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Kate Bush

Kate Bush is a British singer-songwriter; sister of John Carder Bush

Sourced

  • Artists shouldn't be made famous. You know... they're just ... as important as... um doctors, and priests ... or maybe not as important sometimes, and yet they have this huge aura of almost god-like quality about them, just because their craft makes a lot of money. And at the same time it is a forced importance — you know, football stars and theatre stars — It is man-made so the press can feed off it.

The Kick Inside (1978)

Full lyrics online

Moving
This first track of Bush's first album is a tribute to Bush's mime instructor Lindsay Kemp, and opens and closes with a whale song.

  • Moving stranger,
    Does it really matter,
    As long as you're not afraid to feel?


  • Touch me, hold me.
    How my open arms ache!
    Try to fall for me.

  • How I'm moved.
    How you move me
    With your beauty's potency.


The Saxophone Song
  • There's something very special indeed,
    In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy.
    There's something very real in how I feel, honey.
    It's in me.
    It's in me,
    And you know it's for real.
    Tuning in on your saxophone...

  • You'll never know that you had all of me.
    You'll never know the poetry you've stirred in me.
    Of all the stars I've seen that shine so brightly,
    I've never known or felt in myself so rightly,
    It's in me...


Strange Phenomena

  • Soon it will be the phase of the moon
    When people tune in.
    Every girl knows about the punctual blues,
    But who's to know the power behind our moves?

  • We raise our hats to the strange phenomena.
    Soul-birds of a feather flock together.

Kite
  • There's a hole in the sky with a big eyeball
    Calling me: "Come up and be a kite,
    On a diamond flight!"

  • A diamond kite
    On a diamond flight.
    Over the lights, under the moon.
    Over the lights, under the moon.
    Over the moon, over the moon!

The Man with the Child in His Eyes
  • I hear him, before I go to sleep
    And focus on the day that's been.
    I realise he's there,
    When I turn the light off and turn over.

  • Nobody knows about my man.
    They think he's lost on some horizon.
    And suddenly I find myself
    Listening to a man I've never known before,
    Telling me about the sea,
    All his love, 'til Eternity.

  • Ooh, he's here again,
    The man with the child in his eyes.


Wuthering Heights

  • Out on the wiley, windy moors
    We'd roll and fall in green.
    You had a temper like my jealousy:
    Too hot, too greedy.
    How could you leave me,
    When I needed to possess you?
    I hated you. I loved you, too.

  • Bad dreams in the night.
    They told me I was going to lose the fight,
    Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
    Wuthering Heights.

  • Heathcliff, it's me — Cathy.

  • Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely,
    On the other side from you.
    I pine a lot. I find the lot
    Falls through without you.
    I'm coming back, love.
    Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream,
    My only master.

  • Ooh! Let me have it.
    Let me grab your soul away.


James And The Cold Gun
  • Ooh, James, are you selling your soul to a cold gun?

  • You're a coward, James.
    You're running away from humanity.
    You're running away from reality.
    It won't be funny when they rat-a-tat-tat you down.

Feel It
  • Nobody else can share this.
    Here comes one and one makes one,
    The glorious union.
    Well it could be love,
    Or it could be just lust,
    But it will be fun.
    It will be wonderful.

  • God, but you're beautiful, aren't you?
    Feel your warm hand walking around.
    I won't pull away.
    My passion always wins.
    So keep on a-moving in.
    So keep on a-tuning in.
    Synchronise rhythm now.


Oh To Be In Love
  • I could have been anyone.
    You could have been anyone's dream.
    Why did you have to choose our moment?
    Why did you have to make me feel that?
    Why did you make it so unreal?

  • Oh! To be in love,
    And never get out again.

  • All the colours look brighter now.
    Everything they say seems to sound new.
    Slipping into tomorrow too quick,
    Yesterday always too good to forget.
    Stop the swing of the pendulum! Let us through!

L'Amour Looks Something Like You
  • You came out of the night,
    Wearing a mask in white colour.
    My eyes were shining
    On the wine, and your aura.

  • You look like an angel,
    Sleeping it off at a station.
    Were you only passing through?

  • I'm dying for you just to touch me,
    And feel all the energy rushing right up-a-me.
    L'amour looks something like you.

Them Heavy People
  • Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me...

  • I must work on my mind. For now I realise:
    Everyone of us has a heaven inside.

  • Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
    Them heavy people help me.

  • They open doorways that I thought were shut for good.
    They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu.
    They build up my body, break me emotionally.
    It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!

  • I love the whirling of the dervishes.
    I love the beauty of rare innocence.
    You don't need no crystal ball,
    Don't fall for a magic wand.
    We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.


Room For The Life
  • Hey there, you lady in tears,
    Do you think that they care if they're real, woman?
    They just take it as part of the deal.

  • Like it or not, we were built tough,
    Because we're woman.

  • No, we never die for long,
    While we've got that little life
    To live for, where it's hid inside.

  • Like it or not, we keep bouncing back,
    Because we're woman.

The Kick Inside
  • I'm giving it all in a moment or two.
    I'm giving it all in a moment, for you.

