Another early piece on Kate

[IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]

                    _Kate:_enigma_variations_

   (This article first appeared in _Melody_Maker_, November 1978)

                        by Harry Doherty

     The enigma that is Kate Bush--it confuses us all. I've just read
a bitter character assassination of Kate Bush (in another paper) and
the central area of complaint around which this assault revolves is
that Ms. Bush is "nice"
     "An hour or so in the company of Kate Bush," this enlightened
scribe considered, "is like being trapped for the duration in a very
wholesome TV show with definite but unwarranted intellectual
aspirations."
     I can understand that as a reaction to a well-mannered chance
meeting, but really, had the writer listened attentively to her first
album (regardless of liking or disliking it), I don't think he would
have come to the same rash and puerile conclusion.
     Actually, Kate Bush scares me, for a combination of reasons.  The
first is the diplomatic pleasantness and awesome logic she displays in
interviews, but that is only one dimension--she is, in fact, a "nice"
person. It is when that initial impact is paired with the multifarious
intensity of her music that I start to quiver.
     The contrast is eerie, and frightening. In the studio, living out
her imaginative fantasies, kate Bush is strickien by a rush of
surrealism, and suddenly a range of weird personalities are displayed.
It is a subconsciousness that was evident on her first album,
_The_Kick_Inside_, and it is captured to an even greater extent on
_Lionheart_, the sequel now released.
     "Nice" is not a word I'd turn to to describe the consequences.
The songwriting, the singing, the arrangements, the production have
the mark of a singular personality. Kate Bush's music is more like a
confrontation. At times, it makes the listener feel uneasy and
insecure. Kate's approach to her work is marked by an obstinate
refusal to compromise in any way, so she does not make it easy for the
listener to get into the music. To begin with, it's a challenge.
     Because, then, it's difficult to appreciate full Kate Bush's
music (and who, after all, is she to make such demands?)--compounded
with the fact that she seems to have the Midas touch--she is set up
for criticism, which must make it all the more fulfilling to carry off
two awards in the _MM_ Poll. Even when told of her performance in the
Poll, Kate girlishly enthuses: "That's wonderful! Fantastic!
Incredible!"
     Nice.
     The success of _The_Kick_Inside_ and its hit singles
(_Wuthering_Heights_ and _The_Man_With_the_Child_in_His_Eyes) was as
much a hindrance as a help when the time came for Kate Bush to record
a second album. As she has said before, the terms of reference were
suddenly overturned. Instead of a rising talent, she is now a risen
talent--and anything less than an emulation of the initial success
will be interpreted as a failure. It's a pressure, though, that she
can live with.
     There are similarities to the debut album. _Lionheart_ is
produced once more by Andrew Powell and, generally, the musicians who
did the honours on _The_Kick_Inside_ are recalled. Kate wants the
connections between her first and second album to stop there.
     For instance, her own band makes a slight contribution to the new
album, being featured on two of the tracks, _Wow_ and
_Kashka_From_Baghdad_, and had it not been for a mix-up in the
organisation, might have made a heavier contribution. It is, it
appears, a sensitive situation, and one that Kate doesn't care to
dwell upon, but she's still determined that, eventually, her own
band--Charlie Morgan (drums), Brian Bath (guitars), Del Palmer (bass),
Paddy Bush (mandolin)--will play a more prominent part in the
recording proceedings.
     On the subject of producing, it's significant that Kate is
accredited as assistant producer and so is acknowledged as playing an
active role in mixing the sound as well as performing.  She takes an
immense interest in recording techniques and states intentions to
pursue ambitions in that area. There was, however, a problem in
communication when she was involved in the production and her lack of
professional lingo for various methods of recording often led to
confusion and amusement in the studio.
     "I feel I know what I'm talking about in the studio now. I know
what I should hear. The reaction to me explaining what I want in the
studio was amusement, to a certain extent. The were all taking the
piss out of me a bit."
     Overall, Bush was concerned that the new album should differ
quite radically from her first. &ocq.Maybe I'm a bit too close to it
at the moment, but I find it much more adventurous than the last one.
I'm much happier with the songs and the arrangements and the backing
tracks.
     "I was getting a bit worried about labels from that last album:
everything being soft, airy-fairy. That was great for the time, but
it's not really what I want to do now, or what I want to do, say, in
the next year. I guess I want to get basically heavier in the sound
sense...and I think that's on the way, which makes me really happy.
     "I don't really think that there are any songs on the album that
are as close to .bf ital Wuthering Heights .pf as there were on the
last one. I mean, there's lots of songs people could draw comparison
with. I want the first single that comes out from this album to be
reasonably up-tempo.  <The first single was _Hammer_Horror_.> That's
the first thing I'm concerned with, because I want to break away from
what has previously gone. I'm not pleased with being associated with
such soft, romantic vibes, not for the first single anyway. If that
happens again, that's what I will be to everyone."
     She is acutely aware of the danger of being pigeon-holed, and is
actively engaged in discouraging that.
     "If you can get away with it and keep changing, great.  I think
it should be done because in that way you'll always have people
chasing after you trying to find out what you're doing. And, anyway,
if you know what's coming next, what's the point? If I really wanted
to, I guess I could write a song that would be so similar to
