FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed for the cover for The Sensual World single in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Far from the Madding Crowd: Inside a New UNCUT Feature
__________
FOR this Kate Bush feature…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993 whilst filming The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I am looking at the recent UNCUT edition and their spread. They talk about her career and life post-Hounds of Love (1985) as she recorded The Sensual World and then The Red Shoes (1993). I wanted to include some sections and observations from that. It is interesting how the article starts. Written by Nick Hasted, there are some new interviews collated. The articles starts out by saying how Bush was gardening in 1989. Many might be surprised by that. However, Kate Bush was gardening even before that. Before recording Hounds of Love, she did take some time to be with friends, family, her boyfriend; go to films and drive around. I think gardening was in the mix. As recently as 2022, Bush spoke with Emma Barnett for Woman’s Hour and revealed that she is quite into gardening. By 1989, Kate Bush was one of the most successful and acclaimed Pop artists in the world. Even though she was not on the same level as Madonna, say, she was definitely considered to be a genius and innovator. Gardening was a form of decompression. Rather than being immersed in the dizzy rush of recording an album and that demand, gardening perhaps provided some form of relief and focus. It would not be long until the studio called. Bush released Hounds of Love in 1985 and the greatest hits album, The Whole Story, came out in 1986. Singles from Hounds of Love still resonating in 1986. Some of the heat had died away by 1987, though the fact Bush had these massive-selling albums out and there was this sense of adoration, a lot of expectation on the next album. It would be four years between Hounds of Love and The Sensual World. I wonder what would have appeared if she had released an album right after Hounds of Love. Could she have had a necessary revolution and evolution?
Think of an artist like Charli xcx. I think of her as a modern embodiment of Kate Bush. She wrote music for the “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack, and that came out earlier this year. Now, Music, Fashion, Film is out next month. Someone who is always moving and innovating, perhaps Kate Bush could have done something similar in the mid-1980s. In the article, it is mentioned how Madonna’s celebrity in 1986 was greater than Bush’s because of Like a Prayer. I think they mean 1989, as that is when the single and album came out. Though it is interesting to compare the two. In 1985, Kate Bush took Madonna’s Like a Virgin off the top of the album chart in the U.K. In 1989, they were in very different places. Madonna continuing to push the eclipse and growing to new heights of brilliance and celebrity. There were offers from America to tour and do a lot of promotion there, but this was never seriously considered. “I suppose I always thought I’d tour again one day someday and it just didn’t happen. I just went off along the path which led me much more into the studio environment, where I became involved in the production” That is what she told UNCUT’s Andy Gill. Expectations differed when it came to major queens of the U.S. and U.K.. Bush was never going to follow the same path as Madonna. The release of The Sensual World not only saw Bush enter her thirties. There was personal losses and relationships ending. Her mother died in 1992. She lost friends and her relationship with Del Palmer broke down. She quietly married Dan McIntosh in 1992 and they relocated to Berkshire. Bertie, her son, was born in July 1998. I think about The Red Shoes and what Bush was dealing with. Still recovering after the death of her mother, it would have been an impossible time for her. Friend and collaborator Roy Harper said this: “It’s Kate doing what she does, which is running away from the really maddening crowd. She has to protect herself from that. Being in the public eye is like having a grand party going on for 40 years. But how long can that carry on for, how long can you by giddy in other people’s presence?”. Bush had learned, in the words of a standout track from 2005’s Aerial, how to be invisible.
