Kate Bush (b. 1958)
The songs were unusual, the voice was unusual, everything was pretty well unique.
Bob Mercer, EMI
unafraid to experiment, for better and for worse
Peter Gabriel
a serious pioneer
Del Palmer (Bush’s bass guitarist)
Consistently through her album output Kate Bush’s music caught my ear.
- The Sensual World (with the Trio Bulgarka from the album of the same name, 1989)
- Running Up That Hill (from the album Hounds of Love, 1985)
- Babooshka and Breathing (from the album Never Forever, 1980)
- The Dreaming (from the album The Dreaming, 1982)
- Wuthering Heights and The Man With the Child in His Eyes (from The Kick Inside, 1978)
Strong, rich, imaginative harmonies, Irish influence (Bush’s mother was Irish), well-arranged, well-produced with clever integrations of real-world sounds (e.g. in The Dreaming about aborigines). Kate Bush is what a pop musician should be: talented in writing, arranging, playing, producing, singing and dancing.
In her song Breathing about an unborn baby contemplating a post-nuclear existence, Bush has the lyrics “In out, in out” to represent breathing. Seamlessly this becomes “-out, out” and the baby is born. This is an inspired handling of text.
The themes of fatherhood (her dad was a GP) and being submerged in water, reccur frequently. She works with her talented brothers.
Bush takes necessary time (two years) making each album, – not surprising given the depth of colour, imagery and detail involved. Extraordinary.
You have to believe in yourself. You can’t just accept what other people say all the time otherwise you become them and not yourself.
Kate Bush