Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and
idiosyncraticAn idiosyncrasy is an unusual feature of a person . The term is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity. A synonym may be .-Etymology:...
vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.
In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the
UK Singles ChartThe UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
for four weeks with her debut single "
Wuthering Heights"Wuthering Heights" is a song by Kate Bush released as her debut single in January 1978. It became a No.1 hit in the UK singles chart and remains her biggest-selling single. The song appears on her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside. The B-side of the single was another song by Bush named "Kite" -...
", becoming the first woman to have a UK number one with a self-written song. She was also the most photographed woman in the United Kingdom the following year.
After her 1979 tour — the only concert tour of her career — Bush released the 1980 album
Never for Ever- Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...
, which made her the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at Number 1. In 1987, she won a
BRIT AwardThe Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
for Best British Female Solo Artist. She has released ten albums, three of which topped the
UK Albums ChartThe UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
, and has had 25 UK Top 40 hit singles including "Wuthering Heights", "
Running Up that Hill12" Maxi single -Charts:-Placebo version:Alternative rock band Placebo covered "Running Up that Hill", releasing it originally on the bonus disc of their 2003 album Sleeping with Ghosts, then featuring it on Covers and the US version of Meds in 2007. Placebo's take on the song is more downbeat than...
", "King of the Mountain", "
Babooshka"Babooshka" is a song by British singer Kate Bush, taken from her album Never for Ever. Released as a single in June 1980, it spent 10 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number five...
", "
The Man with the Child in His Eyes"The Man with the Child in His Eyes" is a song by Kate Bush. It is the fifth track on her debut album The Kick Inside and was released as her second single in 1978.-Overview:...
", and "
Don't Give Up"Don't Give Up" is song written by Peter Gabriel and recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel's album So. The single version spent eleven weeks in the UK Top 75 chart in 1986, peaking at number nine. It describes the despair of a man who feels isolated and defeated by the economic system, and...
" (a duet with
Peter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
). All of them reached the Top 10.
In 2002, Bush's songwriting ability was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. In 2005, she released
AerialAerial is the eighth studio album by British singer-songwriter and musician Kate Bush.-Overview:Aerial is Bush's first double album, and was released after a twelve year absence from the music industry during which Bush devoted her time to family and the rearing of her son, Bertie...
, her first album in 12 years. The album earned her a BRIT Award nomination for Best Album and another for Best Solo Female Artist. During the course of her career, she has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards.
Early life
Bush was born in
BexleyheathBexleyheath is a main suburban district of Southeast London, England, in the London Borough of Bexley with a small percentage of the district itself being in the London Borough of Greenwich. Bexleyheath is located on the border of Inner London and Outer London. It is east south-east of Charing Cross...
, Kent, to English physician Robert Bush and his Irish wife, Hannah Daly. She was raised in their farmhouse in
East WickhamEast Wickham is a place and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bexley. It is a part of the Welling post town.-History:Welling originally formed part of the ancient manor of East Wickham, which was centred on St Michael’s Church, Upper Wickham Lane, built in the 13th century...
, Kent, with her older brothers, John and
PaddyPaddy Bush is an English musician, instrument maker, and artist. He is best known for his work with his sister, Kate Bush, and has appeared on all of her studio albums. Bush often plays standard instruments such as the guitar, mandolin, and harmonica, along with more exotic and unusual...
. Bush came from an artistic background: her mother was a former Irish folk dancer, her father was an accomplished pianist, Paddy worked as a musical instrument maker and John was a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local
folk musicFolk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
scene.
John was a karateka at Goldsmiths College karate club and Kate also trained there, becoming known as "Ee-ee" because of her squeaky
kiaiis a Japanese term used in martial arts. There are numerous examples of the battle cry in other cultures: kiai is perhaps primarily a development of this. In the representation of Asian martial arts in cinema and in animated cartoons, Modern Kiai are often written by westerners in Romaji as...
. One of the instructors,
Dave HazardDave Hazard born in Bow, east London, in 1952 is a well known British 7th Dan Karateka and instructor of Shotokan karate and was one of the few students present at the very beginning of British Karate. He is a former KUGB national champion and British team member...
, later noted in his autobiography that her dance moves seemed to owe something to karate.
Her family's musical influence inspired the young Kate to teach herself to play the piano at the age of 11. She also played the organ in a barn behind her parents' house and studied the violin. She soon began writing her own tunes and eventually added
lyricsLyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
to them.
Career
Bush attended St Joseph's Convent Grammar School (later the St Joseph's campus of
Bexley CollegeBexley College is a general further education college in the London Borough of Bexley, England. It has two campuses at Tower Road and Upper Holly Hill Road.-History:It opened in 1907 as Erith Technical Institute....
) and a Catholic girls' school on Woolwich Road in
Abbey WoodAbbey Wood is a district of South-East London, England, located mostly in the London Borough of Greenwich, and partly within the London Borough of Bexley. It is situated east of Charing Cross.-Development:...
, London, in the mid-1970s. During this time her family produced a demo tape with over 50 of her compositions, which was turned down by record labels.
David GilmourDavid Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
of
Pink FloydPink Floyd were an English rock band that achieved worldwide success with their progressive and psychedelic rock music. Their work is marked by the use of philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album art, and elaborate live shows. Pink Floyd are one of the most commercially...
received the demo from Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of Gilmour and the Bush family. Impressed with what he heard, Gilmour helped the sixteen-year-old Bush get a more professional-sounding demo tape recorded that would be more saleable to the record companies. The tape was produced by Gilmour's friend
Andrew PowellAndrew Powell - musical composer, arranger and performer - was born 18 April 1949 in London, England of Welsh parents.- Early life :He began taking piano lessons at the age of four and later attended Kings College School, Wimbledon by which time he was also learning the viola, violin and orchestral...
, who would go on to produce Bush's first two albums, as well as by sound engineer
Geoff EmerickGeoffrey Emerick is an English recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with The Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road...
. The tape was sent to
EMIThe EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
executive Terry Slater, who would become famous for signing The Sex Pistols. Slater was impressed by the tape and signed her. At that time, Pink Floyd was an important act to EMI. The British record industry was reaching a point of stagnation.
Progressive rockProgressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
was very popular and visually oriented rock performers were growing in popularity, thus record labels looking for the next big thing were considering experimental acts.
Bush was put on retainer for two years by Bob Mercer, managing director of EMI group-repertoire division. According to Mercer he felt Bush's material was good enough to be released but felt if the album failed it would be demoralizing and if it was successful Bush was too young to handle it. For the first two years of her contract, Bush spent more time on school work than making an album. She left school after doing her mock A-levels and having gained ten GCE O-Level qualifications. In 2005, Bush stated in an interview with
Mark RadcliffeMark Radcliffe is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, where he hosts an afternoon show five times a week alongside Stuart Maconie, called...
on
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
that she believed EMI signed her before she was ready to make an album so that no other record company could offer her a contract. After the contract signing, EMI forwarded her a sizeable advance which she used to enrol in
interpretive danceInterpretive dance is a family of dance styles that seeks to translates particular feelings and emotions, human conditions, situations, or fantasies into movement and dramatic expression combined...
classes taught by
Lindsay KempLindsay Kemp is a British dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist and choreographer.Born in South Shields on May 3, 1938, Kemp's father, a seaman, was lost at sea in 1940. According to Kemp, he danced from early childhood: "I'd dance on the kitchen table to entertain the neighbours. I mean, it was a...
, a former teacher of
David BowieDavid Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, and mime training with
Adam DariusAdam Darius is an American dancer, mime artist, writer and choreographer. As a performer, he has appeared in over 85 countries across six continents...
.
Bush also wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, a few of which today can be found on bootleg recordings and are known as the
Phoenix Recordings. From March to August 1977, she fronted the KT Bush Band at public houses around London – specifically at the Rose of Lee public house (now Dirty South) in Lewisham. The other three band members were
Del PalmerDel Palmer is a British bass guitarist and sound engineer, best known for his work with Kate Bush, with whom he also had a long-term relationship between the late 1970s and early 1990s.-Biography:...
(bass), Brian Bath (guitar), and Vic King (drums). She began recording her first album in August 1977, although two tracks had been recorded during the summer of 1975.
The Kick Inside and Lionheart
As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band. However, for her debut album
The Kick Inside-Personnel:*Kate Bush: Piano, Composer, Keyboards, Vocals, Background Vocals*Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Vocals, Background Vocals, Bottle*Paddy Bush: Harmonica, Mandolin, Vocals*Barry DeSouza: drums*Stuart Elliott: Drums...
(1978) she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her bandmates back on board. Her brother Paddy played the harmonica and mandolin, unlike on later albums where he would play more exotic instruments such as the
balalaikaThe balalaika is a stringed musical instrument popular in Russia, with a characteristic triangular body and three strings.The balalaika family of instruments includes instruments of various sizes, from the highest-pitched to the lowest, the prima balalaika, secunda balalaika, alto balalaika, bass...
and
didgeridooThe didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
.
