Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Donovan

Well here's a man who grew popular with his images and his unusual voice, 'cause in the selections you played both last time and today I know you love the use of the human voice as an instrument. The man I'm talking about is Donovan.

Yeah, Donovan has got the most beautiful voice - that very slow vibrato that people like Cliff Richard can put on; but [Donovan] has it very naturally. I mean he sings like this all the time. And again, he's an incredible songwriter, lyric writer, he can play the guitar and he has that fantastic voice. And it seemed that he'd got really caught up in the copying of Dylan when he first signed up and was singing. And he was wearing the hats and he was carrying the guitar and everyone thought he was just a Dylan copy. When in fact he wasn't at all. And it seems that he's just been forgotten, he's gone under.

It's unbelievable. He was one of britain's leading, hit-making solo stars of the sixties and a great international artist. And now it's almost as though he'd never existed.

It's ridiculous. I can't stand to see that happen to people, especially someone like him. Um, one of my favourite albums of his is H.M.S. Donovan - which I think has been deleted now, which is even more ridiculous. And it's beautiful: fantastic illustrated cover; a double album, and each song is either a fairy story or something he's written to other people's words. He's used Blake's poems, he's used some Lewis Carroll - a big selection of fantasy stuff. And one of my favourite tracks from there, which he actually wrote himself to his own music, is ``Lord of the Reedy River."

[The record is played. Donovan actually performed this song well before recording it for h.m.s. Donovan. he appears in the 1968 film ifit'stuesday, this must be belgium, singing this song to his own guitar accompaniment. Of course, kate herself recorded this song, and put it out as the b-side of the `` sat in your lap'' single in 1981. A rumour persists that donovan actually contributed a bit of backing vocal on kate's track, though this has not been confirmed.]

Donovan, and ``lord of the reedy river.'' I suppose--

...so beautiful...

- All it would take would be one or two really good tracks and -

Ah, but he's got them, you know, that's the silly thing, he's got so many good tracks. I think that song there too, is so essential and erotic. And you know no-one's even heard of it - incredible. I mean if you put a bit of film to that... what a fantastic...

Most people don't realise that most of his hit records were produced by mickie most.

I didn't realise that either, no.

There's another track of his that you like alot, a b-side.

Yes. It was the b-side of ``[??? Indecipherable]", called ``Mr. Wind'' [??? I am unsure that this is what she says here]. What I liked about it was he was using ``Vari-Speed", Um, he was using very low voices and very high voices [Kate imitates these - precious audio unfortunately not transcribable] all mixed in together: Mr. Wind spoke like this! And all the people that he woke up in the morning spoke like this! [Laughs] And it was beautiful; it was just a really fun track putting a different speed to the voices of the various characters. And it was really fabulous for kids you know? I...I wish there had been more. (1980, BBC)

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