I do like how Bush threw herself into work after the success of Hounds of Love. Even though it was not an instant reveal and it would take until 1989, there was a lot of working happening behind the scenes. Moving to East Wickham Farm and upgrading the studio that was built in 1983. Upgrading the specifications. Not that Hounds of Love was an album completely made up of Western music. Hello Earth from Hounds of Love an example of Kate Bush influenced by music from Eastern Europe. Part of the song was inspired by a beautiful Georgian folk song called Tsintskaro. I do love how the influence of her brothers was still there. The Trio Bulgarka came via Paddy. Kate Bush first heard them in 1985. They were to provide key to The Sensual World and adding a new magic. In October 1988, Bush made her move and called Joe Boyd. He signed the trio to Hannibal Records. In her mind, the trio would travel to London and do a normal session. It didn’t work that way. She would need to go to them. The Trio Bulgarka did not speak English, and it was so remote where they were. Bush was not a great fan of flying, so there were nerves about travelling out there. I think Del Palmer was more nervous and flight-adverse. The Balkans Airlines plane rattled and it as a very tense flight! The image of Kate Bush arriving in Sofia (Bulgaria’s capital) and at one point having to get out and help push the Bulgarians’ car. Quite basic, eventful and rustic. It would have suited a perhaps-reluctant Kate Bush. She brought a ghetto-blaster into an intense two-day preparation. They were in a suburban schoolroom. Joe Boyd recalled how everyone was say at key-shaped desks that they slid into. “Kate’s favourite moment in the whole weekend was when they needed a drone note in this very ancient tradition, and they took it from the telephone dialtone. Kate loved it!”. Bush flew the trio to Angel Studios in London for overdubs. I did not know about the atmosphere when they were recording. Bush and the Trio Bulgarka exchanged gifts. They brought “clothing, dolls and potteries”. Boyd goes on to say that “in the studio, as sweet as she was, she was fierce. It was hot, and the ladies had headdresses and costumes on because they were being filmed”. This was for Rhythms of the World for the BBC. Bush went over and over this one passage. Boyd said “’I don’t think you’re going to get better’. Kate is always smiling. But there was a look: ‘Don’t fuck with me. I’m the producer. Get the fuck out!’.”
There were doubts about the melding of ancient Balkan tradition and 1980s British technology. Bush bringing in synthesisers and the Fairlight CMI. Joe Boyd struggled to get on with her electronic style. He did not see it as a warm or particularly connective. More distant than she hoped, it may have been a reason she revisited The Sensual World for Director’s Cut in 2011. Joe Boyd highlights Rocket’s Tail as an exception. An occasion of the vocals bending magnificently and this power and intensity coming from the song. The way she worked with her musicians changed between albums. A combination of this live sound and overdubs for the first three albums – The Kick Inside (1978), Lionheart (1978) and Never for Ever (1980) -; The Dreaming (1982) found Bush laying down her parts to click or sync tracks before the drummers got there. Bush would then go into the studio and the drummers and players go in one by one. That lack of communication between the musicians. For Rocket’s Tail, as long-time collimator Stuart Elliott recalls: “On ‘Rocket’s Tail’, though, she came into the studio and played the keyboard while I pretended I was Phil Collins for the day”. Bush had this open house policy. The Sensual World saw a variety of eclectic musicians work together. Her studio was top-of-the-range and world-class. However, there were a lot of trial-and-error situations. Some musicians did not make a mark. She worked from early morning to late at night. That routine and regime. Though musicians were not booted out. Alan Stivell was invited to play on The Sensual World. His Renaissance of the Celtic Harp album of 1971 has revived the instrument. He travelled from Brittany to East Wickham Farm. Bush offered to collaborate with Stivell, as she really loved Stivell playing Kimiad with his band on The Old Grey Whistle Test. Bush sings and plays keyboard on the track which she produced. That was a 1993 new version. In 2005, for The Independent, she picked her ten favourite World music tracks. She said this of Kimiad: “I first heard this song through my brother correct John, who is a big fan of Alan Stivell. I love the anthemic quality of this piece and I also love the delicacy of his harp playing with his stirring voice”. The Trio Bulgarka came back for The Red Shoes. Bush held a party at her home and they did a concert in her living room! Even if some musicians did not play a major part in some of her albums, they became part of a wider family. Rather than it being calculated, it was musicians being part of this club. There are tremors and worries about age. The Fog “faced ageing and departure heads on”. Bush told Andy Gill that “I have a theory that in a lot of ways there are still parts of our mental worlds that are based around the age of between five and eight and we just kind of pretend to be grown up. I think our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we’re children, and if we’re lucky enough to be treated reasonably well, and can hang on to who we are, you have that at your core for the rest of your life”. Quite powerful, profound and revealing words from an artist barely in her thirties. The Fog mentions “This love of yours is big enough to be frightened of, it’s deep and dark like the water”. Her father Robert (Dr. Bush) is on that track. On Reaching Out: “See how the child reaches out”. There was doubt, heartbreak, change and growing up. Doomed love and broken relationships on Love and Anger and Never Be Mine. This Woman’s Work about a pregnancy where the baby could die and the father having to step up. All, as UNCUT write, foreshadowing the tale of loss and remembrance, Moments of Pleasure, on The Red Shoes.