Stuart ElliottStuart Elliott is an English rock drummer, who has played along with David Byron, Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Al Stewart, The Alan Parsons Project, Kate Bush, Paul McCartney and Keats....
played some of the drums and would become her main percussionist on subsequent albums.
Bush released
The Kick Inside when she was 19 years old, but some of the songs had been written when she was as young as 13. EMI originally wanted the more rock-orientated track "James and the Cold Gun" to be her debut single, but Bush insisted that it should be "
Wuthering Heights"Wuthering Heights" is a song by Kate Bush released as her debut single in January 1978. It became a No.1 hit in the UK singles chart and remains her biggest-selling single. The song appears on her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside. The B-side of the single was another song by Bush named "Kite" -...
". Even at this early stage of her career, she had gained a reputation for her determination to have a say in decisions affecting her work. "Wuthering Heights" topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. Bush became the first woman to reach number one in the UK charts with a self-penned song. A second single, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", reached number six in the UK charts. It also made it onto the American
Billboard Hot 100The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
where it reached number 85 in early 1979. Bob Mercer felt that Bush's relative lack of success in the United States compared to the rest of the world was due to her music being a poor fit for American radio formats and that there were no outlets for the visual presentation central to Bush's appeal. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" went on to win her an Ivor Novello Award in 1979 for Outstanding British Lyric.
EMI capitalised on Bush's appearance by promoting the album with a poster of her in a tight pink top that emphasised her breasts. In an interview with
NMEThe New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
magazine in 1982, Bush criticised the marketing technique, stating: "People weren't even generally aware that I wrote my own songs or played the piano. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist in a female body." In late 1978, EMI persuaded Bush to quickly record a follow-up album,
Lionheart, to take advantage of the success of
The Kick Inside. Bush has often expressed dissatisfaction with
Lionheart, feeling that she had needed more time to get it right. The album was produced by Andrew Powell, assisted by Bush. While it had spawned several hit singles, most notably "
Wow"Wow" was the second single to be released from Kate Bush's second album Lionheart.The single is an edited version of "Wow", although it is not labelled as such. On all European "Wow" singles, the first 12 seconds of synthesizer chords have been removed...
", it did not garner the same reception as her first album, reaching number six in the UK album charts.
Bush was displeased with being rushed into making the second album. She set up her own publishing company, Kate Bush Music, and her own management company, Novercia, to maintain complete control over her work. Bush herself, along with members of her family, comprised the company's board of directors. Following the album's release, she was required by EMI to undertake heavy promotional work and an exhausting tour, the only one of her career. The tour, named
The Tour of Life-Tour dates:-Further reading:* by Graeme Thomson for The Guardian 13 May 2010...
, began in April 1979 and lasted six weeks. This live show was co-devised and performed on stage with magician
Simon DrakeSimon Drake is the stage name of Simon Alexander; a British magician based in London. He is best known for the innovative and shocking television series Secret Cabaret made for Britain's Channel 4.-Early life:...
. Typical of her determination to have control, she was involved in every aspect of the show's production, choreography, set design, and staff recruitment. The shows were noted for her dancing, complex lighting and her 17 costume changes per show. Because of her intention to dance as she sang, her sound engineers used a wire coat hanger and a
radio microphoneA wireless microphone, as the name implies, is a microphone without a physical cable connecting it directly to the sound recording or amplifying equipment with which it is associated...
to fashion the first headset mic to be used by a rock performer since the Swedish group Spotnicks used a very primitive version in the early 1960s.
Never for Ever and The Dreaming
Released in September 1980,
Never for Ever- Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...
saw Bush's second foray into production, co-producing with Jon Kelly. Her first time as a producer was on her
Live On Stage* 7": EMI / EMI MIEP 2991...
EPAn EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
, released after her tour the previous year. The first two albums had resulted in a definitive sound evident in every track, with orchestral arrangements supporting the live band sound. The range of styles on
Never for Ever is much more diverse, veering from the straightforward rocker "Violin" to the wistful waltz of hit single "
Army Dreamers"Army Dreamers" was the third and final song to be released from Never For Ever by Kate Bush. It was a UK top 20 hit in October 1980.- Background :...
".
Never for Ever was the first Kate Bush album to feature synthesisers and drum machines, in particular the
Fairlight CMIThe Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
, to which she was introduced when providing backing vocals on
Peter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
's eponymous third album in early 1980. It was her first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female British artist to achieve that status, and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at the top. The top-selling single from the album was "
Babooshka"Babooshka" is a song by British singer Kate Bush, taken from her album Never for Ever. Released as a single in June 1980, it spent 10 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number five...
", which reached number five in the UK singles chart. In November 1980, she released the
Christmas singleChristmas music comprises a variety of genres of music normally performed or heard around the Christmas season, which tends to begin in the months leading up the actual holiday and end in the weeks shortly thereafter.-Early:...
"
December Will Be Magic Again"December Will Be Magic Again" is a one-off single by British singer-songwriter-pianist Kate Bush. The single was released in the U.K. in November 1980.-Song release:...
", which reached number 29 in the UK charts.
September 1982 saw the release of
The Dreaming-Personnel:*Stewart Arnold: vocals, background vocals*Jimmy Bain: bass*Ian Bairnson: acoustic guitar, vocals, background vocals*John Barrett: assistant engineer*Brian Bath: electric guitar*Haydn Bendall: engineer...
, the first album Bush produced by herself. It was also a major departure for Bush, being initially composed on the Fairlight CMI rather than piano, with songs extensively revised and rebuilt in the studio, rather than merely arranged there. With her new-found freedom, she experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a diverse blend of musical styles and is known for its near-exhaustive use of the Fairlight CMI.
The Dreaming received a mixed critical reception in the UK at first. Many were baffled by the dense soundscapes Bush had created, and some critics accused the album of being over-produced. In a 1993 interview with
Q, Bush stated: "That was my 'She's gone mad' album." However, the album was hailed as a "masterpiece" and a "musical
tour-de-force" by critics in America, and the album became her first to enter the US charts, albeit only reaching number 157. The album entered the UK album chart at number three, but is to date her lowest-selling album, garnering only a gold disc.
"
Sat in Your Lap"Sat in Your Lap" is a song by the British singer Kate Bush. It was the first single to be released from her fourth album The Dreaming, though it was issued 15 months prior to the album which was nowhere near completion at that time...
" was the first single from the album to be released. It pre-dated the album by over a year and peaked at number 11 in the UK. The album's title track, featuring the talents of
Rolf HarrisRolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...
and
Percy EdwardsPercy Edwards MBE , was an English animal impersonator, ornithologist, and entertainer.-Biography:...
, stalled at number 48, while the third single, "
There Goes a Tenner"There Goes a Tenner" is a song by the British singer Kate Bush. It was released as a single on 2 November 1982, the third to be taken from her album The Dreaming...
", failed to chart, despite promotion from EMI and Bush. The track "
Suspended in Gaffa"Suspended in Gaffa" is a song recorded by Kate Bush. It was the third single release from her album The Dreaming in Europe ....
" was released as a single in Europe, but not in the UK.
Continuing in her storytelling tradition, Bush looked far outside her own personal experience for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films for "There Goes a Tenner", a documentary about the
war in VietnamThe Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
for "Pull Out the Pin", and the plight of
Indigenous AustraliansIndigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
for "The Dreaming". "Houdini" is about
the magicianHarry Houdini was a Hungarian-born American magician and escapologist, stunt performer, actor and film producer noted for his sensational escape acts...
's death, and "Get Out Of My House" was inspired by
Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's film of
Stephen KingStephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's novel
The ShiningThe Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...
.
Hounds of Love and The Whole Story
Hounds of LoveHounds of Love is a 1985 album by the British singer Kate Bush. It was Bush's fifth studio album, and her second no. 1. It has since been certified Double Platinum in the UK...
was released in 1985. Because of the high cost of hiring studio space for her previous album, she built a private studio near her home, where she could work at her own pace.
Hounds of Love ultimately topped the charts in the UK, knocking
MadonnaMadonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
's
Like a VirginLike a Virgin is the second studio album by American singer-songwriter Madonna, released on November 12, 1984 by Sire Records. It was re-released worldwide in 1985, with the inclusion of the bonus track "Into the Groove". In 2001, Warner Bros. Records released a remastered version with two bonus...
from the number one position.
The album takes advantage of the vinyl format with two very different sides. The first side,
Hounds of Love, contains five "accessible" pop songs, including the four singles "
Running Up that Hill12" Maxi single -Charts:-Placebo version:Alternative rock band Placebo covered "Running Up that Hill", releasing it originally on the bonus disc of their 2003 album Sleeping with Ghosts, then featuring it on Covers and the US version of Meds in 2007. Placebo's take on the song is more downbeat than...
", "
Cloudbusting12" single CD single -Charts:-External links:* * *...
", "
Hounds of Love"Hounds of Love" is the title track of the Hounds of Love album by Kate Bush, the third of the album's four singles. The single was released on 24 February 1986, and reached number 18 in the UK Singles Chart...
", and
"The Big Sky"12" single -Chart performance:...
