IN PRAISE OF KATE BUSH -2-

[Wieland Willker <willker@chemie.uni-bremen.de>]

Moreover, Bush's Englishness is not confined merely to her accent. Her image is 
largely constructed around her British heritage. As Terry Slater of EMI states: 

"Kate is a real English girl, she's from the roots of Great Britain. It's not a 
gimmick or produced. She's the first really English girl singer for a long
time." 

Bush has contributed to this perception by celebrating her native land in songs 
like 1979's "Oh England My Lionheart." The essential English quality of
Bush's music 
and image has certainly had a profound effect on her popularity in the United 
Kingdom and perhaps on her inability to achieve widespread recognition in the 
United States; in particular it made her hard to classify as a "rock"
performer (and 
until recently she was not well regarded in the British rock press). Still,
even as a 
"pop" singer Kate Bush was fortunate to appear at a moment in Britain when a
great 
deal of space for a singer like her had just opened up. In One Chord
Wonders, Dave 
Laing notes one of the victories won by female singers in the punk era of the 
mid-seventies was the opportunity to experiment with a wider range of vocal 
sounds. Certainly Bush, who gained popularity in postpunk England with a 
repertoire of unearthly shrieks and guttural whispers, took advantage of
this space 
to convey a disturbing breadth of emotion. Yet Bush's music was also a reaction 
against the one-dimensional angst and unorchestrated discord of punk, using
melody 
and often frail vocals to create a surreal world of affect. Once again, Bush
was 
extremely hard to "place," in terms of the usual music market labels. 

Which brings us back to her image. Described by Laing as "poetically
enigmatic," 
Kate Bush transcends mere voyeuristic objectification. In her videos and live 
performances, Bush presents a series of dramatic personas that distance the
viewer, 
even as the lyrics appear to invite him or her into the most recessed
enclaves of her 
soul. The Kate Bush the viewer sees is merely a projection. Bush herself
afirms this: 
"When I perform, I'm definitely someone else. She's a lot stronger and I
wouldn't 
be as daring as her." On stage, she becomes Catherine of "Wuthering
Heights," the 
outlaw of "James and the Cold Gun" the child-woman of "Feel It." Bush's
enigmatic 
image has been important to her success in non-English-speaking countries where 
the idea of a poetic chanteuse has great appeal, as well as in the faddish,
often 
image-oriented British Isles. And those listeners who were initially hooked
by the 
novelty of "Wuthering Heights" soon discovered that there was a profound 
intelligence behind the image, an intelligence that allowed Bush to pass
from the 
realm of show-biz spectacle into the world of respected musicians. 

The relatively small size and integrated promotion of the British and other 
European pop music markets makes them more susceptible to the influence of fads 
and images than their American counterpart, and this fact undoubtedly
accounts in 
part for Kate Bush's inability to achieve anything more than a cult
following in the 
United States before the mid-eighties. Rather than focusing on her sexuality
and 
striking physical appearance, American fans and critics have tended to
praise Bush 
for her musical skill and artistic vision; and the complex nature of these
elements 
has generally limited Bush's American following to a handful of devotees. With 
"Running Up That Hill,", however, Kate Bush gained fans in American dance
clubs, 
while the album Hounds of Love received considerable airplay on album- oriented 
rock radio. Thus, Bush was at once occupying the seemingly contradictory
roles of 
progressive rock heroine and dance-funk queen, neither of which converged in
any 
signifcant way with the American pop main stream. Furthermore, few Americans 
were aware of the image so popular in England, Europe, South America, and 
Australia. Although MTV gave substantial airplay to one of the two videos for 
"Running Up That Hill,", visual exposure to Kate Bush has been quite limited
in the 
United States. Her only tour, in 1979, was confned to England, and her
controversial 
performance on Saturday Ni.ght Live in that year did not create a lasting
impression 
in this country. 

Though Kate Bush herself has not been a significant commercial presence in the 
United States, her influence has been fe1t. Perhaps more than any other female 
artist, Kate Bush legitimized the use of the rather eccentric vocal ranges and 
phrasing that one can now find in the music of artists like Cyndi Lauper.
Bush has 
also been one of the pioneering users of the Fairlight synthesizer,
especially on 
Never For Ever and The Dreaming. By moving beyond pre-set and artifcial 
synthesizer sounds, Bush discovered new ways to sample a variety of natural 
resonances in order to deepen the structure of her music. Only now are
mainstream 
artists catching up with experimenters like Bush in their uses of synthesizer 
technologies. 

In spite of her importance in these two areas, Kate Bush has probably had the 
greatest impact in her role as a performance artist. To Bush, the visual
presentation 
of the music and the music itself cannot be divorced; thus, it is not
surprising that 
she was the first female pop star to combine her music with classical and
modern 
dance training. Bush's idea that the combination of music and movement
allows the 
artist to express a more complex range of emotion has been translated,
though in 
simplified form, into the work of American music video superstars like Madonna 
and Janet Jackson. What was once novelty has now become the norm. 