I think the period between The Sensual World coming out and her working on The Red Shoes dealt her blows and tragedy. Gary Hurst and Alan Murphy dying. Her mother too. All within a few years of one another. It was the end of an era. A more innocent and protected one. A hole had been blown into her world. However, Bush was not going to be taken down. Her cover of Rocket Man for the 1991 tribute to Elton John and Bernie Taupin, two rooms, was released in late-1991 and reached twelve in the U.K. This Reggae-cum-sea-shanty reworking of the song gave it this buoyance and merriment. Not taking away from the emotional impact of the lyrics, there was levity, experimentation and some playfulness. All these people working on the track and it being a success. All racing to Pinewood Studios to record the video which Bush directed. Bush balancing the palette. Northumbrian Folk musician Alistair Anderson added to the repertoire. The concertina and pipes came from her love of Bert Lloyd and East European Folk music. Bush saw a parallel between someone going to Mars and this lonely planet being talked about in the 1972 Elton John original. Instead, how about someone going off to Australia 130 years earlier and it being a sea song? What is what Anderson notes. A lightness of the recording, in spite of the fact this person is leaving so many people behind. Anderson was another musician retained in her thoughts and circle. He attended a significant birthday of Kate Bush’s and got send Christmas cards for ages. On The Red Shoes, Bush was still throwing herself into everything. Colin Lloyd-Tucker provided backing vocals to The Red Shoes and Constellation of the Heart. He met her first when the KT Bush Band demoed in a Soho studio in 1976. Lloyd-Tucker was working there.
Kate Bush used to live next door to Paddy, and he and Lloyd-Tucker were demoing tracks. She then popped her head in and commented on how their voices melded well. That is how Colin Lloyd-Tucker came to work on The Red Shoes! Sessions at East Wickham Farm would start at 11:30 in the morning and run late into the night. “She already pictured the whole thing in her head”, Lloyd-Tucker remembers. “There’s nothing worse than someone that’s fishing. With Kate, she knew what she was trying to get, and then everybody was working for the same thing. She was very good at expressing….She was a good organiser of people, which is unusual for a musician, and a good motivator”. I will end with recollections from Colin Lloyd-Tucker about some of the anxieties for the sessions on The Red Shoes. “There’s a definite welling of anxiety”. He keenly noted hwo they would be more impactful and powerful of the songs were stripped down. Again, something Bush did for some tracks from that album for 2011’s Director’s Cut. How Llloyd-Tucker met her at Abbey Road Studios, and she was not happy with one of the brass arrangements for a song and that it had not gone how she wanted. The struggles and personal strains and troubles affecting her music and mindset. Even though there was a lot of trouble around The Red Shoes, it is a brilliant album with some great moment. The UNCUT feature optimistically looks to 2005’s Aerial and how The Red Shoes was the last Pop album from Bush. Her son was born in 1998 and there was no happiness and purpose. If things needed to change after Hounds of Love for The Sensual World, it was apparent and more urgent after The Red Shoes. Aerial, perhaps he greatest masterpiece. Full of space, light and air, compared to a more compressed and unnatural The Red Shoes. How Bush released some of her best and most enduring work when she made Aerial, Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow (2011). Roy Harpoer gets the final words: “It’s an object lesson in how to live. I always think of Kate in a good situation. I can’t ever think of her with too much sadness around”. A beautiful way to end a wonderful UNCUT feature. Go and buy a copy if you can so that you can read…
THE whole story.