. In August 1985,
NME featured Bush in a "Where Are They Now" article. "Running Up that Hill" reached number 3 in the UK charts and also re-introduced Bush to American listeners, climbing to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1985. The second side of the album,
The Ninth Wave, takes its name from
Tennyson'sAlfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
poem, "Idylls of the King", about the legendary King Arthur's reign, and is one continuous piece of music. The album earned Bush nominations for Best Female Solo Artist, Best Album, Best Single, and Best Producer at the 1986
BRIT AwardsThe Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
. In the same year, Bush and
Peter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
had a UK top ten hit with "
Don't Give Up"Don't Give Up" is song written by Peter Gabriel and recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel's album So. The single version spent eleven weeks in the UK Top 75 chart in 1986, peaking at number nine. It describes the despair of a man who feels isolated and defeated by the economic system, and...
" (
Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
, Gabriel's original choice, turned his offer down), and EMI released her "greatest hits" album,
The Whole Story-VHS and Laserdisc Editions:-Personnel:*Kate Bush - Keyboards, Vocals, Producer*Ian Cooper - Cutting Engineer*Jon Kelly - Producer*Andrew Powell - Producer-Charts:-Certifications:...
. Bush provided a new lead vocal and refreshed backing track on "Wuthering Heights," and recorded a new single, "Experiment IV," for inclusion on the compilation. At the 1987 BRIT Awards, Bush won the award for Best Female Solo Artist.
The Sensual World and The Red Shoes
The increasingly personal tone of her writing continued on 1989's
The Sensual World-Personnel:*Haydn Bendall: engineer*Andrew Boland: engineer*Stoyanka Boneva: vocals*Kate Bush: piano, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, producer*Paddy Bush: mandolin, background vocals, valiha, whip, tupan*Clare Connors: violin...
, with songs about unexpressed and unrequited love ("Love and Anger" and "Never Be Mine", respectively), and the pressures on modern relationships ("Between a Man and a Woman"). One of the quirkiest tracks on the album, touched by Bush's black humour, is "Heads We're Dancing", about a woman who dances all night with a charming stranger only to find out in the morning that he is
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. The
title track"The Sensual World" is a song by the British singer Kate Bush. It was the title track and first single from her album of the same name, released in September 1989...
drew its inspiration from
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's novel
UlyssesUlysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
.
The Sensual World went on to become her biggest-selling album in the US, receiving an RIAA Gold certification four years after its release for 500,000 copies sold. In the United Kingdom album charts, it reached the number two position.
In 1990, the boxed-set
This Woman's Work was released and included all of her albums with their original cover art, as well as two discs of all single B sides recorded from 1978–1990. In 1991, Bush released a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man", which reached number 12 in the UK singles chart and in 2007, was voted the greatest cover ever by readers of
The ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
newspaper. She recorded "Candle in the Wind", as the single's b-side.
The Red Shoes-Personnel:*Jeff Beck: Guitar*Haydn Bendall: Engineer*Gary Brooker: Hammond Organ*Kate Bush: Bass, Guitar, Piano, Arranger, Composer, Keyboards, vocals, Producer, Fender Rhodes...
was released in November 1993.
The Red Shoes features more high-profile cameo appearances than Bush's previous efforts, including contributions from composer and conductor
Michael KamenMichael Arnold Kamen was an American composer , orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician.-Background:...
. Comedian
Lenny HenryLenworth George "Lenny" Henry, is a British actor, writer, comedian and occasional television presenter.- Early life :...
,
PrincePrince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
,
Eric ClaptonEric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
,
Gary BrookerGary Brooker, MBE, is an English singer, songwriter, pianist and founder of the rock band Procol Harum. Brooker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 14 June 2003, in recognition of his charitable services.-Early life:Brooker was born in...
of
Procol HarumProcol Harum are a British rock band, formed in 1967, which contributed to the development of progressive rock, and by extension, symphonic rock. Their best-known recording is their 1967 single "A Whiter Shade of Pale"...
, Trevor Whittaker, and
Jeff BeckGeoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
also contributed to the album. The album gave Bush her highest chart position in the US, reaching number 28, although the only song from the album to make the US singles chart was "Rubberband Girl", which peaked at number 88 in January 1994. In the UK, the album reached number two, and the singles "Rubberband Girl", "The Red Shoes", "Moments of Pleasure", and "And So Is Love" all reached the top 30. That same year, the short film
The Line, the Cross & the Curve, written and directed by Bush, and starring Bush and English actress
Miranda RichardsonMiranda Jane Richardson is an English stage, film and television actor. She has been nominated for two Academy Awards, and has won two Golden Globes and a BAFTA during her career....
, used six of the songs on the album.
The initial plan had been to take the songs out on the road (though a new tour did not transpire), so Bush deliberately aimed for a live-band feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums and that would be difficult to recreate on stage. The result alienated some of her fan base, who enjoyed the intricacy of her earlier compositions, but others found a new complexity in the lyrics and the emotions they expressed.
This was a troubled time for Bush. She had suffered a series of bereavements, including the loss of guitarist
Alan MurphyAlan Murphy was an English rock session guitarist, best remembered for his collaborations with Kate Bush and Go West. In 1988 he joined the group Level 42 as a full time band member, and played with them until his death in 1989...
, who had started working with her on The Tour Of Life in 1979, and her mother Hannah, to whom she was exceptionally close. Many of the people she lost are honoured in the ballad "Moments of Pleasure". However, Bush's mother was still alive when "Moments of Pleasure" was written and recorded. Bush describes playing the song to her mother, who thought the line where she is quoted by Bush as saying "Every old sock meets an old shoe", was hilarious and "couldn't stop laughing".
Aerial
After the release of
The Red Shoes, Bush dropped out of the public eye for many years, although her name occasionally cropped up in the media with rumours of a new album release. Bush had originally intended to take one year off but despite working on material 12 years would pass before her next album release. The press often viewed her as an eccentric recluse, sometimes drawing a comparison with
Miss HavishamMiss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations . She is a wealthy spinster, who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella, whom she has sent to France, while she herself is described as looking like "the witch of the place."Although she...
from
Charles DickensCharles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
's
Great ExpectationsGreat Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times....
. In reality, she was trying to give her young son a normal childhood, and needed a quiet place for her creative process to function. In 1998, Bush had given birth to Albert, known as "Bertie", fathered by her guitarist and now-husband Danny McIntosh. After living for many years on Court Road, Eltham, southeast London, the couple and their son moved away from the city and currently have two homes: a £2.5 million house in
East PortlemouthEast Portlemouth is a small Devon village situated at the southern end of the Kingsbridge Estuary. The village is sited on a hill giving views to the north to Kingsbridge and on a clear day as far as Dartmoor...
on the
DevonDevon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
coast and a mansion on an islet on the
Kennet and Avon canalThe Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is commonly used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the central canal section...
at
SulhamsteadSulhamstead is a village, electoral district and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies off the A4 national route between Reading and Thatcham, some west of central London.-Location:thumb|left|250px|1888 Ordnance Survey Parish Boundary Map...
in
West BerkshireWest Berkshire is a local government district in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England, governed by a unitary authority . Its administrative capital is Newbury, located almost equidistantly between Bristol and London.-Geography:...
.
Bush's eighth studio album,
AerialAerial is the eighth studio album by British singer-songwriter and musician Kate Bush.-Overview:Aerial is Bush's first double album, and was released after a twelve year absence from the music industry during which Bush devoted her time to family and the rearing of her son, Bertie...
, was released on double CD and vinyl in November 2005. The first single from the album was "King of the Mountain", which was played for the first time on
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
on 21 September 2005.
As on
Hounds of Love (1985), the album is divided into two sections, each with its own theme and mood. The first disc, subtitled
A Sea of Honey, features a set of unrelated themed songs, including "King of the Mountain"; "Bertie", a Renaissance-style ode to her son; and "Joanni", based on the story of Joan of Arc. In the song "π", Bush sings
the number Pi' is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter. is approximately equal to 3.14. Many formulae in mathematics, science, and engineering involve , which makes it one of the most important mathematical constants...
to 115 decimal places. The second disc, subtitled
A Sky of Honey, features one continuous piece of music describing the experience of being outdoors after waking at dawn, moving through afternoon, dusk, to night, then back to the following dawn of single summer's day. All the pieces in this suite refer or allude to sky and sea in their lyrical content. Bush mixed her voice with cooing wood pigeons to repeat the phrases "A sea of honey, a sky of honey," and "You're full of beauty" throughout the piece, and uses recordings of actual birdsong throughout.
A Sky of Honey features
Rolf HarrisRolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...
playing the
didgeridooThe didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...
on one track, and providing vocals on "The Painter's Link". Other artists making guest appearances on the album include
Peter ErskinePeter Erskine is an American jazz drummer and composer. He has enjoyed a long and successful career as a session drummer, recording and touring with many famous jazz and rock artists, including Steely Dan and Weather Report...
,
Eberhard WeberEberhard Weber is a German double bassist and composer. As a bass player, Weber is known for his highly distinctive tone and phrasing...
,
Lol CremeLol Creme is an English musician and music video director, best known for his work in 10cc. He sings, plays guitar and keyboards.-Biography:...
