Kate Bush
English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer; sister of John Carder Bush.
And I can hear my mother saying
"Every old sock meets an old shoe"
Isn't that a great saying?
Who knows who wrote that song of summer,
That blackbirds sing at dusk,
This is a song of colour,
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust,
Then climb into bed and turn to dust.
When EMI invites a group of journalists to the Royal Academy of Music, in London, for a one-off listen to Kate Bush's new album, they are sending a clear signal — this album is not to be dismissed lightly.
In Malta, catch a swallow,
For all of the guilty — to set them free.
Wings fill the window,
And they beat and bleed.
They hold the sky on the other side
Of borderlines.
I simply think she is one of the greatest figures in British music over the last 30 years. There are an awful lot of people in the business wandering around claiming to be artists, but she is one of the few who can genuinely make that claim... I don't think there is any competition, she's on a different level and quite outside them all.
You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me
More joy...
Ooh find me the man with the ladder
And he might lift me up to the stars.
Do I look for those millionaires
Like a Machiavellian girl would
When I could wear the sunset?
I'm giving it all in a moment or two.
I'm giving it all in a moment, for you.
Stepping out, off the page, into the sensual world.
And then our arrows of desire rewrite the speech...
I'm really looking forward to Kate Bush's return — I'm no expert on her work but I know some of it and I think she's an incredibly original and talented artist. Anyone who writes most of an album like her first album, The Kick Inside, at 15 years old has got to be pretty special.
Put out the light, then, put out the light.
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine.
Dust to dust,
Blow to blow.
Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Hello, I know that you're unhappy.
I bring you love and deeper understanding....
I had always considered Kate Bush truly original both as a performer and as a songwriter with an unusually fresh sense of harmony. If her new album next month is awaited with some excitement after a long fallow period, then in 1985 it was assumed that Hounds of Love would be something of a final fling at the conclusion of a waning career. I soon realised how wrong this assumption was when Kate sent me a cassette: it was zany, ambitious and yet utterly Kate Bush, but with gaps where I was to do her bidding. Having chatted at length, she sent me a long letter with the words of the song and precise instructions on how it should unfold... Structure was carefully delineated, verses and choruses written out fully and marked up in colour, and she talked of the sound quality in the most graphic terms.
They got alchemy.
They turn the roses into gold
They turn the lilac into honey
They're making love for the peaches.
Remember yourself.
You've got a Full House in your head tonight...
I didn't realise how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like Joni Mitchell — the level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas.
They open doorways that I thought were shut for good.
They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu.
They build up my body, break me emotionally.
It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!
Just like a feeling that you're sending out,
I pick it up.
But I can't let you go.
If I let you go,
You slip into the fog...
A rubberband bouncing back to life
A rubberband bend the beat
If I could learn to give like a rubberband
I'd be back on my feet...