  • This kicking here inside
    Makes me leave you behind.
    No more under the quilt
    To keep you warm.
    Your sister I was born.
    You must lose me like an arrow,
    Shot into the killer storm.

  • You and me on the bobbing knee.
    Didn't we cry at that old mythology he'd read!
    I will come home again, but not until
    The sun and the moon meet on yon hill.

Lionheart (1978)

Full lyrics online


Symphony in Blue
  • I spend a lot of my time looking at blue,
    The colour of my room and my mood...


  • When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in,
    Go blowing my mind on God:
    The light in the dark, with the neon arms,
    The meek He seeks, the beast He calms,
    The head of the good soul department.

  • My terrible fear of dying
    No longer plays with me,
    for now I know that I'm needed
    For the symphony.

  • The more I think about sex, the better it gets.
    Here we have a purpose in life:
    Good for the blood circulation,
    Good for releasing the tension,
    The root of our reincarnations.


In Search Of Peter Pan

  • I no longer see a future.
    I've been told when I get older
    That I'll understand
    It all.
    But I'm not sure if I want to.

  • They took the game right out of it.
    When I am a man
    I will be an astronaut,
    And find Peter Pan.


Wow
  • We're all alone on the stage tonight.
    We've been told we're not afraid of you.

  • We know all our lines so well...
    We've said them so many times:
    Time and time again,
    Line and line again.

  • You say we're fantastic,
    But still we don't head the bill.
    Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable!

  • Ooh, yeah, you're amazing!
    We think you are really cool.
    We'd give you a part, my love,
    But you'd have to play the fool.


Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake
  • Emma's come down.
    She's stopped the light
    Shining out of her eyes.

  • Oh, come on, you've got to use your flow.
    You know what it's like, and you know you want to go.
    Don't drive too slowly.
    Don't put your blues where your shoes should be.
    Don't put your foot on the heartbrake.


Oh England My Lionheart

  • Oh! England, my Lionheart!
    Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge.
    Give me one kiss in apple-blossom.
    Give me one wish, and I'd be wassailing
    In the orchard, my English rose,
    Or with my shepherd, who'll bring me home.


Fullhouse
  • I am my enemy
    Mowing me over,
    And towing the light away.

  • Remember yourself.
    You've got a Full House in your head tonight...
    • "Remember yourself" was a motto of G. I. Gurdjieff, whose ideas were an early influence on Bush.

  • Surely by now I should know
    I can control
    My highs and my lows
    By questioning all that I do,
    Examining every move,
    Trying to get back to the rudiments.


In The Warm Room
  • In the warm room
    She'll touch you with your Mamma's hand.
    You'll long to kiss those red lips,
    But when you do
    It'll feel like kicking a habit.


Kashka From Baghdad
  • Kashka from Baghdad
    Lives in sin, they say,
    With another man,
    But no one knows who.

  • At night
    They're seen
    Laughing,
    Loving.
    They know
    The way
    To be
    Happy.


Coffee Homeground
  • Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna — in the coffee,
    And you won't get me with your aresenic — in the pot of tea,
    And you won't get me in a hole to rot — with your hemlock
    On the rocks.

  • Maybe you're lonely,
    And only want a little company,
    But keep your recipes
    For the rats to eat,
    And may they rest in peace with coffee homeground.


Hammer Horror

  • You stood in the belltower,
    But now you're gone.
    So who knows all the sights
    Of Notre Dame?

  • Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror,
    Won't leave me alone.
    The first time in my life,
    I leave the lights on
    To ease my soul.

  • I've got a hunch that you're following,
    To get your own back on me.
    So all I want to do is forget
    You, friend.


Never for Ever (1980)

Full lyrics online


Babooshka

  • She wanted to test her husband.
    She knew exactly what to do:
    A pseudonym to fool him.
    She couldn't have made a worse move.


  • She sent him scented letters,
    And he received them with a strange delight.
    Just like his wife
    But how she was before the tears,
    And how she was before the years flew by,
    And how she was when she was beautiful.

  • Just like his wife before she freezed on him,
    Just like his wife when she was beautiful.


Delius (Song Of Summer)
A song about the composers Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby.

  • Ooh, he's a moody old man.
    Song of Summer in his hand.
    Ooh, he's a moody old man.
    ...in...in...in his hand.
    ...in his hand.

  • To be sung of a summer night on the water.
    Ooh, on the water.
    "Ta, ta-ta!
    Hmm.
    Ta, ta-ta!
    In B, Fenby!"

Blow Away (For Bill)
Dedicated to Bill Duffield, Bush's lighting engineer, who died in a stage accident.

  • One of the band told me last night
    That music is all that he's got in his life.
    So where does it go?
    Surely not with his soul.
    Will all of his licks and his R'n'B
    Blow away?

  • Our engineer had a different idea
    From people who nearly died but survived,
    Feeling no fear of leaving their bodies here,
    And went to a room that was soon full of visitors.

  • Put out the light, then, put out the light.
    Vibes in the sky invite you to dine.
    Dust to dust,
    Blow to blow.