, and Gary Brooker. Two tracks feature string arrangements by
Michael KamenMichael Arnold Kamen was an American composer , orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician.-Background:...
, performed by the
London Metropolitan OrchestraLondon Metropolitan Orchestra , founded in 1994, is a London-based studio orchestra whose primary function is to record music for film, television, and other multimedia projects...
. A CD release of the single "King of the Mountain" included a cover of "Sexual Healing" by
Marvin GayeMarvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
.
"King of the Mountain" entered the UK Downloads Chart at number six on 17 October 2005, and by 30 October it had become Bush's third-highest-charting single ever in the UK, peaking at number four on the full chart.
Aerial entered the UK albums chart at number 3, and the US chart at number 48. Bush herself carried out relatively little publicity for the album, only conducting a handful of magazine and radio interviews.
Aerial earned Bush two nominations at the 2006 BRIT Awards, for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Album.
In late 2007, Bush composed and recorded a new song, "Lyra", for the soundtrack to the fantasy film
The Golden Compass.
Director's Cut and 50 Words for Snow
On 16 May 2011, Bush released the album
Director's Cut-Singles:The only single to be released from the album was "Deeper Understanding", originally the sixth track of The Sensual World. Its lyrics describe a relationship between a lonely person and a computer which has replaced human companionship....
. The album, which Bush has described as an entirely new project rather than a collection of mere remixes, contains 11 tracks of substantially reworked material from her earlier albums
The Sensual World-Personnel:*Haydn Bendall: engineer*Andrew Boland: engineer*Stoyanka Boneva: vocals*Kate Bush: piano, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, producer*Paddy Bush: mandolin, background vocals, valiha, whip, tupan*Clare Connors: violin...
and
The Red Shoes-Personnel:*Jeff Beck: Guitar*Haydn Bendall: Engineer*Gary Brooker: Hammond Organ*Kate Bush: Bass, Guitar, Piano, Arranger, Composer, Keyboards, vocals, Producer, Fender Rhodes...
, all of which have been recorded using analogue, rather than digital, equipment to create "a warmer sound". All the tracks have new lead vocals, new drums, and radically reworked instrumentation. Some of them have been transposed to a lower key to accommodate her lowering voice. Three of the songs, including "This Woman's Work", have been completely re-recorded, with lyrics often changed in places. The album has been met with a wide range of reviews with most reviewers a bit confused about the concept of the album itself, while responding with varying degrees of enthusiasm about its revamped tracks. Of particular note is the warmer, more intimate tone of the songs and the richer, more mature sound of her voice. This is the first album on her new label, Fish People, a division of EMI Records, with whom she's had a relationship since she started recording. In addition to the album
Director's Cut in both its single CD form and in a box-set with the analog re-mastered
The Red Shoes and
The Sensual World, Fish People will be releasing re-mastered editions of
The Hounds of Love and
The Dreaming. The album debuted at number 2 on the United Kingdom chart.
The song "The Sensual World" has been renamed "Flower of the Mountain" and contains a passage of
Molly BloomMolly Bloom is a fictional character in the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. The wife of main character Leopold Bloom, she roughly corresponds to Penelope in the Odyssey. The major difference between Molly and Penelope is that while Penelope is eternally faithful, Molly is not, having an affair with...
's famous soliloquy from
James JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's novel
UlyssesUlysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
. Bush said, "Originally when I wrote the song "The Sensual World", I had used text from the end of Ulysses. When I asked for permission to use the text I was refused, which was disappointing. I then wrote my own lyrics for the song, although I felt that the original idea had been more interesting. Well, I'm not James Joyce am I? When I came to work on this project I thought I would ask for permission again and this time they said yes."
The first single released from the album was "Deeper Understanding" and contains a new chorus featuring computerised vocals from Bush's son, Albert. A video for the song, directed by Bush, has been released through her channel on
YouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. It features
Robbie ColtraneRobbie Coltrane, OBE is a Scottish actor, comedian and author. He is known both for his role as Dr...
as a man consumed by his relationship with his computer (voiced by Bush's son).
Frances BarberFrances Barber is an Olivier Award-nominated English actress with a long and distinguished stage career. She has also appeared in numerous television productions...
plays the man's wife, and
Noel FieldingNoel Fielding is a British artist, comedian and actor. He is known for his roles as Vince Noir in The Mighty Boosh, which he co-writes with comedy partner Julian Barratt, and as team captain on the music panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks.-Stand-up comedy:Noel Fielding performed regularly as a...
also appears.
Bush's next studio album,
50 Words for Snow50 Words for Snow is the tenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. It is the second album to be released on her own label, Fish People...
, was released on 21 November. The album contains seven new songs "set against a backdrop of falling snow," with a total running time of 65 minutes. A radio edit of the first single, "Wild Man," was played on
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
's 'Ken Bruce' show on 10 October. and was released as a digital download on 11 October. The album will be distributed in the United States by Anti-Records.
On 14 November 2011,
NPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
played
50 Words for Snow in its entirety for the first time. Australia's ABC Radio National declared
50 Words for Snow album of the week of 12 November 2011.
The album's songs are built around Bush's quietly jazzy piano and
Steve GaddSteve Gadd is an American session and studio drummer, notable for his work with popular musicians from a wide range of genres.-Biography:...
's drums, and utilize both sung and spoken word vocals in what
Classic RockClassic rock is a radio format which plays popular rock music particularly from the late 1960s onward.Classic Rock can also refer to:*Oldies, the modern incarnation of which was known as "classic rock" in the 1970s*Classic Rock...
's
Stephen DaltonAir Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Gary George Dalton, KCB, BSc, FRAeS, RAF is the current Chief of the Air Staff and professional head of the Royal Air Force.-RAF career:...
calls "a...supple and experimental affair, with a comtemporary chamber pop sound grounded in crisp piano, minimal percussion and light-touch electronics...billowing jazz-rock soundscapes, interwoven with fragmentary narratives delivered in a range of voices from shrill to Laurie Anderson-style cooing.” Bassist
Danny ThompsonDaniel Henry Edward 'Danny' Thompson is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist and businessman...
appears on the album, which also features performances by
Elton JohnSir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
and actor
Stephen FryStephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club. He first came to attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also...
.
On the first track, "Snowflake," in a song written specifically to use his still high choir-boy voice, Bush's son Albert (Bertie) sings the role of a falling snowflake in a song expressing the hope of a noisy world soon being hushed by snowfall. "Snowflake" drifts into "Lake Tahoe", where choral singer Stefan Roberts and Bush sing about a rarely seen ghost: a woman who appears in a Victorian gown to call to her dog, Snowflake. Bush explained to fellow musician
Jamie CullumJamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter. Though he is primarily a vocalist/pianist he also accompanies himself on other instruments including guitar and drums. Since April 2010, he has been presenting a weekly jazz show on BBC Radio 2, broadcast on Tuesdays from 19:00.- Early...
in an interview on Dutch Radio that she wished to explore using high male voices in contrast to her own, deeper, voice. "Misty" is about a snowman lover who melts away after a night of passion, while "Wild Man" tells the story of a group of climbers in the
HimalayasThe Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
who, upon finding evidence of a nearby
YetiThe Yeti or Abominable Snowman is an ape-like cryptid said to inhabit the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. The names Yeti and Meh-Teh are commonly used by the people indigenous to the region, and are part of their history and mythology...
, erase all traces of it to protect it from discovery. Elton John and Bush as eternally divided lovers trade vocals on "Snowed In at Wheeler Street", while Stephen Fry recites the "50 Words for Snow". The quiet love song "Among Angels" finishes the album.
50 Words For Snow received general acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 26 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim".
Musical style
Bush's music is eclectic, using various styles of music even within the same album. Her songs have spanned genres as diverse as rock, pop,
alternativeAlternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and
art rockArt rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
. Even in her earliest works where the piano was a primary instrument, she wove together many diverse influences, melding classical music, rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources, and this has continued throughout her career.
In an interview with
Melody MakerMelody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
magazine in 1977, she revealed that male artists had more influence on her work than females, stating: "Every female you see at a piano is either
Lynsey De PaulLynsey de Paul is an English singer-songwriter. Allmusic journalist, Craig Harris stated, "one of the first successful female singer-songwriters in England, de Paul has had an illustrious career".-Early life:De Paul was born to Meta and Herbert Rubin, a property developer...
, or
Carole KingCarole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
. And most male music—not all of it but the good stuff—really lays it on you. It really puts you against the wall and that's what I like to do. I'd like my music to intrude. Not many females succeed with that."
The experimental nature of her music has led it to be described as a later, more technological, and more accessible manifestation of the British
progressive rockProgressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
movement. Southern England was the home to the most influential and successful acts of the progressive rock movement and, like other artists in this genre, Bush rejects the classic American style of making pop music, which was adopted by most UK pop artists. Bush's vocals contain elements of British,
Anglo-IrishAnglo-Irish was a term used primarily in the 19th and early 20th centuries to identify a privileged social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy, mostly belonging to the Church of Ireland, which was the established church of Ireland until...
and most prominently (southern) English accents and, in its utilization of musical instruments from many periods and cultures, her music has differed from American pop norms. Elements of Bush's lyrics tend to be more unusual and less clichéd than American-style pop lyrics, often employing historical or literary references and avoiding autobiographical lyrics. She considers herself a storyteller who embodies the character singing the song and strenuously rejects efforts by others to insist that her songs are autobiographical.
