As a writer of stories, the ability to conjure a particular emotional experience in the reader is my highest ambition, and I have always envied this particular power of music. Words have the power too, of course, but music has a more direct impact.
Kate’s devotion to story was clear from the very first
A confession - I really don’t like Wuthering Heights. I don’t like the novel, the story, the characters - and so I was predisposed not to like the song.
When it comes to the Brontes, it is Charlotte I love. Jane Eyre was the first grown up novel I devoured, aged eleven. In a recent re-reading I found many ways in which it inspired and influenced my life.
But who would want Wuthering Heights to have an influence on their life?
Wuthering Heights
Even though I still don’t like the song - I can appreciate its power - and how well chosen it was for her first single.
It establishes straight away that Kate is deeply interested in story. The voice (so often complained about!) is Cathy’s voice - inspired by a film first, and only after that, the novel. It’s the voice of Cathy as a ghost, haunting her lover Heathcliff.
It is passionate, gothic, full of doomed romanticism. And it’s not surprising that it captivated an audience back in the late 70s, just as Kate herself was captivated by the story.
Oddly, that voice is something which many of the people who don’t like Kate are put off by - because the song is so well known, and because (on the whole) people are incapable of separating the “in character” voice, from the voice of the artist, there’s an underlying assumption that Kate is all Cathy.
The range of her songs and the stories they tell show us she is so much more than doomed romanticism! Her vocal range is also extraordinarily broad.
I still am not a huge fan of the song, but I am very glad that it wasn’t enough to put me off buying The Tour of Life tickets - the first birthday present I ever bought for Ryan, then my boyfriend.
We were on the front row at The Liverpool Empire for her very first performance, and I was won over by the end of the first song.
James and the Cold Gun
This is the song which the record company wanted for her first single - and intriguingly, it too illustrates how much Kate loves to tell a good story.
She draws on all the tropes of the Western - how James has run off from his real life, drinking whisky with the boys, spending time with Genie from the casino, and her big brass bed - all for the love of the cold gun. I’ve seen lots of interpretations of the song - suggestions that it’s about Jessie James, or the Day of the Jackal, or a man going off to war. For me, the reference to buckskin signifies Western to me - that James has run away to the romance of the outlaw life.
And just the phrase “rat a tat you down” evokes such a strong visual image from a whole host of Westerns.
None of these differences really matter, though - they are all valid responses to the story - which has a really light-hearted romp feel about it - especially if you take into account Kate’s stage performance, in the video above.
Army Dreamers
A much more serious, and controversial track which tells a story - in the video as well as the lyrics.
Some have complained that Kate’s ‘Irish lilt’ as she sings here makes an obvious reference to the Troubles. I think the final chorus, where she repeats “Mammy’s hero’ does hint in that direction, but I prefer to take her word for it, that it refers to all conflicts. In any case, it certainly works more generally.
The video opens with a small blond boy in her lap, who returns all dressed up in combat gear. This imagery brings the song to life - a mother’s lament over her son, “who never made it to his twenties.”
Illustrating this tragic story about the death of underprivileged young soldiers with this child playing war games in the woods is distressing - especially when contrasted in the lyrics with the opportunities such children don’t have - they can’t become rock stars because they can’t afford guitars, they can’t become politicians, their education isn’t good enough.
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a rock star)
But he didn't have the money for a guitar
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a politician)
But he never had a proper education
(What could he do?)
(Should have been a father)
But he never even made it to his twenties
What a waste
Army dreamers
Ooh, what a waste of
Army (army) dreamers (dreamers)
Ooh, what a waste of all them
I think it’s quite a badge of honour for Kate’s song that it was added to list of banned songs during the Iraq war. The power of a good story.
The Ninth Wave
This was always my favourite of Kate's works and I was ridiculously excited when I found out it was going to be performed at Before The Dawn. I'd been in love with The Ninth Wave since first listening to the Hounds of Love album in 1985.
The Ninth Wave is still my favourite (maybe) - and took her storytelling to another level.
Over the course of seven tracks, we are drawn into the experience of a woman who is lost at sea, drowning. It's a story with a mythic, otherworldly feel, about a woman who falls off a boat into the ocean, and it starts with her slipping away, about to die... The whole piece is about her struggle between life and death - mostly through dreams and visions, with interspersed fragments of reality, helicopters searching, and voices calling her back to her life.
As she slips between hallucinations and reality, she is subjected to a trial and the Witchfinder pronounces her "Guilty, guilty, guilty." At last, she is rescued, and she chooses life.
This is truly story as ritual.
The words and the music combine to evoke a deep experience of the dark night of the soul... and the eventual emergence from those depths to a sense of the joy of life is transformative.
A Sky of Honey
(I so love this coat, wings and all)
I hadn’t really connected with A Sky of Honey until Before The Dawn. I’m not sure why, except I simply didn’t spend the time listening to Aerial and I had always considered it my least favourite of her albums.
But… the live performance was something else, and now I might even rate it more highly than The Ninth Wave. Some days, at least.
It’s not quite a story in the same way as the other Bush songs - I think it’s more a manifesto. It’s an expression of everything that matters in life. The Painter’s Link, The Architect’s Dream - they talk about how we humans make art in imitation of the natural world. And the rest is all about the simple pleasures in life - a day out in the countryside, a picnic.
I’ve seen this piece dismissed as trivial, but it’s the opposite of that - at it’s heart it’s about the joy of being alive, of being connected to each other and to the earth. What matters more?
It’s a very pagan appreciation of life - sensual and spiritual both. In the live performance, the ecstatic drumming was almost ritual, shamanistic.
So very different to The Ninth Wave and yet both are about choosing life. It was reliving The Sky of Honey in my mind which got me through one of the hardest times in my life, when I spent weeks in hospital.
Somewhere in between
The waxing and the waning wave
Somewhere in between
The night and the daylight
Somewhere in between
The ticking and the tocking clock
Somewhere in between
What the song and silence saySomewhere in between
Breathing out and breathing inGoodnight sun
In Conclusion
I first listened to this Radio 4 interview with Kate in the run up to Before The Dawn, and she explicitly told us that she sees herself as a writer, a teller of stories, and a creator of transformative ritual magic.
"Art is about human expression.... it should be something that's evolving and developing as you move through a song, and changing, not just the repetition of the same moments because I think what's so exciting about music is that it's something that unfolds through the process of time, that's what music is, it's something that if people get it right, then you'll be whipped up into a trance frenzy or a state of prayer. Music is something that's very special and very emotive. "
I continue to be in awe of Kate's magical storytelling, and of the way she has created for herself a way to stay grounded as a person, and as an artist.
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LINKS
Radio 4 - The Power of Strange Things
Tracey Thorn on Before The Dawn
Kate Bush website - source of the official Before the Dawn photos
As for the songs, I could have gone on and on….
Babooshka
The Wedding List
The Red Shoes
There Goes a Tenner
Cloudbusting
This Woman’s Work
Get Out of my House (LOUD with donkey noises!)
and many, many more…
Lily is a personal favourite - in fact. it partly inspired a scene in my second novel, The Witch House, or at least they share a common source.
Bravo Ann! This piece is a delight. Thank you
I heard part of a great piece about Kate on R4 a few months back, maybe on one of your links, I will have to check. Great to read this. I was astounded when Dave Gilmour said they used the original demo of The Man With The Child In his eyes for the 1st LP. She was only 15 when she recorded it I think.