All We Ever Look For

  • The whims that we're weeping for
    Our parents would be beaten for.

  • Leave the breast
    And then the nest
    And then regret you ever left.

  • All we ever look for — a god.
    All we ever look for — ooh, a drug.
    All we ever look for — a great big hug.
    All we ever look for — a little bit of you.
    All we ever look for — a little bit of you, too.
    All we ever look for,
    But we never do score.


Egypt

  • Follow the Nile
    Deep to much deeper.
    The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.
    The sands run red
    In lands of the Pharoahs.
    Their symmetry gets right inside me.

  • Oh, I'm in love
    With Egypt.

  • My Pussy Queen
    Knows all my secrets.
    I'll never fall in love again.


The Wedding List

  • Somehow this was it, I knew.
    Maybe fate wants you dead, too:
    We've come together in the very same room,
    And I'm coming for you!

  • All I see is Rudi.
    I die with him, again and again.
    And I'll feel good in my revenge.
    I'm gonna fill your head with lead
    And I'm coming for you!


Violin
  • Four strings across the bridge,
    Ready to carry me over,
    Over the quavers, drunk in the bars,
    Out of the realm of the orchestra...

  • Get the bow going!
    Let it scream to me:
    Violin! Violin! Violin!

  • Give me the Banshees for B.V.s.
    • B.V.s : backing vocals.

The Infant Kiss
Ths song was inspired by the film The Innocents (1961), itself derived from The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James. Bush also wrote and sang a French version of this song: "Un Baiser d'enfant"

  • I say good night-night
    I tuck him in tight.
    But things are not right.
    What is this? An infant kiss
    That sends my body tingling?

  • His little hand is on my heart.
    He's got me where it hurts me.
    Knock, knock. Who's there in this baby?
    You know how to work me.
    All my barriers are going.
    It's starting to show.

  • I cannot sit and let
    Something happen I'll regret.
    Ooh, he scares me!
    There's a man behind those eyes.
    I catch him when I'm bending.

  • I want to smack but I hold back.
    I only want to touch.
    But I must stay and find a way
    To stop before it gets too much!
    All my barriers are going.
    It's starting to show.

Army Dreamers

  • What could he do?
    Should have been a father.
    But he never even made it to his twenties.
    What a waste —
    Army dreamers.
    Ooh, what a waste of
    Army dreamers.

  • Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn't to know,
    Like a chicken with a fox,
    He couldn't win the war with ego.
    Give the kid the pick of pips,
    And give him all your stripes and ribbons.
    Now he's sitting in his hole,
    He might as well have buttons and bows.

Breathing
  • Outside
    Gets inside
    Through her skin.

  • Breathing my mother in,
    Breathing my beloved in,
    Breathing,
    Breathing her nicotine,
    Breathing,
    Breathing the fall-out in,
    Out in, out in, out in, out in.

  • We've lost our chance.
    We're the first and the last, ooh,
    After the blast.

  • I love my
    Beloved, ooh,
    All and everywhere,
    Only the fools blew it.
    You and me
    Knew life itself is
    Breathing...

The Dreaming (1982)

Full lyrics online


Sat in Your Lap
This song incorporates a bit of Bush's eccentric wordplay: Sat is a Hindu and Sikh term for Truth, or Knowledge related to the concept of Dharma.

  • Some say that knowledge is something that you never have.
    Some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap.
    Some say that heaven is hell.
    Some say that hell is heaven.

  • I must admit, just when I think I'm king,
I just begin.

  • I hold a cup of wisdom,
    But there is nothing within.


There Goes a Tenner

  • The sense of adventure
    Is changing to danger.
    The signal has been given.

  • My excitement
    Turns into fright.
    All my words fade.
    What am I gonna say?
    Mustn't give the game away.

Pull Out The Pin
  • Just one thing in it:
    Me or him.
    Just one thing in it:
    Me or him.
    And I love life!

  • He's big and pink, and not like me.
    He sees no light.
    He sees no reason for the fighting...

Suspended in Gaffa
  • Out in the garden
    There's half of a heaven,
    And we're only bluffing.
    We're not ones for busting through walls,
    But they've told us
    Unless we can prove
    That we're doing it,
    We can't have it all.

  • I don't know why I'm crying.
    Am I suspended in Gaffa?
    Not until I'm ready for you,
    Not until I'm ready for you
    Can I have it all.

  • I won't open boxes
    That I am told not to.
    I'm not a Pandora.
    I'm much more like
    That girl in the mirror.
    Between you and me
    She don't stand a chance of getting anywhere at all.

  • Mother, where are the angels? I'm scared of the changes.
    • Whispered in a childlike voice.


Leave It Open
  • My door was never locked,
    Until one day a trigger come cocking.
    (But now I've started learning how,)
    I keep it shut.

  • Harm is in us.
    Harm in us, but power to arm.
    Harm is in us.
    Leave it open!

  • We let the weirdness in.


The Dreaming
This song deals with the Australian traditions of "The Dreaming"

  • See the light ram through the gaps in the land.
    Many an Aborigine's mistaken for a tree
    'Til you near him on the motorway
    And the tree begin to breathe.