Reviewers have used the term "surreal" to describe her music. Many of her songs have a melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorisation. It has been observed that even the more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy, and even the most sorrowful pieces have elements of vitality struggling against all that would oppress them.
Bush is not afraid to tackle sensitive and taboo subjects. "The Kick Inside" is based on a traditional English folk song (
The Ballad of Lucy Wan-Synopsis:The heroine—Lizie, Rosie, Lucy—is pregnant with her brother's child. Her brother murders her. He tries to pass off the blood as some animal he had killed—his greyhound, his falcon, his horse—but in the end must admit that he murdered her...
) about an incestuous pregnancy and a resulting suicide. "Kashka from Baghdad" is a song about a homosexual male couple;
OutOut is a popular gay and lesbian fashion, entertainment, and lifestyle magazine, with the highest circulation of any gay monthly publication in the United States. It carries itself in a similar editorial manner to Details, Esquire, and GQ. Out was published by PlanetOut Inc...
magazine listed two of her albums in their Top 100 Greatest Gayest albums list. "The Infant Kiss" is a song about a haunted, unstable woman's almost paedophile infatuation with a young boy in her care (inspired by Jack Clayton's film
The Innocents (1961), which had been based on Henry James's famous novella
The Turn of the ScrewThe Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story.Due to its ambiguous content, it became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive...
); and "
Breathing"Breathing" is a single by Kate Bush, the first cut from her 1980 album Never for Ever, with backing vocals by Roy Harper.The single was issued on April 14, 1980, four months before the album was released, and reached number 16 in the UK charts...
" explores the results of nuclear fallout from the perspective of an unborn child in the womb. Her lyrics have referenced a wide array of subject matter, often relatively obscure, as in "Cloudbusting", which was inspired by Peter Reich's autobiography, "Book of Dreams", about his relationship with his father,
Wilhelm ReichWilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
, and
G. I. GurdjieffGeorge Ivanovich Gurdjieff according to Gurdjieff's principles and instructions, or the "Fourth Way."At one point he described his teaching as "esoteric Christianity."...
in "Them Heavy People", while "Deeper Understanding", from
The Sensual World, portrays a person who stays indoors, obsessively talking to a computer and shunning human contact.
Comedy is also a big influence on her and is a significant component of her work. She has cited
Woody AllenWoody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
,
Monty PythonMonty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
,
Fawlty TowersFawlty Towers is a British sitcom produced by BBC Television and first broadcast on BBC2 in 1975. Twelve television program episodes were produced . The show was written by John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth, both of whom played major characters...
, and
The Young OnesThe Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers...
as particular favourites. Horror movies are another interest of Bush's and have influenced the gothic nature of several of her songs, such as "Get Out of My House", inspired by Stanley Kubrick's
The ShiningThe Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
, and "Hounds of Love", inspired by the 1957 horror movie
Night of the DemonNight of the Demon is a 1957 British horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis. An adaptation of the M. R...
. Her songs have occasionally combined comedy and horror to form dark humour, such as murder by poisoning in "Coffee Homeground", an alcoholic mother in "Ran Tan Waltz" and the upbeat "The Wedding List", a song inspired by
François TruffautFrançois Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's 1967 film of Cornell Woolrich's
The Bride Wore BlackThe Bride Wore Black is a 1968 French film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Claude Rich and Jean-Claude Brialy.It is...
about the death of a groom and the bride's subsequent revenge against the killer.
Length of time between albums and perception of perfectionism
The length of time in between album releases has led to rumours in the media concerning her health or appearance. In the past, stories of weight gain or mental instability have been disproved by Bush's periodic reappearance. In 2011 Bush told
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
that the amount of time between album releases is extremely stressful noting: "It's very frustrating the albums take as long as they do...I wish there weren't such big gaps between them." In the same interview Bush denied she was a perfectionist in the studio, saying: "I think it's important that things are flawed...That's what makes a piece of art interesting sometimes – the bit that's wrong or the mistake you've made that's led onto an idea you wouldn't have had otherwise," and reiterated her prioritisation of her family life.
Live performances
Bush's only tour took place 2 April – 13 May 1979, after which she gave only the occasional live performance. Several reasons have been suggested as to why she abandoned touring, among them her reputed need to be in total control of the final product, which is incompatible with live stage performance, a rumour of a crippling fear of flying, and the suggestion that the death of 21-year-old Bill Duffield severely affected her. Duffield, her lighting director, was killed in an accident during her 2 April 1979 concert at Poole Arts Centre. Bush held a benefit concert on 12 May 1979, with
Peter GabrielPeter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
and
Steve HarleySteve Harley is an English singer and songwriter, best known for his work with the 1970s rock group Cockney Rebel, with whom he still occasionally tours .-Biography:As a child, Harley suffered from polio, spending four years in hospital up to the...
at London's
Hammersmith OdeonHammersmith Apollo is a major entertainment venue located in Hammersmith, London. Designed by Robert Cromie in Art Deco style, it opened in 1932 as the Gaumont Palace cinema, being re-named the Hammersmith Odeon in 1962...
for his family. Duffield would be honoured in two later songs: "Blow Away" on
Never for Ever and "Moments of Pleasure" on
The Red Shoes. Bush explained in a
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
interview with
Mark RadcliffeMark Radcliffe is an English broadcaster who has worked in various roles for the BBC since the 1980s and remains one of Britain's most recognised DJs. He is currently a presenter on BBC Radio 2 and BBC 6 Music, where he hosts an afternoon show five times a week alongside Stuart Maconie, called...
that she actually enjoyed the tour but was consumed with producing her subsequent records.
During the same period as her tour, she made numerous television appearances around the world, including
Top of the PopsTop of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
in the United Kingdom,
Bios Bahnhof in Germany, and
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
in the United States (with
Paul ShafferPaul Allen Wood Shaffer, CM is a Canadian musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer who has been David Letterman's sidekick since 1982.-Early years:...
on piano). On 28 December 1979, BBC TV aired the
Kate Bush Christmas Special. It was recorded in October 1979 at the BBC Studios in Birmingham, England; choreography by
Anthony Van LaastAnthony Van Laast is a choreographer, mainly for the stage, concerts, television and film. His works have appeared in the West End and on Broadway.-Career:Van Laast was born in Sussex, UK...
. As well as playing songs from her first two albums, she played "
December Will Be Magic Again"December Will Be Magic Again" is a one-off single by British singer-songwriter-pianist Kate Bush. The single was released in the U.K. in November 1980.-Song release:...
", and "Violin" from her forthcoming album,
Never for Ever. Peter Gabriel made a guest appearance to play "Here Comes the Flood", and a duet of
Roy HarperRoy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...
's "Another Day" with Bush.
After the Tour of Life Bush desired to make two more albums before touring again. At that point she got involved with production techniques and sound experimentation that took up a lot of time and prevented her from touring. Later on there were a couple of instances where she came close to touring again.
In 1982, Bush participated in the first benefit concert in aid of
The Prince's TrustThe Prince's Trust is a charity in the United Kingdom founded in 1976 by Charles, Prince of Wales to help young people. They run a range of training programmes, provide mentoring support and offer financial grants to build the confidence and motivation of disadvantaged young people...
alongside artists such as
MadnessIn 1979, the band recorded the Lee Thompson composition "The Prince". The song, like the band's name, paid homage to their idol, Prince Buster. The song was released through 2 Tone Records, the label of The Specials founder Jerry Dammers. The song was a surprise hit, peaking in the UK music charts...
,
Midge UreJames "Midge" Ure, OBE is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter...
,
Phil Collins Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....
,
Mick KarnAndonis Michaelides , better known as Mick Karn, was an English multi-instrumentalist musician and songwriter, who came to fame as the bassist for the art rock band Japan, from 1974 to 1982....
and
Pete TownshendPeter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...
. On 25 April 1986 Bush performed live for British charity event
Comic ReliefComic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
, singing "Do Bears... ?", a humorous duet with
Rowan Atkinson Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
, and a rendition of "Breathing". Later in the year on 28 June 1986, she made a guest appearance to duet with Peter Gabriel on "
Don't Give Up"Don't Give Up" is song written by Peter Gabriel and recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel's album So. The single version spent eleven weeks in the UK Top 75 chart in 1986, peaking at number nine. It describes the despair of a man who feels isolated and defeated by the economic system, and...
" at Earl's Court, London as part of his "So" tour. In March 1987, Bush sang "Running Up that Hill" at
The Secret Policeman's Third BallThe Secret Policeman's Balls is the collective name informally used to describe the long-running series of benefit shows staged in England to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International...
.
