Cloudbusting -- Kate Bush In Her Own Words

Relationships/Marriage

There are so many images of loneliness on the album [ the sensual world]...

Yes, I think there are. I suppose, in relationships, there's a lot that can go wrong very quickly, and you have to work at them, which, I think, is something a lot of people aren't aware of until they grow up a bit. These things gradually reveal themselves to you, don't they?

You're right - most of my songs are about relationships, probably always have been, really. That feels to me how things are, really: relationships towards other things and people, and how we actually manage to make these forms of contact... (1989, Melody Maker)

I think men are bigger babies than women. I don't think we grow up so fast.

Maybe men can avoid more situations than women in terms of facing things. I guess there are things for women that are different and they tend to deal with life situations rather than perhaps the business world or whatever. God, this sounds so sexist...

Not at all. Women give birth, they are physically part of the creative process. It's as if their orgasm grows and bears fruit, whereas men fuck and that's it - it's a release, something we get rid of rather than something we gain. Then it all builds up again, and we can't handle it. I think women are far stronger emotionally. Men can't cope with emotions. We get frustrated and aggressive and destructive because we can't express ourselves, whereas women seem to embody their feelings better. Something positive grows from them.

Yes, I think you're right. It's very hard on all of us but, yet, through the process of giving birth, I'm sure women are much stronger than men, and it's incredibly hard on them that they should not be able to show their emotions when actually it's okay to be weak.

We men are confused. The trouble with the invention of the notion of sexism and the paranoia surrounding it is that the only way we can deal with it is based on a fallacy. We think that, just because women should quite rightly have equal rights and equal opportunities, the sexes are the same. But we're not - women are aliens to us, we don't understand you at all. You speak a different language altogether. We're different creatures entirely.

Absolutely, I'm with you 100 per cent. I couldn't agree more. I think it's awful what's happening to people's sense of their own sexuality. Women are made to feel awkward about expressing themselves as women in a man's world, so, subconsciously, a lot of the time, they're behaving like men because they don't know how strong they're supposed to be. Then again, women's lib has left men in a lot of areas where they don't know how to behave in case they get called sexist, a pig, or whatever.

We are different, and we should be helping each other. Unfortunately there was such a lot of shit to get through that it was a battle, but I don't think it need be. (1989, Melody Maker)

The album seems to be saying, ``if you find yourself in a tricky situation, follow your instincts - just behave the way if feels right and at least you're being true to yourself, irrespective of the outcome."

Yes, absolutely... And what an incredibly difficult thing to apply to life. I think there are some very good things going on to help us through. I must say, for me, the comedy in this country has been really educational. You know, Ben Elton and The Comic Strip - all those people you can't really call alternative comedians anymore because they've become mainstream. I think they've really done a lot to stop it being fashionable to be humorous with sexist overtones.

It used to be very hip to make fun of women. Old comedy was all about treating women as a threat and, therefore, making fun of them. And I think they've really changed a lot of that. They've done so much for men and women because now, in most circles, among people our age, if you make a sexist joke, it's really considered tasteless. I think that's a fantastic step forward. And to see people like Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders out there doing comedy being women as women is brilliant.

They're just out there doing it and, the more women can be strong enough to do that, the more it'll help everybody. It used to really scare me the way women were portrayed in comedy, and the way they behaved: either they were bitching off other women and being sexist themselves, or they were allowing themselves to be used as sex objects, either positively or negatively - they were either very beautiful or very stereotypically ugly. Women would just be batted around from these extremes, but that hold's been broken now and, as comedy's so much part of our nature in this country, so much a part of our roots, to break old things like that is an incredible step. (1989, Melody Maker)

Gaffaweb / Cloudbusting / Subjects / Relationships / Marriage