To summarize, then, in terms of both her music and her market position, Kate 
Bush does not fit easily under any label, whether general ones like "rock"
and "pop" 
or more specialized categories such as "singer-songwriter" or "video star."
Rather, 
she has expanded the notion of auteur that began to be applied to rock
songwriters 
and performers in the late 1960s to cover the expressive control of
performance, 
movement, image, and even studio ambiance. What is she using her remarkably 
individual pop authority to say? 



 HOUNDS OF LOVE: A WINDOW TO 

HUMANITY'S ONCE AND FUTURE ESSENCE 

One aspect of Kate Bush's performance that can never be successfully borrowed 
by other artists is the unique vision she creates. Her songs are intensely
personal, 
whether they tell a story about a specific character (as in "Don't Push Your
Foot on 
the Heartbrake," from Li.onheart or "Babooshka" from Never For Ever) or reveal 
Bush's own fears and desires (as in "Feel It" and "Sat in Your Lap"). The
personal 
nature of Kate Bush's music has been reinforced in recent years by her near
total 
control of the production process. She has always written all of her own
material and 
plays a variety of instruments on her albums, including piano, Fairlight
synthesizer, 
Yamaha CS80 keyboard, violin, and cello. For the most part, Bush has kept a
loyal 
corps of backing musicians who have stayed with her throughout her public
career. 
One of these musicians is her brother Paddy, who plays mandolin, strings,
percussion 
sticks, bullroarer, didjeridu, fugare, and balalaika on his sister's
records, as well as 
providing backing vocals. 

As Kate Bush gained control of her career, her music matured. Her first two 
albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart, produced by Andrew Powell, emphasized 
piano and orchestral arrangements and featured Bush's ethereal soprano vocals. 
With 1980's Never For Ever, the album she coproduced with Jon Kelly, Kate Bush 
expanded her vocal and conceptual range. Character songs, so representative
of her 
early work, remained a mainstay, but "Babooshka" and "The Wedding List" were 
clearly the products of an adult mentality. The new found Fairlight allowed
Bush to 
create atmospheric pieces like "Egypt." Psychoanalysis and spiritual questions 
appeared in songs on the album, and "Army Dreamers" represented Bush's first 
attempt to integrate Irish folk melodies and modern instruments. As Bush's 
transitional album, Never For Ever paved the way for The Dreaming (1982) and 
Hounds of Love (1985). 

The Dreaming is an unorthodox journey through a songwriter's soul. "Sat in 
Your Lap" starts off the album with pounding tribal drums and a variety of 
nontraditional vocals, all underscoring Bush's crisis of faith: "Some say that 
knowledge is something that you never have / Some say that knowledge is 
something sat in your lap." Her impatience with the process of spiritual 
understanding is articulated in the demand "Give me the karma, mama," a demand 
restated later on the side in "Suspended in Gaffa" when she asks, "Can I
have it all 
now?" In "Suspended in Gaffa" Bush blends ancient instruments like bouzoukis
and 
mandolins with guitars and synthesizers, implying a kind of coexistence
between the 
past and present, a theme that recurs throughout her recent music. The album's 
title song, "The Dreaming," also invokes this motif. Not only does Bush use an 
Australian aboriginal instrument, the didjeridu, in the song; the very title
of the 
composition is taken from the aborigines, concept of the eternal dreamtime. The 
dreamtime is an aboriginal cult's mythology, a mythology that is eternal
because it is 
continually reenacted in rituals celebrating the creation. It is like
dreaming because 
through the rituals the past, present, and future coexist as aspects of a
single reality. 
"Night of the Swallow" continues this temporal confusion by working an Irish
jig into 
the chorus. 

Supernatural concerns about issues like life after death remain prominent on
The 
Dreaming, but Kate Bush also turns the magnifying glass inward to examine her 
own psyche. In "Leave It Open," Bush recognizes the evil that exists in
humanity, 
"harm in us but power to arm," and vows to control her own baser urges. The
album 
ends with the angst-ridden "Get Out of My House," in which Bush uses the house 
analogy to describe the innermost enclaves of her being: "This house is full of 
madness / This house is full of mistakes." The certainty of conviction
displayed in 
this final song closes the 1982 album on a positive note, but there is an
overall feeling 
of disjointedness on The Dreaming that is left to be resolved on Hounds of
Love. 

Many techniques employed on The Dreaming reappear on Hounds of Love. Tribal 
drum rhythms that drove songs like "Sat in Your Lap" and "The Dreaming" play a 
larg.er role on Hounds, and the mixture of traditional and contemporary
instruments 
is also included in a more highly developed form. However, the discontinuities 
between the two albums are as important as the similarities. The piano, for
example, 
is no longer the central instrument on Hounds; it has been replaced by the
Fairlight, 
which possesses the capability of integrating a variety of sounds into a
melodic 
whole. This shift reflects the difference in the two albums' contents. While
the 
idiosyncratic piano proved the ideal accompaniment for The Dreaming's 
introspection, Hounds requires an instrument that mirrors its focus on
interpersonal 
relationships and the interrelatedness of life. 