On 17 January 2002, Bush appeared with her long-time champion,
David GilmourDavid Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
, singing the part of the doctor in "
Comfortably Numb"Comfortably Numb" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, which first appears on the 1979 double album, The Wall. It was also released as a single in the same year with "Hey You" as the B-side. It is one of only three songs on the album for which writing credits are shared between Roger...
" at the
Royal Festival HallThe Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
in London.
In 2011 Bush told Classic Rock Magazine "I do hope that some time I get a chance to do some shows. Maybe not a tour, but something"
Video projects
In 1979 Bush's one live show,
The Tour of Life-Tour dates:-Further reading:* by Graeme Thomson for The Guardian 13 May 2010...
, was recorded for the BBC and for release on VHS as
Kate Bush Live at Hammersmith Odeon.
Bush has appeared in innovative music videos designed to accompany her singles releases. Among the best known are those for "Running Up that Hill", "Babooshka", "Breathing", "Wuthering Heights", and "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and "Cloudbusting", featuring actor
Donald SutherlandDonald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
, who made time during the filming of another project to take part in the video. EMI has released collections of her videos, including
The Single File,
Hair of the Hound,
The Whole Story, a career video overview released in conjunction with the 1986 compilation album of the same title, and
The Sensual World.
In 1993, she directed and starred in the short film,
The Line, the Cross & the Curve, a musical co-starring Miranda Richardson, featuring music from Bush's album
The Red Shoes, which was inspired by the classic movie of the same name. It was released on VHS in the UK in 1994 and also received a small number of cinema screenings around the world. In recent interviews, Bush has said that she considers it a failure, and stated in 2001: "I'm very pleased with four minutes of it, but I'm very disappointed with the rest." In a 2005 interview, she described the film as "A load of bollocks."
In 1994, Bush provided the music used in a series of
psychedelicThe term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
-themed television commercials for the soft drink
FruitopiaFruitopia is a fruit-flavoured drink introduced by The Coca-Cola Company in 1994 and targeted at teens and young adults. According to New York Times business reports, it was invented as part of a push by Coca-Cola to capitalize on the success of Snapple and other flavored tea drinks. The brand...
that appeared in the United States. The same company aired the ads in the United Kingdom, but the British version featured
Elizabeth FraserElizabeth Davidson Fraser is a Scottish singer best known as the vocalist for the pioneer alternative rock group Cocteau Twins...
of
Cocteau TwinsCocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...
instead of Bush.
In late 2006, a DVD documentary titled
Kate Bush Under Review was released by Sexy Intellectual, which included archival interviews with Bush, along with interviews with a selection of music historians and journalists (including Phil Sutcliffe, Nigel Williamson, and
Morris PertMorris David Brough Pert was a Scottish composer, drummer/percussionist, and pianist who composed in the fields of both contemporary classical and jazz-rock music...
). The DVD also includes clips from several of Bush's music videos.
On 2 December 2008, the DVD collection of the fourth season of
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, including her performances, was released. A three DVD set of
The Secret Policeman's BallsThe Secret Policeman's Balls is the collective name informally used to describe the long-running series of benefit shows staged in England to raise funds for the human rights organisation Amnesty International...
benefit concerts that includes Bush's performance was released on 27 January 2009.
Movie projects
In 1990, Bush starred in the
black comedyA black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
film
Les Dogs, produced by
The Comic StripThe Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents.... The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and...
for
BBC televisionBBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
. Aired on 8 March 1990, Bush plays the bride Angela at a wedding set in a post-apocalyptic version of Britain. While Bush's is a silent presence in a wedding dress throughout most of the film, she does have several lines of dialogue with Peter Richardson in two dream sequences. In another
Comic Strip Presents film,
GLC, she produced the theme song "Ken", which includes a vocal performance by Bush. The song was written about
Ken LivingstoneKenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
, the leader of the
Greater London CouncilThe Greater London Council was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council which had covered a much smaller area...
, who would later be elected as mayor of London and at the time was working with musicians to help the
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
garner the youth vote.
She also produced all the incidental music, which is synthesiser based. Bush wrote and performed the song "The Magician", in a fairground-like arrangement, for
Menahem GolanMenahem Golan is an Israeli director and producer. He has produced movies for such stars as Sean Connery, Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Charles Bronson, and was known for a period as a producer of comic book-style movies like Masters of the Universe, Superman IV:...
's 1979 film
The Magician of LublinThe Magician of Lublin is a 1979 film co-written and directed by Menahem Golan. The film is based on The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer. The title song The Magician was performed by Kate Bush.-Plot:...
. In 1985, Bush contributed a darkly melancholic version of the
Ary BarrosoAry Barroso was a Brazilian composer, pianist, soccer commentator, and talent-show host on radio and TV...
song "
Brazil"Aquarela do Brasil" , known in the English-speaking world simply as "Brazil", is one of the most famous Brazilian songs of all time, written by Ary Barroso in 1939.-Background and composition:...
" to the soundtrack of the Terry Gilliam film
BrazilBrazil is a 1985 British science fiction fantasy/black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam. It was written by Gilliam, Charles McKeown, and Tom Stoppard and stars Jonathan Pryce. The film also features Robert De Niro, Kim Greist, Michael Palin, Katherine Helmond, Bob Hoskins, and Ian Holm...
. The track was scored and arranged by
Michael KamenMichael Arnold Kamen was an American composer , orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician.-Background:...
. In 1986, she wrote and recorded "Be Kind To My Mistakes" for the Nicolas Roeg film
CastawayCastaway is a 1986 film starring Amanda Donohoe and Oliver Reed, and directed by Nicolas Roeg. It was adapted from the 1984 book of the same name by Lucy Irvine, telling of her experiences of staying for a year with writer Gerald Kingsland on the isolated island of Tuin, between New Guinea and...
. An edited version of this track was used as the B side to her 1989 single "
This Woman's Work12" and CD single -Chart performance:"This Woman's Work" was released on 20 November 1989 and reached a peak position of #25 in the UK Singles Chart. Fifteen years after its original release, in 2005, the song peaked at #3 in the UK Official Download Chart, due to it being featured in the Tamzin...
". In 1988, the song "This Woman's Work" was featured in the John Hughes film
She's Having a BabyShe's Having a Baby is a 1988 American romance film directed by John Hughes.The film portrays a young newlywed couple, Kristy and Jake Briggs played by Elizabeth McGovern and Kevin Bacon, who try to cope with being married and what is expected of them by their parents. Jake must also deal with the...
, and a slightly remixed version appeared on Bush's album
The Sensual World. The song has since appeared on numerous television shows, and in 2005 reached number eight on the UK download chart after featuring in a British television advertisement for the charity
NSPCCThe National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is a United Kingdom charity campaigning and working in child protection.-History:...
.
In 1999, Bush wrote and recorded a song for the Disney film
DinosaurDinosaur is a 2000 American computer-animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on May 19, 2000, and is the 39th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
, but the track was ultimately not included on the soundtrack. According to the winter 1999 issue of
HomeGround, a Bush
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
, it was scrapped when Disney asked her to rewrite the song and she refused. Also in 1999, Bush's song "The Sensual World" was featured prominently in Canadian filmmaker
Atom EgoyanAtom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...
's film "
Felicia's JourneyFelicia's Journey is a 1999 film starring Elaine Cassidy and Bob Hoskins, based on a prize winning 1994 novel by William Trevor. It was directed by Atom Egoyan...
". "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" is on the soundtrack for the 2007 British
romantic comedyRomantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
film
Starter for 10.
Collaborations
Bush provided vocals on two of Peter Gabriel's albums, including the hits "
Games Without Frontiers"Games Without Frontiers" is a hit 1980 single by Peter Gabriel, released on his third self-titled solo album. It features Kate Bush on backing vocals and became his first UK Top 10 hit, peaking at #4. It ties with 1986's Sledgehammer as his highest-charting song in the UK. It peaked at #48 in the...
" and "
Don't Give Up"Don't Give Up" is song written by Peter Gabriel and recorded as a duet with Kate Bush for Gabriel's album So. The single version spent eleven weeks in the UK Top 75 chart in 1986, peaking at number nine. It describes the despair of a man who feels isolated and defeated by the economic system, and...
", as well as "
No Self-Control"No Self Control" is a song written and performed by British musician Peter Gabriel. As with the other songs on the album, the lyrics are very dark, discussing what could be interpreted as either intense greed and lust or mental instability and decay of the psyche...
". Gabriel appeared on Bush's 1979 television special, where they sang a duet of
Roy HarperRoy Harper is an English folk / rock singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been a professional musician since the mid 1960s...
's "Another Day". She has sung on two Roy Harper tracks, "You", on his 1979 album, "The Unknown Soldier", and "Once", the title track of his 1990 album. She has also sung on the title song of the 1986
Big CountryBig Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife in 1981. They were most popular in the early to mid-1980s, but they still release material for a cult following...
album
The Seer, the
Midge UreJames "Midge" Ure, OBE is a Scottish guitarist, singer, keyboard player, and songwriter...
song "Sister and Brother" from his 1988 album
Answers to Nothing,
Go WestGo West is an English pop duo, formed in 1982 by lead vocalist and drummer Peter Cox ; and guitarist and vocalist Richard Drummie...
