The TRACKS Interview

[sco!scol!craig@uunet.uu.net]

[From the November 1989 issue of "Tracks", Woolworth's music and
video promotional magazine:]

Love, trust and Hitler

Kate Bush, the little girl who made it big, is now a woman on the
eve of her seventh album.  John Aizlewood discovers why she's so
special

  If Kate Bush were like her records, she'd be invigorating,
interesting, bold, brave, and eternally hummable.  She is, in fact,
nice.
  Not nice as in hippy-dippy or insipid or stupid, but the kind of
nice which means she laughs a lot (even at your own unfunny jokes),
chats a lot and looks for the good in everything.  The woman with
the child in her eyes.
  "You can either lay an angry trip or you can lay a very intimate
trip on people.  There are so many emotional needs and if you can
use music to bring comfort that's the ultimate thing you can do to
someone.  It's just that idea of making people feel happy or
encouraged.  Music should leave people with something positive,"
she trills in a squeaky voice that's almost huggable.
  As she sits in front of a mixing desk at the top of Abbey Road
studios, Kate Bush doesn't even look like Kate Bush.  She's dressed
in jeans, trainers and a jumper.  She's much too small to be a
Mother Earth figure and she even resembles a young Nanette Newman.
Not that she's a wide eyed innocent.
  "I'm tired of interviews already," she admits, having only agreed
to talk to a select few in the first place.  "This is the part where
I have to be the saleswoman.  Having spent a long time on an album
you want people to hear it and know it's there.  I try to enjoy
promotion and get it over and done with."
  The album in question is `The Sensual World'.  Four years in the
making, it's been a struggle.
  "I wanted to take time off after the `Hounds Of Love' album.  I
wanted to spend some time at home, be quiet for a bit and try and
think about what I wanted to say.  I wrote a few songs but it didn't
take me long to realise I wasn't happy with them.  I went through a
period where I couldn't write at all so I spent a lot of time
gardening.  I thought I'd lost it.  I didn't have anything to say
and I didn't want to go out.  Nothing like that had happened to me
before.  I went back to it bit by bit and eventually worked it
through."
  Her record company knew better than to push Kate Bush.
  "I'm left alone to work on albums.  If there was any outside
pressure I'd completely go under and probably have to be put away
in an institution somewhere."
  The results are quite dark and dissatisfied.
  "Many of my friends have said things similar to that but what I'm
trying to say is that if you're having a hard time, if things look
really rough, then don't worry, everything's alright, someone will
come and help you out.  From darkness and dissatisfaction something
really good can come.  To get something worthwhile often you have
to go through something difficult."
  It sounds personal too.
  "Yes, it's my most personal album, although that doesn't necessarily
mean autobiographical.  For some reason I had a tremendous need to
talk about relationships and it's my most female album too."
  Hence the idea of a sensual world.
  "That's right.  The earth is a very sensual thing, it supplies us
with a tremendous amount of sensual information although most of us
don't see it like that.  We should be able to reach out and touch
things, feel grass under our feet and look at the fantastic world.
It's not a hippy image, it's what we're all meant to do.  More and
more people appreciate this planet and maybe that's because of some
of the negative things that have been done to it."
  Sadly Kate Bush won't be following up her only tour, now a decade
away.
  "I do think about it a lot.  What's so silly is that I really
enjoyed the last tour.  I miss the human contact of an audience and
I don't really feel like a performer any more.  On the other hand, I
was so tired after the last tour, it would have to be very special
and I get very nervous.  I'm scared too."
  For now then, it's just the records.
  "Right now, I'm just somebody who makes albums, and that's fine by
me."

[Inset pics of the album covers:]

The Kick Inside (1978)
"I'd wanted to make an album for such a long time so there was a great
feeling of achievement.  I hope I've matured since then.  Some of those
songs were written seven years before the album appeared."

Lionheart (1978)
"It was rushed and that was responsible for me taking as much time as
possible over albums.  Considering how quickly we made it, it's a
bloody good album but I'm not really happy with it."

