Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Personal Life

I'd like to ask you what you do when you're not writing and recording songs.

Sleeping. [Laughs] Yeah, that's normally what I do. Cook a meal, sit and watch telly. I don't get much time off so when I get it I just like to relax.

Uh, huh.

Yeah.

What do you cook?

Ah, vegetable pies. Curries. Burnt curries, actually. [Both laugh]

Well, they've got to be hot, someway.

Yeah.

Are you domesticated?

I try to be, yeah. I really like doing housework, I think it's very therapeutic, you know?

Yeah?

Yeah.

You'll be a good wife?

Oh, I don't know about that. [Laughs] It's just I think housework is an amazing craft, it's very creative.

So you enjoy keeping house for yourself.

Yeah. (1979, Personal Call)

What was your most eerie experience kate?

My most what?

Eerie.

Eerie experience. Oo, I don't know, a lot of things happen. Sometimes in the recording studio, when you're out there alone, with all the lights dim, you sorta feel very strange things sometimes. That can be quite eerie. You sometimes feel that maybe there's someone in the room with you, that sorta thing. But I haven't really had anything extremely eerie or horrible happen to me. I've had a really quite nice life, actually. I couldn't think of anything at the moment, I wish I could for you. (1979, Personal Call)

Hi, on all the tracks of yours that I've listened to, I've detected an element of the supernatural. I wondered if you've considered yourself to be a little psychic.

Um, I don't think I'm psychic, but I think I have a slight advantage being a female to start with, because I think females are, I'm not saying they're more sensitive, but they just seem to be more open to certain areas like that. And I do get very strong feeling sometimes that do turn out to be true, just feelings about friends, relatives, that sorta thing. But I think everyone gets them.

Right, in your dreams?

Sometimes in dreams, yeah. But sometimes just feelings, when your sitting down and you suddenly think about someone. Something wrong, and you give them a ring and there it is.

I wish I could do that.

It doesn't happen much, but I think it happens to everyone. Everyone I know has had very similar experiences.

I think it's something mothers often feel about their children, isn't it?

Oh, yeah. I mean they're part of them. Isn't it really? Yeah. (1979, Personal Call)

People have been so good to me. I think there are lucky people in the world, just as there are unlucky ones. So far, at least, I have always been on the right side. I would never say that everything I've ever done has been right, but I've always survived. People are what they've done; you can never go back and change the decisions you've made. I don't believe in regrets, anyway. You have to take the responsibility for what you do and realize that there will always be consequences, that everything that happens to you in life is your own fault.

I think I'm pretty stable, though. I have people around me who are very good to be with. It's important to realize that your career can never be your whole life. This is just a phase; I don't want to feel I'd have nothing left if my records suddenly stopped selling. I hope they won't - but if they did, I'd still be able to write songs and dance, and make bread, and do all the things I like doing.

I do try desperately to hang on to ordinary life, just to keep in touch with reality. I make myself do things like scrub out the bath, to keep my feet on the ground.

Kate has her moments of gloom and depression, too.

Life seems pretty futile sometimes. The way people behave is so ridiculous. It's as if the world is really a big football match and we aren't looking after the grounds. Sometimes I feel that show business is a trivial profession to be in, but in fact it's not, because I happen to believe that getting music to people is one of the most honorable things you can do. It's wonderful to reach people, to lift them up and make them happy with your music. Music can save lives, because people are just rhythm units.

I worry, too, in case I run out of ideas. You can dry up, you know. When I listen to my old stuff it never sounds as good as I want it to. I don't think artists ever feel happy or comfortable about what they've done. (1982, Nineteen)

She also thinks it's ironic that singers should be look up to by the general public, when most of them have so many problems and insecurities.

Creative people are often flawed personalities. If they weren't - if they were the strong, God-like figures the media makes them out to be - they wouldn't need to be creative! Many musicians have communication problems in real life, but they find they can communicate perfectly through their music. Others have real vices - they get into alcohol or drugs - and I think that says so much about the vulnerability of creative people. Billie Holliday was one of my all- time favorite singers. There's so much raw emotion and pain in her voice, it haunts me. (1982, Nineteen)

Has kate any further ambitions? How does she see her career progressing from now on?

I can't possibly project myself into the future - I don't see how anyone can! I recently bought a house in Kent, that's one thing, so that I have somewhere nice to go. But, apart from that, I really can't say. I need to be alone sometimes to gather myself together, but I need to have people around, too. It's all right being alone; you can arrange things just the way you want them. But the thing about other people is that they don't always fit in with what you want, so meeting and mixing with people is what life is all about.

Anyone who writes needs contact with people to find out how they respond. I can't really see myself living in a commune, but I like the idea of being in the country, growing my own vegetables and baking my own bread. (1982, Nineteen)

Gaffaweb / Cloudbusting / Subjects / Personal Life