's 1987 single "The King Is Dead" and two songs with
PrincePrince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
– "Why Should I Love You?", from her 1993 album
The Red Shoes, and in 1996, the song "My Computer" from Prince's album
EmancipationEmancipation is the nineteenth studio album by Prince . The title refers to Prince's freedom from his contract with Warner Bros. Records after 18 years, with whom he had a contentious relationship...
. In 1987, she sang a verse on the charity single "Let It Be" by Ferry Aid. She sang a line on the charity single "Spirit of the Forest" by Spirit of the Forest in 1989. 1990 saw Kate producing, for the only time in her career, one song for another artist,
Alan StivellAlan Stivell is a Breton musician and singer, recording artist and master of the celtic harp who from the early 1970s revived global interest in the Celtic harp and Celtic music as part of world music.- Background: learning Breton music and culture :Alan was born in the Auvergnat town of Riom...
's "Kimiad", on his album
Again. Stivell had appeared on
The Sensual World. In 1995, Bush covered George Gershwin's "
The Man I Love"The Man I Love" is a popular standard, with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira. Originally part of the 1924 score for the Gershwin government satire Lady, Be Good as "The Girl I Love", the song was deleted from the show as well as from both the 1927 anti-war satire Strike Up...
" for the tribute album
The Glory of GershwinThe Glory Of Gershwin is the title of a 1994 tribute album by various singers in celebration of Larry Adler's 80th birthday. All songs are written by George & Ira Gershwin, Adler's lifelong friends.-Track listing:# Peter Gabriel - Summertime [3:50]...
. In 1996, Bush contributed a version of "Mná na hÉireann" (Irish for Women of Ireland) for the Anglo-Irish folk-rock compilation project
Common Ground: The Voices of Modern Irish Music. Bush had to sing the song in Irish, which she
learned to do phoneticallyPhonetical singing is when a singer learns and performs, the lyrics of a song by the words' phonetic sounds without necessarily understanding of the content of the lyrics....
. Artists who have contributed to Bush's own albums include
Eric ClaptonEric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
,
Jeff BeckGeoffrey Arnold "Jeff" Beck is an English rock guitarist. He is one of three noted guitarists to have played with The Yardbirds...
,
David GilmourDavid Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...
,
Nigel KennedyNigel Kennedy is a British born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti...
,
Gary BrookerGary Brooker, MBE, is an English singer, songwriter, pianist and founder of the rock band Procol Harum. Brooker was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's Birthday Honours on 14 June 2003, in recognition of his charitable services.-Early life:Brooker was born in...
, and Prince. Bush provided backing vocals for a song that was recorded during the 1990s titled
Wouldn't Change a Thing by Lionel Azulay, the drummer with the original band that was later to become the KT Bush Band. The song, which was engineered and produced by Del Palmer, is available for download and will be on Azulay’s upcoming CD.
Bush declined a request by
ErasureErasure are an English synthpop duo, consisting of songwriter and keyboardist Vince Clarke and singer Andy Bell. Erasure entered the music scene in 1985 with their debut single "Who Needs Love Like That"...
to produce one of their albums because "she didn’t feel that that was her area".
In 2010, Bush provided vocals for Rolf Harris's cover of a traditional Irish song entitled "She Moves Through the Fair". Harris, who described the collaboration the "best thing I’ve done," is unsure of how to release the track.
Influence
From the 1980s onward, it has become almost standard for individualistic female singer-songwriters to be compared to Bush by the media. She has been noted as an influence on female artists such as
Tori AmosTori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
,
BjörkBjörk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
,
Alison GoldfrappAlison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp is an English singer-songwriter and record producer, best known as the lead singer of the electronic music duo Goldfrapp. Goldfrapp has a soprano vocal range.-Early life:...
,
Nerina PallotNerina Pallot is a platinum selling, BRIT Award and Ivor Novello Award nominated British singer and songwriter. Although born in London, Pallot was brought up in Jersey to a half-French father and mother from Allahabad, India.-Early life:Pallot played piano as a child and wrote her first song...
,
KT TunstallKate Victoria "KT" Tunstall is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist from St Andrews, Scotland. She broke into the public eye with a 2004 live solo performance of her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland...
,
Happy RhodesHappy Rhodes is an American singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and electronic musician with a four-octave vocal range. She has released 11 albums since 1986.- Family :...
,
Lily AllenLily Rose Beatrice Cooper , better known as Lily Allen, is an English recording artist and fashion designer. She is the daughter of actor and musician Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen. In her teenage years, her musical tastes evolved from glam rock to alternative...
,
PJ HarveyPolly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
,
Little BootsVictoria Christina Hesketh, also known by her stage name/pseudonym Little Boots, is an English electropop singer-songwriter. Her stage name comes from a nickname given to her by a friend, a reference to her unusually small feet...
, and
Florence WelchFlorence Leontine Mary Welch is an English singer-songwriter, best known worldwide as the lead singer of Florence and the Machine...
, in addition to acts as diverse as
MuseMuse are an English alternative rock band from Teignmouth, Devon, formed in 1994. The band consists of school friends Matthew Bellamy , Christopher Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard...
,
OutKastOutkast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as Two Shades Deep but later changed the group's name to OutKast...
, and
Bloc PartyBloc Party are a British Indie rock band, composed of Kele Okereke , Russell Lissack , Gordon Moakes , and Matt Tong...
.
Paula ColePaula Cole is an American singer/songwriter. Her single "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone" reached the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997, and the following year she won a Grammy Award for Best New Artist.-Early life:...
named Bush as an influence while accepting the Best New Artist Grammy in 1996.
Ariel PinkAriel Pink is a Los Angeles-based recording artist who is sometimes associated with the freak folk scene.-Biography:...
wrote a tribute song for her titled "For Kate I Wait" on the album
The Doldrums. The
trip-hopTrip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
artist
TrickyTricky is an English musician and actor. As a producer and a musician, he is noted for a dark, rich and layered sound and a whispering sprechgesang lyrical style. Culturally, Tricky encourages an intertwining of societies, particularly in his musical fusion of rock and hip hop, high art and pop...
has said about Bush, "I don't believe in God, but if I did, her music would be my bible".
Punk rockPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
er
John LydonJohn Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
, better known as Johnny Rotten of the
Sex PistolsThe Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
, declared her work to be "fucking brilliant" and labelled her "a true original". Rotten once wrote a song for her, titled "Bird in Hand" (about exploitation of parrots) that Bush rejected. Rotten theorised that Bush thought the song contained insulting references aimed at her.
Marc AlmondMarc Almond is an English singer-songwriter and musician, who originally found fame as half of the seminal synthpop/New Wave duo Soft Cell...
chose "Moments of Pleasure" as one of his 10 favourite songs on Radio 2 in June 2007, saying that the song had a profound influence on him when he was combating drug addiction in New York in the 1990s. In November 2006, the singer
Rufus WainwrightRufus McGarrigle Wainwright is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. He has recorded six albums of original music, EPs, and tracks on compilations and film soundtracks.-Early years:...
named Bush as one of his top ten gay icons. Outside music, Bush has been an inspiration to several fashion designers, most notably
Hussein ChalayanHussein Chalayan MBE is a British/Turkish Cypriot fashion designer who graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1993.- Biography :...
.
Many artists around the world have recorded cover versions of Bush songs, including
Charlotte ChurchCharlotte Maria Church is a Welsh singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter. She rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before branching into pop music in 2005. By 2007, she had sold more than 10 million records worldwide including over 5 million in the United States...
,
The FutureheadsThe Futureheads are an English post-punk band from Sunderland. consisting of Ross Millard , Barry Hyde and David "Jaff" Craig...
(who had a UK top ten hit with a cover of "
Hounds of Love"Hounds of Love" is the title track of the Hounds of Love album by Kate Bush, the third of the album's four singles. The single was released on 24 February 1986, and reached number 18 in the UK Singles Chart...
"),
PlaceboPlacebo are a British rock band from London, England, formed in 1994 by singer and guitarist Brian Molko and bass guitarist Stefan Olsdal. The band was joined by drummer Robert Schultzberg, who was later replaced by Steve Hewitt after conflicts with Molko. Hewitt left the band in October 2007 and...
,
Pat BenatarPat Benatar is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States...
,
Hayley WestenraHayley Dee Westenra is a New Zealand soprano, classical crossover artist, songwriter and UNICEF Ambassador. Her first internationally released album, Pure, reached No. 1 on the UK classical charts in 2003 and has sold more than two million copies worldwide...
,
Jane BirkinJane Mallory Birkin, OBE is an English-born actress and singer who lives in France. In recent years she has written her own album, directed a film and become an outspoken proponent of democracy in Burma.- Early life :...
,
Natalie ColeNatalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
,
Ra Ra RiotRa Ra Riot is an American indie rock band from Syracuse, New York, consisting of vocalist Wes Miles, bassist Mathieu Santos, guitarist Milo Bonacci, cellist Alexandra Lawn , violinist Rebecca Zeller, and drummer Kenny Bernard.-History:...