  • 'Coming in with the golden light
    In the morning.
    Coming in with the golden light
    Is the New Man.

  • The civilised keep alive
    The territorial war...
    Erase the race that claim the place
    And say we dig for ore,
    Or dangle devils in a bottle
    And push them from the pull of the Bush.


Night Of The Swallow

  • If you go, I'll let the law know,
    And they'll head you off when you touch the ground.
    Ooh, please, don't go through with this.
    I don't like the sound of it.

  • In Malta, catch a swallow,
    For all of the guilty — to set them free.
    Wings fill the window,
    And they beat and bleed.
    They hold the sky on the other side
    Of borderlines.

  • Give me a break!
    Ooh, let me try!
    Give me something to show
    For my miserable life!
    Give me something to take!
    Would you break even my wings,
    Just like a swallow?

All The Love
  • We needed you
    To love us too.
    We wait for your move.

  • Only tragedy allows the release
    Of love and grief never normally seen.
    I didn't want to let them see me weep,
    I didn't want to let them see me weak,
    But I know I have shown
    That I stand at the gates alone.

  • I needed you
    To love me too.
    I wait for your move.

  • All the love, all the love,
    All the love we should have given.
    All the love, all the love,
    All the love you could have given.
    All the love...

Houdini
  • The tambourine jingle-jangles.
    The medium roams and rambles.
    Not taken in,
    I break the circle.
    I want this man
    To go away now.

  • With a kiss
    I'd pass the key
    And feel your tongue
    Teasing and receiving.
    With your spit
    Still on my lip,
    You hit the water.

  • Rosabel believe,
    Not even eternity
    Can hold Houdini!
    "Rosabel, believe!"


Get Out Of My House
  • I will not let you in.
    I face towards the wind.
    I change into the Mule.

Hounds of Love (1985)

Full lyrics online


Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
  • It doesn't hurt me.
    Do you want to feel how it feels?
    Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
    Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
    You, it's you and me.

  • And if I only could,
    I'd make a deal with God,
    And I'd get him to swap our places,
    Be running up that road,
    Be running up that hill,
    Be running up that building.

  • You don't want to hurt me,
    But see how deep the bullet lies.
    Unaware I'm tearing you asunder.
    Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts.

  • Is there so much hate for the ones we love?
    Tell me, we both matter, don't we?
    You, it's you and me.
    It's you and me won't be unhappy.

  • C'mon, baby, c'mon darling,
    Let me steal this moment from you now.
    C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,
    Let's exchange the experience, oh...

  • If I only could
    Be running up that hill
    With no problems...

Hounds Of Love
  • It's in the trees!
    It's coming!

  • I found a fox
    Caught by dogs.
    He let me take him in my hands.
    His little heart,
    It beats so fast,
    And I'm ashamed of running away
    From nothing real —
    I just can't deal with this,
    But I'm still afraid to be there,
    Among your hounds of love...

  • Do you know what I really need?
    I need love love love love love, yeah!

The Big Sky

  • They look down
    At the ground,
    Missing.
    But I never go in now.
    I'm looking at the Big Sky.

  • You never really understood me.
    You never really tried.

  • This cloud, this cloud —
    Says "Noah,
    C'mon and build me an Ark."
    And if you're coming, jump,
    'Cause
    We're leaving with the Big Sky.


Mother Stands For Comfort
  • She knows that I've been doing something wrong,
    But she won't say anything.

  • Am I the cat that takes the bird?
    To her the hunted, not the hunter.

  • Mother stands for comfort.
    Mother will hide the murderer.
    Mother hides the madman.
    Mother will stay mum.

Cloudbusting
This song is sung from the perspective of Wilhelm Reich's son Peter, whose memoir A Book of Dreams inspired it.

  • I still dream of Orgonon.
    I wake up crying.
    You're making rain,
    And you're just in reach,
    When you and sleep escape me.

  • I just know that something good is going to happen.
    I don't know when,
    But just saying it could even make it happen.

  • On top of the world,
    Looking over the edge,
    You could see them coming.
    You looked too small
    In their big, black car,
    To be a threat to the men in power.

  • I hid my yo-yo
    In the garden.
    I can't hide you
    From the government.
    Oh, God, Daddy —
    I won't forget...

The Ninth Wave

And Dream Of Sheep
  • Little light shining,
    Little light will guide them to me.
    My face is all lit up,
    My face is all lit up.

  • If they find me racing white horses,
    They'll not take me for a buoy.
    Let me be weak,
    Let me sleep
    And dream of sheep.

  • Ooh, their breath is warm
    And they smell like sleep,
    And they say they take me home.
    Like poppies heavy with seed
    They take me deeper and deeper.


Under Ice
  • There's something moving
    Under, under the ice,
    Moving under ice,
    Through water,
    Trying to get out of the cold water.
    "It's me."
    Something, someone — help them.
    "It's me."

Waking The Witch
  • Wake up!...You must wake up!

  • "Don't you know you've kept him waiting?"
    "Look who's here to see you!"

