FEATURE:
A Book of Dreams
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the British Rock and Pop Awards in February 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Why a Kate Bush Memoir Would Be Especially Insightful and Desired
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MANY artists live their lives…
through their music and promotion. We get a sense of who they are and where they have come from via those archives. I think it is rarer for artists writing memoirs and autobiographies compared to actors, for example. It is probably an impossibility, but you do wonder whether Kate Bush has considered a memoir. I have raised this before in a feature. There was a planned memoir, Leaving My Tracks, that was shelved. This is one of the great music what-ifs: “Publishers Sidgwick & Jackson actually produced a dustjacket for the book, entitled Leaving My Tracks (pictured here). According to library data, the book was to run 144 pages plus 8 pages of photographs. The official fanclub even announced a release date somewhere in the autumn of 1981. In late 1983, the project was shelved indefinitely. No autobiography has ever been published. It isn’t even known if Kate ever wrote one or more chapters for the book”. I guess this was probably a record company demand. After 1982 when The Dreaming was released, there was this moment of exhaustion. Bush had pushed herself producing this album. It did well in the charts, though it was seen as a bit of a commercial let-down. The singles did not do especially well. Hounds of Love would reignite her career in 1985. I suppose there was this sense of gathering new momentum. A way of keeping this artist in the spotlight. The Dreaming is an exceptional album, though some critics were mixed towards it. An autobiography or memoir would be this project seen as more welcomed or universal. Shelved possibly because Bush was not committed or she was busy doing other things. The fact that the release pre-dates The Dreaming suggests that this might have been mooted after Never for Ever was released in 1980. It is understandable that Leaving My Tracks never made it, as Bush was barely allowed time off or a rest. By 1983, she was having a home studio built and the seeds of Hounds of Love were being planted.
Most major artists do not share their stories in a traditional format. Perhaps memoirs and autobiographies were more common years ago. I do find them very illuminating. People sharing things that they may not say in interviews. Other artists share some sides of themselves through lyric books. I am thinking of Paul McCartney. In terms of the memoirs and autobiographies you’d want to see, Madonna comes to mind. Maybe Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. Dylan has written about himself. But there is surely this curiosity among fans. It might be something that died in the past. I think with interviews going forward, Kate Bush will only be asked about the new album or whatever she is promoting. There may be some nods to the past, though there are things from her life that might never be known. I bring this up because I feel she is an artist who has one of the most fascinating lives. We have biographies and articles. Interviews with Kate Bush. Though she has yet to tell her own story. I am not sure whether she has been asked in interviews whether she would ever write her story. I think interviews are useful to an extent, though you only get bits and pieces. If Bush does release a new album, she is unlikely really to reflect on her early life. I think that there is something to be said to learn more about her life. Rather than it being too exposing, there are artists and fans who are hugely influenced by her. They want to know about her life. Not every detail. We do not need to hear about anything too personal that she would not want to tell the world. Though this idea that artists can tell everything through interviews and music. Kate Bush may feel that she does not want to put herself out there. That she has said everything that she wants to. There was a period in the 1980s where she at least was preparing to write a memoir. Take the 2021 from Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. We get lyrics and stories behind the songs. Kate Bush released her lyrics book, How to Be Invisible, originally in 2018. It was reissued in 2023 with a new introduction by author David Mitchell. There is little in the way of explanation when it comes to the songs.
That is her choice to present them without annotation. How much can we really honestly know about Kate Bush through interviews, which are often directed to a certain end. Many of them are quite unserious or insulting. Not always treated with respect. Kate Bush fans and authors and fans can fill in blanks and know a lot of the history. I do feel we are in a time when Kate Bush’s influence is bigger than it has ever been. I am not sure whether we will get any new biographies. People might not need to know about all the songs and the stories behind them. I am curious about periods between albums and the earliest years. Before she recorded The Kick Inside in 1977. A memoir is about a particular period of life, whereas an autobiography is the story of someone’s life. So we might ask, if there were a memoir, what period would it address? I write a lot about Kate Bush and can only really scratch the surface. There was a bit of a boom in memoirs in 2022 and 2023. Rock stars bringing out books. I think it has tapered off a bit since then. However, The Guardian wrote about this resurgence and what could be fuelling it: “But if music memoirs fill a gap, they also represent a reaction. We live in an era where streaming has almost completely decontextualised rock and pop music: Spotify et al make music more immediately available – pretty much everything ever recorded is yours to hear at the click of a button – but the music is the only thing they make available. Cover artwork is reduced to a tiny square in the corner of your screen; sleevenotes, credits, or indeed any sense of historical, artistic or social context are notable by their absence”. I wonder if Kate Bush feels her music being streamed decontextualises not just the songs but her as a person. Whether we can really get a sense of who she is and what she thinks by streaming. I think the raft of memoirs that did get published a few years back seemed to appeal to a more middle-aged audience. A certain generation being targeted.
It is not a case of Kate Bush writing about herself to demystify perceptions or to cash in on a rise in streaming and attention around her music. There is a genuine love for who she is and what she has done in her career. We can piece together the interviews and get a semblance of the ‘real’ Kate Bush. Thinking back to the 1980s when Leaving My Tracks was planned. I often wonder how far Bush got and what the plan was in terms of its narrative. Was it her discussing her songs to that point, or was it going to be a more traditional memoir? Too busy with music itself, the time needed to write a memoir would be incredible. She would have to put everything on hold. I am not sure Bush would ever commit to that. That is fair enough. But I can’t help thinking that there are things unsaid and unwritten that give us more insight into this icon. Things not mentioned in interviews. In 2015, Madonna said she might consider a autobiography. In 2013, Joni Mitchell revealed she wrote vignettes for an autobiography. These are artists who have said the songs themselves tell their life story, though they have considered writing a book. A Madonna biopic has been on the cards more than once but seems dead. A Joni Mitchell biopic is happening, and in the past Mitchell squashed a possible biopic idea. If Paul McCartney bypassed prose and told his story through lyrics, so many other huge artists have yet to do that. I suppose the most convincing argument is that they have told their life story and put it all out there through the songs. I am not sure that is the case with Kate Bush. She might want certain things private. In a future interview, it would be nice if some things were cleared up. Bush always wanted Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave to come to the screen. She staged it in 2014 for Before the Dawn, though does she still hope to see it on the big screen? Also, will she ever perform live again? Has she ever considered writing a memoir about her early life, or even something around particular albums? Even if I can guess the answers, I feel it is a share that there will always be unknowns and things we will never be told. Or perhaps that is how it should be. Whilst so many (me included) would love for Kate Bush to write a little about her life, other say her songs have already done that. That idea of Leaving My Tracks, alas, is left in the past. Fair enough. For fans who want to know more, there are archive and fan club letters where Kate Bush wrote about her experiences and what was happening at particular times. I find it hard to get over the idea of a memoir. It is something that so many people would…
LOVE to read.