,
MaxwellMaxwell , is an American R&B, funk and neo soul musician. He played an important role in the development of the soul sub-genre, neo-soul.-Early life:...
,
The ChurchThe Church is an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1980. Initially associated with new wave and the neo-psychedelic sound of the mid 1980s, their music later became more reminiscent of progressive rock, featuring long instrumental jams and complex guitar interplay...
and
Nada SurfNada Surf is an American alternative rock band. Formed in 1992, the New York band consists of Matthew Caws , Ira Elliot and Daniel Lorca .-Early years:...
. The British dance act
Utah SaintsUtah Saints is a dance band based in Leeds, England. The music is produced by Jez Willis and Tim Garbutt, who are joined on-stage by other musicians whenever the band plays live...
sampled a line from "Cloudbusting" for their single, "
Something Good"Something Good" is a house music song released by Utah Saints in 1992. It was first included as the lead song on a seven-track EP titled Something Good, then later included on the Utah Saints album...
". Artists such as Tori Amos,
Nolwenn LeroyNolwenn Leroy, , is a French singer and songwriter, discovered by the French television reality show Star Academy. She is best known for her two Number One singles "Cassé" and "Nolwenn Ohwo!"....
,
Patrick WolfPatrick Wolf is an English-Irish singer-songwriter from South London. Patrick utilises a wide variety of instruments in his music, most commonly the ukulele, piano and viola...
and Happy Rhodes (whose upper vocal range has been compared with the one of Kate Bush) have covered her songs in live performances.
ColdplayColdplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
said their track "
Speed of Sound"Speed of Sound" is a song by English alternative rock band Coldplay. It was written by all members of the band for their third album, X&Y. Built around a piano riff, the song builds into a huge, synthesizer-heavy chorus...
" was originally an attempt to re-create "Running Up that Hill".
SuedeSuede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...
front-man
Brett AndersonBrett Lewis Anderson is an English singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Suede. After Suede disbanded in 2003, he briefly fronted The Tears, and has released four solo albums...
has stated that "Wuthering Heights" was the first single he ever bought and mentioned "And Dream of Sheep" in Suede's song "These are the Sad Songs". British folk singer
Jim MorayJim Moray is an English folk singer, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.-Recording artist:While studying classical composition at the Birmingham Conservatoire, Moray released the home-recorded I Am Jim Moray EP. During 2002 he appeared at the Glastonbury festival and the Cambridge Folk...
also references "And Dream of Sheep" in his self-penned track "Longing for Lucy".
ProgressiveProgressive metal is a subgenre of heavy metal originating in the United Kingdom and North America in the late 1980s...
death metalDeath metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal. It typically employs heavily distorted guitars, tremolo picking, deep growling vocals, blast beat drumming, minor keys or atonality, and complex song structures with multiple tempo changes....
act
NovembreNovembre is a progressive death metal/gothic doom metal band.-Biography:Starting out in 1990 as an Italian death metal band , Novembre grew to develop a unique, atmospheric sound. Although most of their lyrics are in English, vocalist Carmelo Orlando sings in Italian occasionally in many of their...
also covered "Cloudbusting" on their album
Novembrine WaltzNovembrine Waltz is the 4th studio album by Novembre; an Italian Progressive/Melodic Metal band. Vocals vary between clean-singing, death metal growling, and harsh black metal screams.-Track listing:...
. In 2009,
John FortéJohn Forté is a Grammy-nominated American recording artist, composer, music producer, educator and activist. He achieved fame while writing, producing and performing with the celebrated hip hop group The Fugees during the 1990’s, and has released four solo albums, including his most recent effort,...
released a hip hop version of "Running Up that Hill". In 2010,
Theo BleckmannTheo Bleckmann is a vocalist and composer.-Biography:Theo Bleckmann is a jazz singer and new music composer, he was GRAMMY NOMINATED and received the ECHO award in 2010...
has been performing his work
Hello Earth! The Music of Kate Bush and plans to release the project as an album in 2011. In 1998 a collection of independent musicians including
Syd StrawSyd Straw is an American rock singer and songwriter. The daughter of actor Jack Straw , she began her career singing backup for Pat Benatar, then took her distinct voice to the indie/alternative scene and joined the Golden Palominos...
recorded the tribute album
I Wanna Be Kate, which was released in CD and mp3 form.
On 15 October 2011
art rockArt rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...
singer and composer
Theo BleckmannTheo Bleckmann is a vocalist and composer.-Biography:Theo Bleckmann is a jazz singer and new music composer, he was GRAMMY NOMINATED and received the ECHO award in 2010...
released an album of Kate Bush covers, titled
Hello Earth! - The Music of Kate Bush which includes his interpretation of fourteen Bush classics such as "Running Up that Hill", "Cloudbusting", The Man With the Child in His Eyes", and "This Woman's Work." After seeing Bleckmann perform some of the Bush canon live in 2010 in preparation for recording the album, New York Times music critic Nate Chinen wrote: “Kate Bush is a special fit for him. The arc of her career, uneasily abutting art-rock and alternative music, jibes with his own off-kilter profile. And she’s another transfixing singer with a penchant for careful diction and spooky connotation, and deep interest in the subconscious.”
Discography
- The Kick Inside
-Personnel:*Kate Bush: Piano, Composer, Keyboards, Vocals, Background Vocals*Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Vocals, Background Vocals, Bottle*Paddy Bush: Harmonica, Mandolin, Vocals*Barry DeSouza: drums*Stuart Elliott: Drums...
(1978)
- Lionheart (1978)
- Never for Ever
- Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...
(1980)
- The Dreaming
-Personnel:*Stewart Arnold: vocals, background vocals*Jimmy Bain: bass*Ian Bairnson: acoustic guitar, vocals, background vocals*John Barrett: assistant engineer*Brian Bath: electric guitar*Haydn Bendall: engineer...
(1982)
- Hounds of Love
Hounds of Love is a 1985 album by the British singer Kate Bush. It was Bush's fifth studio album, and her second no. 1. It has since been certified Double Platinum in the UK...
(1985)
- The Sensual World
-Personnel:*Haydn Bendall: engineer*Andrew Boland: engineer*Stoyanka Boneva: vocals*Kate Bush: piano, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, producer*Paddy Bush: mandolin, background vocals, valiha, whip, tupan*Clare Connors: violin...
(1989)
- The Red Shoes
-Personnel:*Jeff Beck: Guitar*Haydn Bendall: Engineer*Gary Brooker: Hammond Organ*Kate Bush: Bass, Guitar, Piano, Arranger, Composer, Keyboards, vocals, Producer, Fender Rhodes...
(1993)
- Aerial
Aerial is the eighth studio album by British singer-songwriter and musician Kate Bush.-Overview:Aerial is Bush's first double album, and was released after a twelve year absence from the music industry during which Bush devoted her time to family and the rearing of her son, Bertie...
(2005)
- Director's Cut
-Singles:The only single to be released from the album was "Deeper Understanding", originally the sixth track of The Sensual World. Its lyrics describe a relationship between a lonely person and a computer which has replaced human companionship....
(2011)
- 50 Words for Snow
50 Words for Snow is the tenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. It is the second album to be released on her own label, Fish People...
(2011)
Further reading
- Vermorel, Fred and Judy, Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia (1980) Target Books
- Vermorel, Fred, The Secret History of Kate Bush and the Strange Art of Pop (1983) Omnibus Press ISBN 0.7119.0152.X
- Cann, Kevin and Mayes, Sean
Sean Mayes was a British pianist and writer.Born in Stone Allerton, Somerset, Mayes was schooled in Bristol. He won a place at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained a degree in philosophy....
, Kate Bush: A Visual Documentary (1988) Omnibus Press ISBN 0-7119-1039-1
- Muskens, Helena; Racké, Quirine, Come Back Kate. Snow White Films. Involved TV Channel: NPS. 2007
- 'I'm not some weirdo recluse' (The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 28 October 2005)
- This Bush's mission finally gets accomplished (National Post
The National Post is a Canadian English-language national newspaper based in Don Mills, a district of Toronto. The paper is owned by Postmedia Network Inc. and is published Mondays through Saturdays...
, 22 December 2005)
- Two Musicians who have worked with Bush describe her working style and non work personality
- The Illustrated Collector's Guide to Kate Bush, 2nd Edition, published by Collector's Guide Publishing. A complete guide to everything Kate Bush. Includes albums, CDs, DVDs, books and other collectibles. It's complete up to Aerial.
- The Bush era: Leafy lady Kate Bush's musical family tree sprouts cover versions and young seedlings by Marke B. and Irwin Swirmoff for the San Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...
15 July 2009
- Withers, Debroah Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory . Hammeron Press, 1 March 2010. ISBN 0-9564507-0-9.
- Thompson, Graeme Kate Bush: Under the Ivy. Omnibus Press, 1 May 2010 ISBN 1-84772-930-4
- 'It's Coming For Me Through The Trees' – The Influence of Horror Cinema on the Music of Kate Bush, by James Gracey, The Blood Sprayer, 18 August 2010
External links