  • I question your innocence!
    Help this blackbird!
    She's a witch!
    There's a stone around my leg.

  • What say you, good people?
    "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"
    Help this blackbird...

  • "Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!"


Watching You Without Me
  • You can't hear me.
    You can't hear me.
    You can't hear what I'm saying.
    You can't hear what I'm saying to you.

  • I should have been home
    Hours ago,
    But I'm not here.
    But I'm not here...


Jig Of Life
  • I'll be sitting in your mirror.
    Now is the place where the crossroads meet.
    Will you look into the future?

  • Never, never say goodbye
    To my part of your life.

  • "This moment in time,"
    (She said.)
    It doesn't belong to you,"
    (She said,)
    It belongs to me,
    And your little boy and your little girl,
    And the one hand clapping:
    Where on your palm is my little line,
    When you're written in mine
    As an old memory?

  • Can't you see where memories are kept bright?
    Tripping on the water like a laughing girl.
    Time in her eyes is spawning past life,
    One with the ocean and the woman unfurled,
    Holding all the love that waits for you here.
    Catch us now for I am your future.
    A kiss on the wind and we'll make the land.
    Come over here to where When lingers,
    Waiting in this empty world,
    Waiting for Then, when the lifespray cools.
    For Now does ride in on the curl of the wave,
    And you will dance with me in the sunlit pools.
    We are of the going water and the gone.
    We are of water in the holy land of water
    And all that's to come runs in
    With the thrust on the strand.
    • This portion of "Jig of Life" was actually written as well as spoken by Kate's brother John Carder Bush.

Hello Earth
  • Watching storms
    Start to form
    Over America.
    Can't do anything.
    Just watch them swing
    With the wind
    Out to sea.

  • I was there at the birth,
    Out of the cloudburst,
    The head of the tempest.
    Murderer!
    Murder of calm...

The Morning Fog
  • The light
    Begin to bleed,
    Begin to breathe,
    Begin to speak.
    D'you know what?
    I love you better now.

  • I'll kiss the ground.
    I'll tell my mother,
    I'll tell my father,
    I'll tell my loved one,
    I'll tell my brothers
    How much I love them.

The Sensual World (1989)

Full text online


The Sensual World
  • He said I was a flower of the mountain, yes,
    But now I've powers o'er a woman's body, yes.
    Stepping out of the page into the sensual world.
    Stepping out...
    To where the water and the earth caress
    And the down on a peach says mmh, Yes...
    • "The Sensual World"; The lyrics of this song are derived from the last lines of Ulysses by James Joyce. Kate had initially wanted to set much of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy to music, just as Joyce had written it, but when the Joyce estate refused, she altered it enough as to not infringe on copyright. As she explained it in an interview: "The song was saying "Yes, Yes" and when I asked for permission they said "No! No!".


  • Do I look for those millionaires
    Like a Machiavellian girl would
    When I could wear the sunset?

  • You don't need words — just one kiss, then another.

  • Stepping out, off the page, into the sensual world.
    And then our arrows of desire rewrite the speech...

  • I said, mmh... yes,
    But not yet, mmh... yes,
    Mmh... Yes.


Love and Anger
  • It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me.
    It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it.
    It could take me all of my life,
    But it would only take a moment to
    Tell you what I'm feeling,
    But I don't know if I'm ready yet.

  • Take away the love and the anger,
    And a little piece of hope holding us together.
    Looking for a moment that'll never happen,
    Living in the gap between past and future.
    Take away the stone and the timber,
    And a little piece of rope won't hold it together.

  • If you can't tell your sister,
    If you can't tell a priest,
    'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
    To anyone,
    Can you tell it to your heart?
    Can you find it in your heart
    To let go of these feelings...

  • We could be like two strings beating,
    Speaking in sympathy...

  • We're building a house of the future together.
    (What would we do without you?)

  • You might not, not think so now,
    But just you wait and see — someone will come to help you.

The Fog
  • Just like a photograph,
    I pick you up.
    Just like a station on the radio,
    I pick you up.

  • Just like a feeling that you're sending out,
    I pick it up.
    But I can't let you go.
    If I let you go,
    You slip into the fog...

  • This love was big enough for the both of us.
    This love of yours was big enough to be frightened of.
    It's deep and dark, like the water was,
    The day I learned to swim.

  • Is this love big enough to watch over me?
    Big enough to let go of me
    Without hurting me,
    Like the day I learned to swim?


Reaching Out

  • See how the child reaches out instinctively
    To feel how fire will feel.
    See how the man reaches out instinctively
    For what he cannot have.
    The pull and the push of it all.

  • Reaching out for that hand to hold.
    Reaching out for the Star.
    Reaching out for the Star that explodes.
    Reaching out for Mama.

  • See how the flower leans instinctively
    Toward the light.
    See how the heart reaches out instinctively
    For no reason but to touch...


Heads We're Dancing
  • They say that the Devil is a charming man.
    And just like you I bet he can dance.

  • Well, I couldn't see what was to be,
    So I just stood there laughing.

Deeper Understanding
  • As the people here grow colder I turn to my computer
    And spend my evenings with it
    Like a friend.

  • Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
    I bring you love and deeper understanding.
    Hello, I know that you're unhappy.
    I bring you love and deeper understanding....

  • I turn to my computer like a friend.
    I need deeper understanding.
    Give me deeper understanding...


Between A Man And A Woman

  • He said it was her fault.
    She said it wasn't at all.
    But the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

  • Where angels fear to tread,
    You go rushing in.
    Stay out of this
    You must not interfere
    Don't you see this is
    Between a man and a woman?


Never Be Mine
  • I look at you and see
    my life that might have been
    your face just ghostly in the smoke.
    They're setting fire to the cornfields
    as you're taking me home.
    The smell of burning fields
    will now mean you and here.

  • This is where I want to be.
    This is what I need.
    This is where I want to be,
    But I know that this will never be mine.

  • I want you as the dream,
    Not the reality.
    That clumsy good-bye kiss could fool me.
    But looking back over my shoulder
    at you happy without me.

  • The thrill and the hurting
    Will never be mine.


Rocket's Tail

  • I thought you were crazy, wishing such a thing.
    I saw only a stick on fire,
    Alone on its journey
    Home to the quickening ground,
    With no one there to catch it.

  • I am a rocket
    On fire.
    Look at me go, with my tail on fire...


This Woman's Work

  • I know you have a little life in you yet.
    I know you have a lot of strength left.

  • I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
    I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking
    Of all the things I should've said,
    That I never said.
    All the things we should've done,
    That we never did.
    All the things I should've given,
    But I didn't.


Walk Straight Down The Middle
  • We're calling out for Middle Street.

  • We hang on to every line,
    And walk straight down the middle of it.

  • He thought he was gonna die,
    But he didn't.
    She thought she just couldn't cope,
    But she did.
    We thought it would be so hard,
    But it wasn't...
    It wasn't easy, though!

The Red Shoes (1993)

Full lyrics online


Rubberband Girl
  • See those trees
    Bend in the wind
    I feel they've got a lot more sense than me
    You see I try to resist...

  • A rubberband bouncing back to life
    A rubberband bend the beat
    If I could learn to give like a rubberband
    I'd be back on my feet...

And So Is Love - Performance on Top of the Pops (1994)
  • We let it in
    We give it out
    And in the end
    What's it all about?
    It must be love.

  • We used to say
    "Ah Hell, we're young"
    But now we see that life is sad
    And so is love.

  • What really matters?
    It's all we've got
    Isn't that enough?

  • All for love
    Just for the sake of love.

Eat the Music
  • Split me open
    With devotion
    You put your hands in
    And rip my heart out
    Eat the music.

  • All is revealed
    Not only women bleed.

  • What am I singing?
    A song of seeds
    The food of love.
    Eat the music.


Moments of Pleasure
  • I think about us diving
    Diving off a rock, into another moment...

  • Just being alive
    It can really hurt
    These moments given
    Are a gift from time.

    Just let us try
    To give these moments back
    To those we love
    To those who will survive...


  • And I can hear my mother saying
    "Every old sock meets an old shoe"
    Isn't that a great saying?

  • Here come the Hills of Time


Song of Solomon
  • The Song of Solomon
    The song of everyone
    Who walks the path
    Of the solitary heart.

  • The soul cries out
    Hear a woman singing
    Don't want your bullshit, yeah
    Just want your sexuality.
    Don't want excuses, yeah
    Write me your poetry in motion
    Write it just for me, yeah
    And sign it with a kiss.

  • I'll do it for you
    I'll be the Rose of Sharon for you
    Ooh I'll come in a hurricane for you
    I'll do it for you...

Lily
  • Oh thou, who givest sustenance to the universe
    From whom all things proceed
    To whom all things return
    Unveil to us the face of the true spiritual sun
    Hidden by a disc of golden light
    That we may know the truth
    And do our whole duty
    As we journey to thy sacred feet
    • Recited by "Lily"

  • I said
    "Lily, Oh Lily I'm so afraid
    I fear I am walking in the Veil of Darkness"
    And she said
    "Child, take what I say
    With a pinch of salt
    And protect yourself with fire"

  • Gabriel before me
    Raphael behind me
    Michael to my right
    Uriel on my left side
    In the circle of fire.


The Red Shoes

  • With no words, with no song
    You can dance the dream with your body on
    And this curve, is your smile
    And this cross, is your heart
    And this line, is your path
    Oh it's gonna be the way you always thought it would be
    But it's gonna be no illusion
    Oh it's gonna be the way you always dreamt about it
    But it's gonna be really happening to ya...

  • Feel your hair come tumbling down
    Feel your feet start kissing the ground
    Feel your arms are opening out
    And see your eyes are lifted to God
    With no words, with no song
    I'm gonna dance the dream
    And make the dream come true...

Top of the City
  • I don't know if I'm closer to Heaven but
    It looks like Hell down there.
    These streets have never been paved with gold.

  • It's no good for you baby
    It's no good for you now
    Keep looking up for the ladder.

  • I don't mind if it's dangerous
    I don't mind if it's raining
    Take me up to the top of the city
    And put me up on the angel's shoulders.