_Wuthering Heights_. But I don't. What's the point? I'd rather write a
song that was really different, that I liked, although it might not
get anywhere."
     Have you heard her new single, _Hammer_Horror_? Now that's really
different.
     The major changes in the preparation for _Lionheart_ was
undoubtedly that Kate, over-burdened with promotional schemes for the
first album, was for the first time left with the unsavoury prospect
of meeting deadlines and (perhaps) having to rush her writing to do
that. It was a problem she was having trouble coming to terms with at
our last meeting, when she spoke in obvious admiration of bands like
Queen--who came up with the goods on time every year, and still found
time to conduct world tours.
     But Kate insisted that she wasn't going to be rushed, and
eventually the songs came along. In all, it took ten weeks to record
the twelve tracks (ten are on the album), an indication of the
meticulousness shown by Bush herself in exercising as much control as
possible over every facet of the work. "I'm not always right, and I
know I'm not," she says, "but it's important to know what's going on,
even if I'm not controlling it."
     I'll be interested to read the reviews of _Lionheart_.  It'll be
sad, I think, if the album is greeted with the same sort of insulting
indifference that _The_Kick_Inside_ met, when Kate Bush was
pathetically underrated.
     _Lionheart_ is, as the artist desired, a heavier album than its
predecessor, with Bush setting some pretty exacting tests for the
listener. Kate's songwriting is that much more mature, and her vocal
performance has an even more vigorous sense of drama.
     Musically, the tracks on _Lionheart_ are more carefully
structured than before. There is, for instance, a distinct absence of
straight songs, like the first album's _Moving_, _Saxophone_Song_,
_The_Man_With_the_Child_in_His_Eyes_ and _The_Kick_Inside_. Here, only
_Oh_England,_My_Lionheart_ makes an immediate impression and I'm not
sure that the move away from soft ballads (be it to secure a separate
image) is such a wise one.  As Bush proved on those songs on
_The_Kick_Inside_, simplicity can also have its own sources of
complication.
     There is much about this album that is therapeutic, and often
Kate Bush is the subject of her own course. _Fullhouse_ is the most
blatant example of that. <There is no evidence that this song is
autobiographical.> One of the album's three unspectacular tracks
musically (along with, in my opinion, _In_the_Warm_Room_ and
_Kashka_From_Baghdad_), it is still lyrically a fine example of
ridding the brain of dangerous paranoias. The stabbing verse of
"Imagination sets in,/Then all the voices begin,/Telling you things
that aren't happening/(But the nig and they nag, 'til they're under
your skin)" is set against the soothing chorus: "You've really got
to/Remember yourself,/You've got a fullhouse in your head
tonight,/Remember yourself,/Stand back and see emotion getting you
uptight."
     Even _Fullhouse_ is mild, though, when compared to tracks like
_Symphony_in_Blue_, _In_the_Warm_Room_ and _Kashka_From_Baghdad_,
which exude an unashamed sensuality. _Symphony_in_Blue_, the opening
track, is a hypnotic ballad with the same sort of explicit sexual
uninhibitiveness as _Feel_It_ from the first album. "The more I think
about sex,/The better it gets,/Here we have a purpose in life,/Good
for the blood circulation,/Good for releasing the tension./The root of
our reincarnation," sings Kate happily.
     _In_Search_of_Peter_Pan_, _Wow_ (running together on the first
side) and _Hammer_Horror_ are are examples of Kate's strange ability
to let the subconscious mind run amok in the studio.  _Wow_ is
tantalisingly powerful and _Hammer_Horror_ (the single) is most
impressive for the way it seems to tie in so many of the finer points
of the first album and project them through one epic song.
     That leaves three tracks,
_Don't_Push_Your_Foot_on_the_Heartbrake_, _Oh_England,_My_Lionheart_,
and _Coffee_Homeground_.  All of them with totally contrasting
identieds but all succeeding in areas that many might have considered
outside the scope of Kate Bush.
     A few months ago, in the paper, Kate said how one of her musical
ambitions was to write a real rousing rock'n'roll song and how
difficult she found that task. _James_and_the_Cold_Gun_ was her effort
on _The_Kick_Inside_, and with _Don't_Push_Your_Foot_
on_the_Heartbrake_ she has tackled the art of writing a roasting
rocker on her own terms. _Heartbrake_ (another piece of emotional
therapy) might not be considered a rocker in the traditional sense of
racing from start to finish but it's still one of the most vicious
pieces of rock I've stumbled across in some time. The chorus is slow,
pedestrianly slow. The pace is deceiving. It slides into the chorus.
Bush moves into a jog. Then the second part of the chorus. It's
complete havoc, and when it comes to repeating that second part in the
run-up to the end, Kate wrenches from her slight frame a screaming
line of unbelievably consummate rock'n'roll power that astounded me. A
rather unnerving turn to Kate's music, I think.
     Then there's _Coffee_Homeground_, influenced by Bertold Brecht
and inspired by a journey with a taxi driver who was convinced that
somebody was out to poison him.
     For _Oh_England_,_My_Lionheart_, from which the album title is
derived, Kate is expecting a barrage of criticism because of the
blatant soppiness of the lyric.
     Kate's reasons for writing the song are simple enough. She had
always liked _Jerusalem_, and thought that a contemporary song
proclaiming the romantic beauty of England should be written.
     "A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy.  It's
very classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and
it's done...almost madrigally, you know.  I daresay a lot of people
will think that it's just a load of old slush, but it's just an area
that I think it's good to cover. Everything I do is very English, and
I think that's one reason I've broken through to a lot of countries.
The English vibe is very appealing."

                          ______________________

-- Andrew Marvick