Never For Ever (1980)
"From here on there are big progressive steps.  I was starting to take
control at this point, making sure I had enough time and getting
involved in production."

The Dreaming (1982)
"My first production.  A really difficult album to make.  People
thought I'd gone mad, the album wasn't warmly received by critics.
People told me it was a commercial disaster but it reached number
three so that's their problem."

Hounds Of Love (1985)
"The first in my own studio.  Another step closer to getting the work
as direct as possible.  You cut all the crap, don't have all these
people around and don't have expensive studio time mounting up.  A
clean way of working."

The Whole Story (1986)
"It wasn't chronological because we wanted to have a running time that
was equal on both sides, otherwise you get a bad pressing.  In America
where I'm not very well known, they didn't realise it was a compilation!"

[text box with pic of TSW cover:]

The Sensual World (a girl/woman on the threshold of life)
"That's interesting.  The subject matter is very much like that but
it's meant to be a character from a book stepping into the real world.
It's the first time she's been in a body."

Love and Anger (choral.  Love isn't completely lovely)
"Relationships revolve around love and anger.  Being in love makes you
very angry sometimes and there's two sides to everything.  I must be
honest though, I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here."

The Fog (lyrics of trust)
"Trust?  That's nice.  It's paralleling being in a relationship with
learning to swim.  You're too scared to put your feet down but if you
did you'd find the water is only waist high and you needn't have been
frightened at all."

Reaching Out (glorious piano.  Instinct is a funny business)
"Yes, you can't help but reach out and touch certain things even if
you think they might hurt.  When children reach out to touch parents
it's a lottery as to whether they'll get a clip round the ears or a
cuddle."

Heads We're Dancing (bleak and scary and menacing)
"It's the darkest track on the album and not the sort of song I'd
write now.  The devil's task is to tempt and temptation has to be
attractive.  Hitler is the closest personification of evil and I
mention him not to glorify but to point out he was a man who fooled
a tremendous amount of intelligent people and there's no way you
could blame anyone for being fooled by that man."

Deeper Understanding (ghostly vocals.  Some people are in love with
machines)
"This computer buff sends away for a programme that says `are you
lonely?  Are you lost?'.  He plugs it in and out come voices of angels.
In our city times we do have less and less affection for each other and
become more and more isolated.  Here is something real and meaningful -
deep love coming out of a bloody computer!"

Between a Man and a Woman (what do you do when friends are splitting
up before your very eyes?)
"Often it's not your problem.  You have to do the right thing, whatever
feels right.  Modern relationships are plagued with these problems."

Never Be Mine (where sex and desire ooze forth)
"How interesting!  God, yes . . . you're absolutely right but it's not
something I was conscious of at all.  It's a desire to have something
you can't have, but in a lot of cases if the dream came true it would
be horrible.  The dream holds the fascination and power."

Rocket's Tail (not what you might think)
"Er no," (she finds this hysterically funny), "a couple of friends said
this song was very phallic.  I was so concerned I tried to change the
`it was the biggest rocket I could find' line but `the most expensive
rocket I've ever seen' wasn't quite the same.  It's just the idea that
a rocket is only there for three seconds but those three seconds are
lived fully and totally."

This Woman's Work (from the She's Having A Baby film)
"I was thrilled to be asked to do it.  It was very quick and very easy
because you're just telling the story.  The film is a light comedy but
the woman is rushed into hospital with complications in her pregnancy
and it's the first time something real and heavy has happened to the
father."

Walk Down the Middle [sic] (extra track on CD/cassette.  Some people
are very unextreme)
"It's a bit less worked on than the other tracks.  It's about trying
not to get caught up in extremes.  My mother was down the garden when
the funny bits at the end were being played.  She rushed in and said
she'd heard some peacocks in the garden!  How sweet!  I can't take the
song seriously now."

[The article is accompanied by two photos, with another on the cover,
showing Kate looking her age, but still gorgeous!]
---
 O__ ....	Craig R.P. Heath	    Europe:
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