Constellation of the Heart

  • We take all the telescopes
    And we turn them inside out
    And we point them away from the big sky.
    Put your eye right up to the glas.
    Here we'll find the constellation of the heart.
    Steer your life by these stars
    On the unconditional chance
    'Tis here where Hell and Heaven dance.
    This is the constellation of the heart.

  • Well we think you'd better wake up capt'n
    There's something happen'n up ahead
    We've never seen anything like it
    We've never seen anything like it before.

  • Who said anything about it hurting?
    It's gonna be beautiful
    It's gonna be wonderful
    It's gonna be paradise.

  • Ooh find me the man with the ladder
    And he might lift me up to the stars.

  • Without the pain there'd be no learning
    Without the hurting we'd never change.


Big Stripey Lie

  • All young gentle dreams drowning
    In life's grief
    Can you hang on to me?

  • Your name is being called by sacred things
    That are not addressed nor listened to.
    Sometimes they blow trumpets.

  • Hey all you little waves run away.
    Mmm... run away.


Why Should I Love You?

  • This chapter says
    "Put it out of your mind"
    Mmm, give it time....

  • The fine purple
    The purest gold
    The red of the Sacred Heart
    The grey of a ghost
    The "L" of the lips are open
    To the "O" of the Host
    The "V" of the velvet
    The "E" of my eye
    The eye in wonder
    The eye that sees
    The "I" that loves you.

  • Have you ever seen a picture
    Of Jesus laughing?
    Mmm, do you think
    He had a beautiful smile?
    A smile that healed.


You're the One
  • Let's change things.
    Let's danger it up.
    We're crazy enough.
    I just can't take it.

  • You're the only one I want...

  • I know where I'm going.
    But I don't want to leave.
    I just have one problem
    We're best friends, yeah?
    We tied ourselves in knots
    Doing cartwheels 'cross the floor
    Just forget it alright.

Aerial (2005)

Full lyrics online


A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)


King of the Mountain
  • Could you see the aisles of women?
    Could you see them screaming and weeping?
    Could you see the storm rising?
    Could you see the guy who was driving?
    Could you climb higher and higher?
    Could you climb right over the top?

  • Elvis are you out there somewhere
    Looking like a happy man?
    In the snow with Rosebud
    And King of the Mountain.

  • Another Hollywood waitress
    Is telling us she's having your baby
    And there's a rumour that you're on ice
    And you will rise again someday.

π
  • Sweet and gentle and sensitive man
    With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
    For numbers
    And a complete infatuation with the calculation
    Of π.


  • He does love his numbers
    And they run, they run, they run him
    In a great big circle
    In a circle of infinity
    3.14159 26535897932 3846 264 338 3279...


Bertie
  • Here comes the sunshine
    Here comes that son of mine
    Here comes the everything
    Here's a song and a song for him.

  • You bring me so much joy
    And then you bring me
    More joy...


Mrs. Bartolozzi
  • Oh and the waves are going out
    Oh and the waves are coming in
    Out of the corner of my eye
    I think I see you standing outside
    But it's just your shirt
    Hanging on the washing line
    Waving it's arm as the wind blows by
    And it looks so alive
    Nice and white
    Just like it's climbed right out
    of my washing machine...


How To Be Invisible
  • I found a book on how to be invisible
    You take a pinch of keyhole,
    And fold yourself up,
    You cut along the dotted lines.
    You think inside out.
    You're invisible.

Joanni
  • All the banners stop waving
    And the flags stop flying
    And the silence comes over
    Thousands of soldiers...

  • Who is that girl? Do I know her face?

  • Joanni, Joanni wears a golden cross
    And she looks so beautiful in her armour
    Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God
    And she never wears a ring on her finger...


A Coral Room
  • There's a city, draped in net
    Fisherman net
    And in the half light, in the half light
    It looks like every tower
    Is covered in webs
    Moving and glistening and rocking
    It's babies in rhythm
    As the spider of time is climbing
    Over the ruins.

  • Put your hand over the side of the boat
    What do you feel?

  • My mother and her little brown jug
    It held her milk
    And now it holds our memories...

A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Prelude
  • Mummy...
    Daddy...
    The day is full of birds
    Sounds like they're saying words...
    • Spoken by Bush's son, Berty.


Prologue
  • We're gonna be laughing about this
    We're gonna be dancing around
    It's gonna be so good now.

  • It's gonna be so good now
    It's gonna be so good
    Can you see the lark ascending?

  • Oh will you come with us
    To find the song of the oil and the brush?


An Architect's Dream

  • Watching the painter painting
    And all the time, the light is changing
    And he keeps painting
    That bit there, it was an accident
    But he's so pleased
    It's the best mistake, he could make
    And it's my favourite piece.
    It's just great.


The Painter's Link

  • So all the colours run
    See what they have become
    A wonderful sunset


Sunset
  • Who knows who wrote that song of summer,
    That blackbirds sing at dusk,
    This is a song of colour,
    Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust,
    Then climb into bed and turn to dust.