The first side of Hounds is titled "Hounds of Love," and the first two tracks, 
"Running Up That Hill" and "Hounds of Love," center on Bush's problems in 
male-female relationships. In "Running Up That Hill" Bush addresses the 
misunderstandings and unintentional pain lovers cause. She sees the solution
to the 
problem in an exchange of perspectives, singing "If I only could / I'd make
a deal 
with God / And I'd get him to swap our places." Bush realizes that she is
part of 
the problem, for she is "unaware I'm tearing you asunder" and wonders, "Is
there so 
much hate for the ones we love?" The most important function of "Running Up
That 
Hill," is its role in setting up the rest of side 1. This first song tells
the listener that 
the narrator, presumably Kate Bush, has difficulty in her relationships, and
the rest 
of the side attempts to trace the origins of the problem. 

Like "Running Up That Hill," the second song, "Hounds of Love," concerns 
awkwardness in intimate relationships. Both tunes are sung by Bush in an
accessible 
pop style and are structured around reasonably conventional instrumentation. 
"Hounds of Love" replaces the rat-a-tat snare rhythm of "Running Up That Hill" 
with a more emphatic, complex beat and uses a cello to create a steady melodic 
flow-another avoidance of the fragmentation found on The Dreaming. 

The lyrics of "Hounds of Love" suggest that a regression in Bush's emotional 
development is taking place. The song's first lines ("When I was a child /
Running 
in the night / Afraid of what might be / Hiding in the dark / Hiding in the
street / 
And of what was following me / Now hounds of love are hunting") indicate
that the 
roots of her dificulties lie far in the past. Though Bush realizes her peril
is much less 
than that of a fox run to ground by hounds, she cannot bring herself to abandon 
social conventions for love. Were Bush's lover to take her "shoes off and
throw them 
in the lake," she would be "two steps on the water," in pursuit of them. The
water 
imagery foreshadows the motif that provides the basis for the second side, "The 
Ninth Wave." Here, as later, the water is a primordial ooze in which the
individual 
enters a presocial state. On side 1 Bush is not yet ready to enter that
realm, though 
she knows that avoiding her primal emotions is foolish, at once complaining
"I don't 
know what's good for me" and realizing "I need love." 

The third track, "The Big Sky," finds Kate Bush in an even more childlike state 
than the previous song. Bush lies on the ground and stares at the clouds,
imagining 
them to be Ireland and Noah's Ark. Appropriately, Bush uses a girlish voice to 
describe her activity. Though she begins the song in an earthbound state,
she is soon 
"leaving with the Big Sky" where "we pause for the jet." "The Big Sky," is
not the 
only song on Hounds in which Bush explores the atmosphere's upper reaches. On 
side 2, "Hello Earth" places her spirit in suspension above the world. Yet
while 
Bush's astral projection on side 2 is intensely personal, here it affects
others, for 
"The Big Sky" is directed at someone about whom Bush petulantly complains, "You 
never understood me / You never really tried." For her part, Bush finds
watching 
clouds more interesting than working on a relationship: "You want my reply.? / 
What was the question?" The communication failure seems intrinsically linked
to the 
problems articulated in "Running Up That Hill" and "Hounds of Love," but even 
more than in those songs Bush's interpersonal dificulties are linked to
nature and 
childish emotions. Once again, the implication is that the dilemma's origins
are in 
the early stages of Bush's development. 

The feeling intensifes with "Mother Stands for Comfort," in which Bush creates 
an eerie mood with hushed vocals, unearthly Fairlight accompaniment,
disembodied 
background drones, and the sound of breaking glass. One gets the feeling
that the 
relationship with Mother is not warm, but almost supernatural. Mother has
powers 
of omniscience - "She knows that I've been doing something wrong," - but she is 
biased in the application of her powers, since "she won't say anything." 

"Mother Stands for Comfort" contains two major Bushian themes: the evil within 
mankind and the need to turn to "Mother." Bush, or her character, knows
there is 
harm in her and doubts her ability to contain it: "It breaks the cage and
fear escapes 
and takes possession /Just like a crowd rioting inside / Make me do this,
make me 
do that." Her doubt extends to her ability to evaluate the morality of her
actions, 
asking "Am I the cat that takes the bird?" To Mother, however, the answer is
clear; 
her child is "the hunted, not the hunter.," Mother stands for comfort
because for her 
there is no ambiguity; she must protect her child. Moreover, there is
comfort in 
realizing this is a universal maternal quality. In the song's title the
words "Mother 
Stands" imply that Mother is a symbol, standing for something else. Also,
the word 
"Mother" is always capitalized in the lyrics printed on the album's inner
sleeve, 
hinting that this is a mythic mother. Throughout side 2 Bush has looked back
in time 
and into nature to determine the basis of her confusion, and now she has
returned to 
the womb. She puns "Mother will stay Mum," but the lyrics and arrangement do
not 
make Mother sound entirely comforting, for she is inextricably linked with
the dark 
side of human nature.