Learning to love TSW, or...

[barger@ils.nwu.edu (Jorn Barger)]

..or, The Womanly Hours of Catherine Bush

by Jorn Barger

Abstract:  At the age of 16, Cathy Bush shed a skin and became Kate Bush,
ascending pop superstar.  This short essay argues that beginning with The
Sensual World, she is undergoing another metamorphosis, into a _grown-up
woman_, whom we might rename Catherine Bush.


As I'm reading my way through Ron Hill's "Cloudbusting" [a brilliant
re-editing of almost every interview with Kate ever published, into a
complete autobiography], and listen again to the albums (with my new 555
headphones, yay!), one thing that's happening is I'm noticing how many
different facets there have been to Kate's personality, from sex kitten to
wide-eyed kid to saint of compassion to scary monster.

Now I've had serious problems with The Sensual World right from the first
day, worried that it sounded uncertain, that Kate might be losing her
inspiration.  But reading through Cloudbusting I see that she's been
dancing on that razor's edge all along, wanting to keep growing, never
knowing where the next song is going to come from.

And I begin to see all her comments about TSW as a _feminine_ album as
really meaning that Kate is shedding her girlishness and becoming a woman,
and that she's now having to find a musical voice for this new soul within
her.

The very adult laugh after Love and Anger, seguing into the line "You're
all grown up now" in The Fog, the mature-lady personality in the TWW video
(just before she's striken, at the dinner table)...  when ever have we
gotten to watch a musical genius metamorphose into an adult before our very
eyes?  What rockstar has ever grown up, at all?  (Rock is a children's
genre...)

(I'm reminded of Hayley Mills, 60s teen star, who lost her looks at a
certain point and faded into the woodwork, only to emerge a decade later in
Flame Trees of Thika on PBS as an extraordinarily mature and beautiful
woman.)

Cloudbusting (and of course the Cathy demos!) show Cathy achieving
extraordinary maturity at 14... why though, on this accelerated schedule,
should not she enter into middle age by 33?  BUT MIDDLE AGE IS NOT A
DECLINE, NOT A DIMINUTION OF POWERS!  She is modelling for us our own,
baby-boomer middle-ages, which we must welcome, embrace gracefully. 
(Incredible String Band, "Cousin Catepillar": "My cousin has great changes
coming, one day he'll wake with wings...")

Is "Kate" dead?  No way, listen to Rocket's Tail!  But chances are the
"Kate" persona is going to be playing a lesser role as the new life
challenges are confronted and mastered.  So long live Catherine Bush!