FEATURE:
It's a Mistake in the Making…
Kate Bush’s Experiment IV at Forty
__________
I will be repeating…
myself a little for this feature, as I have written about Experiment IV a few times previously. However, as it turns forty on 27th October. It is a little way off still, but it is a big anniversary. It will not get the same attention and focus as Hounds of Love did last year for its fortieth. Experiment IV is a unique single for Kate Bush as it was added to her greatest hits album, The Whole Story. We celebrate its fortieth in November. Most artists who release a greatest hits album put in a new track. It is quite odd I guess, as it is not one of their ‘greatest hits’, though it allows an opportunity to pop in a song that may not have fitted on an album or was written between two albums and has a place to go. Blur put Music Is My Radar on their greatest hits collection in 2000. It came the year after 13, and a few years before Think Tank. For Kate Bush, perhaps Experiment IV was something she could not fit on Hounds of Love (or was not written at that point) and it had nowhere else to go. Many feel the song is nothing more than a filler or not Kate Bush cannon. I feel it is far stronger than that. We have aspects of suspense and horror working through a song whose video is pretty intense. I will come to that. Experiment IV charted simultaneously with her duet with Peter Gabriel, Don’t Give Up. That reached number one in the U.K., whereas Experiment IV got to twenty-three. Not too bad considering that she had all this momentum with Hounds of Love and this single arrived after that period. Fans still eager to hear new Kate Bush music. The Whole Story was a major success and went to number one. I shall bring in other features about it. This is what Kate Bush said about Experiment IV in 2019
“This was written as an extra track for the compilation album The Whole Story and was released as the single. I was excited at the opportunity of directing the video and not having to appear in it other than in a minor role, especially as this song told a story that could be challenging to tell visually. I chose to film it in a very handsome old military hospital that was derelict at the time. It was a huge, labyrinthine hospital with incredibly long corridors, which was one reason for choosing it. Florence Nightingale had been involved in the design of the hospital. Not something she is well known for but she actually had a huge impact on hospital design that was pioneering and changed the way hospitals were designed from then on.
The video was an intense project and not a comfortable shoot, as you can imagine – a giant of a building, damp and full of shadows with no lighting or heating but it was like a dream to work with such a talented crew and cast with Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Peter Vaughn and Richard Vernon in the starring roles. It was a strange and eerie feeling bringing parts of the hospital to life again. Not long after our work there it was converted into luxury apartments. I can imagine that some of those glamorous rooms have uninvited soldiers and nurses dropping by for a cup of tea and a Hobnob.
We had to create a recording studio for the video, so tape machines and outboard gear were recruited from my recording studio and the mixing console was very kindly lent to us by Abbey Road Studios. It was the desk the Beatles had used – me too, when we’d made the album Never For Ever in Studio Two. It was such a characterful desk that would’ve looked right at home in any vintage aircraft. Although it was a tough shoot it was a lot of fun and everyone worked so hard for such long hours. I was really pleased with the result.
It does not rank too highly among her singles. I shall come to a feature from The Guardian, where they ranked her singles to show what they said about Experiment IV. There were some kind and perceptive reviews in 1986. This is what Edwin Pouncy wrote for Sounds: “The first lady of progressive rock warbles out another chilling fantasy. Kate crams more into seven inches of plastic than most science fiction writers could fit into a trilogy of novels. An epic to curl up with on some storm torn winters evening”. Kate Bush directed the video and many have compared it to Stranger Things. Bush’s Running Up That Hil (A Deal with God) appeared on that show in 2022. Maybe the Duffer brothers got some inspiration from Experiment IV’s video, which chronicles the destruction of a secret military installation by a creature made of sound. It features cameos by, among others, Dawn French and Hugh Laurie. Bush a huge fan of comedy, bringing together some heavyweight British comedic talent. Top of the Pops banned the video as it was seen as too violent and scary. Quite ordinary today, sensibilities were more delicate in 1986! Kate Bush’s then-twenty-nine singles were ranked in 2019 by The Guardian. They placed Experiment IV at twenty-one: “It’s tempting to see Experiment IV’s lyric – about scientists impelled to make a lethal sonic weapon – as a kind of allegory for Bush’s perfectionist approach to recording and belief in music’s power. Either way, it’s a more direct and undemanding piece of music than her preceding singles, from Hounds of Love, its mid-80s sound more dated”. Not too much has been written about Experiment IV, so forgive repetition and bringing in stuff that you may already know! Kate Bush explored Horror right though her work. One could argue her debut single, Wuthering Heights (1978), is Horror in the way she depicts Catherine Earnshaw and he ghost trying to grab Heathcliff. Her most recent single, Little Shrew (Snowflake), deals with the horror of warfare, but there is a connection. So many of her songs explore suspense and Horror. The dark and unnerving. I do want to revisit this piece from last year that took us inside Experiment IV:
“Bush herself directed the video in which she stars as the apparition conjured by the strange experiment: at first a beautiful siren, then a monstrous banshee. The screams of this creation - signified by the piercing violin - immediately fry the brain of the unlucky test-subject, and the monster then breaks out and pursues the scientists themselves. The result was ‘too violent’ for Top of the Pops who refused to air it, which is a shame because this is essentially Kate Bush’s own mini horror film, and although it’s got a DIY B movie feel, it’s making an important point about the capacity of humans to turn things ‘made for pleasure’ into weapons capable of great harm.
