Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Never Be Mine

It's that whole thing of how, in some situations, it's the dream you want, not the real thing. It was pursuing a conscious realisation that a person is really enjoying the fantasy and aware it won't become reality. So often you think it's the end you want, but this is actually looking at the process that will never get you there. Bit of a heart-game you play with yourself. (1989, NME)

"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. (1989, Tracks)

I wanted a sort of eastern sounding rhythm. I wrote it first on the piano, though the words were completely different, except for the choruses. I did it on the piano to a Fairlight rhythm that Del programmed - I think that maybe because of the quality of the sounds, it was harder for Del to come up with the patterns. And I was more strict - he found it much harder. I think the pattern in ``HeadsWe'reDancing'' is really good - really unusual, the best he came up with. But ``Never Be Mine'' was kind of tabla based. We got Eberhard (WEBER) over to play bass and he played on the whole song. When we were trying to piece it together later we kept saying it just doesn't feel right, so we just took the bass out and had it in these two sections. You hardly notice it going out at all. I think the song has a very light feel about it, which helps the whole imagery. The Uilean pipes have a very light feel, and the piano is light... I think it's a nice contrast when the bass suddenly come in.

The piano on this is an upright Bernstein that has a really nice sound - I think it has to do with proportions for us. We did have a big piano and it's a small room, and it didn't record well. The small piano sounds much bigger.

How do you decide if a track's going to feature acoustic or electric piano?

If I write the song on piano in the studio, chances are that's how it will be. If I write at home on the electric piano, or the synth, it's probably going to be a synth track. I was getting worried at one point that so many of the songs are all based around the piano. On Hounds of Love I got away from that, and most of the songs are based around the Fairlight, which gave them different flavours. (1989, International Musician)

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