Kate Bush

Alan

Alan

Lionheart was the first of her albums that I got. Hounds of Love had just been released but Lionheart was the cheapest in the shop and I could afford it on my pocket money.

It’s a lovely little album. I think it gets slated a lot because Kate herself isn’t keen on it - it was rushed and she had arguments with producer Andrew Powell (she got an “Assisted by Kate” production credit but you can imagine he didn’t take to this 20-year-old telling him how to do his job!).

It must have been difficult - her life had changed, she was still promoting her first album and then EMI whisked her off to France to record the second. Plus only three songs were newly-written.

However, in 1989, Kate did reflect on Lionheart and said, “Considering how quickly we made it it's a bloody good album, but I'm not really happy with it".
 
Babylon

Babylon

I’m re-reading the ‘Under The Ivy’ biography at the moment.

In addition to this spurring me to seek out the demo recordings from the 70s/80s that are frequently referred to in the book, one thing that has depressed me tonight is how the author laments Kate’s lack of live re-arrangements of her songs (due to her stage-phobia*), and what a travesty and a loss to the universe this is.

One such performance that is mentioned, as a teaser of what could have been, is this one of ‘Breathing’:



Chills.


*I know it’s more complicated than that, but you know what I mean…
 
P'NutButter

P'NutButter

Lionheart is the masculine (in it's many forms) equivalent (and gayest!) of the feminine The Kick Inside. I love it.

I love this recent interview Elton John gave, he spoke at length about Kate...

Why Elton John described working with Kate Bush as "difficult"

Working with another artist can often be a seamless process as two creative energies combine magnetically. Still, it doesn’t always work that way, especially when the musicians involved are as extraordinary as Kate Bush, as Elton John discovered.

John and Bush are close friends and have the utmost respect for one another in an artistic sense. However, admiration doesn’t necessarily mean that working together will be easy. Bush is an ethereal talent, one who has etched out a career in a distinctive manner, making her impossible to compare to anyone else – as has Elton John.

If you put together the lengths of their careers, it adds up to the best part of a century, and when you’ve been engaged creatively for such an extensive period, you get used to working in a certain way. For Elton, he initially struggled to get on board with Bush’s madcap methods. However, the final result made the frustrations worthwhile.

“I did a duet with Kate Bush on this track for her last album,” he explained to The Guardian about her 2011 track ‘Snowed in at Wheeler Street’. “That session with her was hard, because she doesn’t write easy songs. She’s a complex songwriter and this is a weird song, but I love it so much. I’m so proud to be on a Kate Bush record; she’s always marched to the beat of her own drum. She was groundbreaking – a bit like a female equivalent of Freddie Mercury.“

Adding: “She does come out socially sometimes and she came to my civil partnership occasion with her husband. There were so many stars in the room, but all the musicians there were only interested in saying, ‘You’ve got to introduce me to Kate Bush.’ I remember Boy George saying, ‘Oh my God, is that Kate Bush?’ I said, ‘Yeah!'”

In his esteemed eyes, Kate Bush can do no wrong, and he’s even opened up in the past about how ‘Don’t Give Up’, her 1986 duet with Peter Gabriel, saved his life by helping him to quit his deadly vices. “This was one record that saved my life,” he revealed in 2014. “That record helped me get sober. So she [Bush] played a big part in my rebirth. That record helped me so much. I never told her that but it did.”

He added, “Rest your head. You worry too much. It’s going to be all right. When times get rough you can fall back on us. Don’t give up.”
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Babylon

Babylon

WoW73 said:
A Coral Room just came by on my iPod. Over 16 years have past since Aerial's release, man, does time fly or what? I remember listening with happy tears in my eyes when King of the Mountain was first played on the radio....
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Aerial is such a joy and a return-to-form after some of the… less-effective production choices scattered across parts of The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Even though some of the songs are an acquired taste (‘Pi’ and ‘Bertie’ I’m looking at you), they’re still saved somewhat because they just sound nice.

It wouldn’t be fair to hold up ‘A Sea Of Honey’ with Side 1 of Hounds Of Love because, really, nothing compares. But ‘A Sky Of Honey’ certainly holds its own against ‘The Ninth Wave’. Speaking of a new album… I wouldn’t complain about another song suite like the ones just mentioned.
 
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