This is very much a songwriter’s version of a dystopian nightmare and there’s a sense of sacrilege in the idea that the monster was composed from sampled sounds:
From the painful cry of mothers,
To the terrifying scream,
We recorded it and put it into our machine.
There are some wonderful details in the video. I love how Dawn French’s lab assistant character brings her boss a cup of tea as they prepare to record the sounds of suffering and insanity. Both she and her supervisor, the elderly man we saw at the start, (Richard Vernon) are framed as conflicted participants, like the real-world scientists who have come to regret their role in the development of new weapons. Just sip this tea, they seem to be telling each other, it’ll all be okay, won’t it?
By the end of the music video, bodies line the corridors of this secret institution. The creature is indiscriminate and kills everyone who crosses its path, military personnel, scientists and soon - it is implied - civilians.
We won’t be there to be blamed
We won’t be there to snitch
I just pray that someone there
Can hit the switch
And the public are warned to stay off
It’s a melancholy ending. As the music fades it melts into the sound of helicopters rushing to the scene and the music video gives us one final bitter joke – you’ll have to watch it to see.
Released as a single in 1986, ‘Experiment IV’ is a bit of an anomaly since it doesn’t quite belong to any particular Kate Bush album, but it was included as a bonus track on the best hits record The Whole Story the same year. It’s a strange, moody, story-driven piece, an odd thing to release as a teaser for an upcoming collection of your most popular songs.
Dubious experiments and reckless uses of technology have long inspired threats and monsters in horror films like the well-worn association between zombies and biohazards or between kaijus and nuclear war. There’s really no reason why songs shouldn’t also address these fears, nor why they shouldn’t form their own gnarled branch of the horror story tree, and this wasn’t the only time Bush explored dystopian science fiction terrors in a pop record as we will see later in this series”.
Even though Experiment IV was banned by Top of the Pops, Channel 4's The Tube aired the video in its entirety. Wonderfully, it was also shown in cinemas as an accompaniment to a feature film. I have shared this article before. It is Kate Bush’s KBC article for Issue 21. She was interviewing herself as Zwort Finkle. Kate Bush was their ‘cousin’. It is a nice way perhaps of directing an interview but still giving fans some insight and personal revelation. This is what she said of The Whole Story and Experiment IV:
“Zwort: Only teasing. How do you feel about the video compilation?
Katie: Again, I was worried initially, because of the release of The Single File and Hair of the Hound, but with the opportunity of getting Experiment IV on it, and the record company being sure there was a market, I felt it could be a good idea. We spent a lot of work on Experiment IV, and because of it almost being an "adult" video, we were sure we'd have trouble getting it shown on TV.
Zwort: Did you have trouble getting it shown?
Katie: Yes. The video took a long time to make, and with having to write and record the single with the tightest deadlines I've ever had, the video was needed before we'd finished it. But we did get a minute clip ready in time to be shown when the single was charting, but Top of the Pops refused to show it, saying it was too violent! It's not violent at all, but we expected a response like this. Pop promos are in a very sensitive area. They're considered "family viewing", but there are many sexualy ambiguous videos shown on children's TV--yet this was considered too extreme. However, The Tube showed it in its entirety, and it's now showing at the cinema with a feature film, so we've made a sort of B-film!! That's quite exciting.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Zwort: I noticed that instead of the Wow video you've pieced together footage from the live shows. Why is this?
Katie: Two reasons, really. Firstly, I really don't like the promo we did for Wow. I think it's silly. And also, looking through the videos I noticed a great absence of "performance" promos, and the tour was an important part of the story. Also, it makes it a more interesting item for people who have some of the other videos. That way it's not just Experiment IV that is a new visual.
Zwort: I understand you directed this clip. How did it go, and why did you direct it?
Katie: Directing is a new experiment for me--actually, it was Experiment III--and with this track I had such strong visual ideas while I was writing the song that I wanted to give it another go. It's the first time the video and song have come together. It was very hard work, but a lot of fun.
We filmed in an old disused hospital, and the conditions were very cold and damp, but everyone got very involved and we had a great time.
The cast included Dawn French, Hugh Laurie, Richard Vernon, Peter Vaughan, Del, Paddy, Jay, Lisa and many friends. It was wonderful to work with people who I admire so much, and a very exciting experience. Paddy played the lunatic, and in every take his sounds were just as impressive as his visuals--I wish I'd put it onto tape. He literally "threw" himself into the part, and the crew were so impressed they applauded him--a great accolade!
Although this was the most complicated of my directions, it was so much easier for me because I appeared in it only briefly, so I could concentrate on being behind the camera, which I really enjoy. And it's so nice to involve the people I like--not only are they great performers, but they're good to be with.
There were some wonderful moments, like filming in East London. We had a field full of "dead bodies" who kept moving about to get more comfortable, so we had to shout out over a loud-hailer, "Stop moving--You're supposed to be dead!" And the music shop that we created for the shot [ Music For Pleasure ] was so realistic that passers-by kept popping in wanting to buy some of the instruments”.
On 27th October, it will be forty years since Experiment IV was released. The Whole Story arrives on 10th November, 1986, so that fortieth will get slightly more attention, though I am not sure if anyone will write about it. I wanted to discuss the brilliant Experiment IV as it is a wonderful song with an epic video directed by Kate Bush. By no means the last of her videos she would direct. An underrated masterpiece from…
OUR fair queen.