he song itself! Bush could have got another director to work on it. However, she cleared had a vision for this single and executed it brilliantly! I do feel that The Big Sky is the standout track from Hounds of Love. It is a song that I never tire of hearing. As it turns forty on 21st April, I did want to come back to it. Not many people have written about the song. It is one of Kate Bush’s best. So delightful and delighted, you can feel this audible sunshine and smile. Even if it was a pain in the studio and almost didn’t happen, the finished version is exceptional. I did mention in a recent feature how The Meteorological Mix featured on Best of the Other Sides. Kate Bush loved listening to the mix and picking up new things. A real headrush of a track, The Big Sky is…
PURE sunshine.