  • Every sleepy light
    Must say goodbye
    To the day before it dies
    In a sea of honey
    A sky of honey
    Keep us close to your heart
    So if the skies turn dark
    We may live on in
    Comets and stars.


Somewhere In Between
  • It was just so beautiful.

  • This is where the shadows come to play twixt the day
    And night
    Dancing and skipping
    Along a chink of light

  • Somewhere in between
    The waxing and the waning wave
    Somewhere in between
    What the song and the silence says
    Somewhere in between
    The ticking and the tocking clock
    Somewhere in a dream between
    Sleep and waking up
    Somewhere in between
    Breathing out and breathing in
    Like twilight is neither night nor morning

  • Not one of us would dare to break
    The silence
    And, oh how we have longed
    For something that would
    Make us feel so...


Nocturn

  • Could be in a dream
    Our clothes are on the beach
    These prints of our feet
    Lead right up to the sea
    No one, no one is here
    No one, no one is here
    We stand in the Atlantic
    We become panoramic...

  • The stars are caught in our hair
    The stars are on our fingers
    A veil of diamond dust
    Just reach up and touch it
    The sky's above our heads
    The sea's around our legs
    In milky, silky water
    We swim further and further...


  • We dive deeper and deeper
    Could be we are here
    Could be in my dream
    It came up on the horizon
    Rising and rising
    In a sea of honey, a sky of honey.


  • Bright, white coming alive jumping off of the aerial
    All the time it's a changing, like now...

  • All the time it's a changing
    And all the dreamers are waking.


Aerial
  • Oh the dawn has come
    And the song must be sung
    And the flowers are melting.
    What kind of language is this?

  • I can't hear a word you're saying
    Tell me what are you singing
    In the sun

  • All of the birds are laughing
    Come on let's all join in.

Singles and rarities


Disbelieving Angel (unreleased demo, c. 1973)
Full text online

  • So much for all the prayers you've learned.
    They are no help to basic needs.
    And all the worlds they've shown you
    Just make you even greedier.

  • I feel so sorry for you,
    Believing because they control.
    And of all the guardian angels
    They chose me to save your soul!
    Oh, I'm just trying to explain,
    I'm a disbelieving angel.


Passing Through Air (1978)
  • Passing through air.
    You mix the stars with your arms.
    Walking through there.
    The doom of eternity balms.
    Skies of grey are not today.

  • Oh! Don't you throw my love away,
    I need your loving, I need your loving...


December Will Be Magic Again (1980)
  • See how I fall like the snow,
    Come to cover the lovers,
    (But don't you wake them up)
    Come to sparkle the dark up,
    With just a touch of make up.
    Come to cover the muck up.
    Ooh with a little luck —
    December will be magic again.

  • December will be magic again.
    Don't miss the brightest star,
    Kiss under mistletoe,
    I want to hear you laugh,
    Don't let the mystery go now.

Warm And Soothing (1980)
  • Warm and soothing
    That's how I remember home.
    Walking into arms through the back door
    Hearing voices I know well and long for.

  • I'm reeling in the music,
    And I've only had a few...
    And I'm afraid by the way we grow old...
    My darling...


Under the Ivy (1985)
  • This little girl inside me
    Is retreating to her favourite place.
    Go into the garden.
    Go under the ivy,
    Under the leaves,
    Away from the party.
    Go right to the rose.
    Go right to the white rose
    (For me.)

  • It's not easy for me
    To give away a secret —
    It's not safe…

Burning Bridge (1985)
  • I know it works for me.
    As we cross the bridge — the burning bridge —
    With flames behind us,
    We front the line.
    It's you and me, baby, against the world.


Be Kind To My Mistakes (1986)
Song for the film Castaway (1986); later included in the collection This Woman's Work

  • I don't know you,
    And you don't know me.
    It is this that brings us together.

MOJO interview (2005)

Excerpts from an interview in MOJO magazine (3 November 2005) as quoted in The Guardian (2005-10-28)

  • I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'.

  • There were so many times I thought, "I'll have the album finished this year, definitely, we'll get it out this year." Then there were a couple of years where I thought, "I'm never gonna do this." If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time... evaporates.

  • There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: "Here's what I've been working on," and then produced some cakes from your oven. True?
    "No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?"

  • For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life. It's so a part of who I am. It's so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don't know how dishwashers work. For me, that's frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you've got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody's been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?

Quotes about Kate Bush

Arranged alphabetically by author.

  • One of the main things that brings people to the Brontë Museum from all over the world is Kate Bush. We have copies of her No 1 hit single " Wuthering Heights" in our collection of Brontë-related items. People often arrive at the Brontë novels through that song.

  • To me, Kate Bush will always represent the age of exploring your sexuality, when you change from a girl to a woman. I guess that's what I found fascinating about Kate, she totally stuck out. She created her own look and sound. There's a timelessness to her music.
    • Björk

  • I think she is still relevant. It's nice to see people reinvent themselves. She was a great performer and a great singer. I like that song, you know the one, "It's me, I'm Cathy..." I love that song. I remember listening to it growing up.
    • Mutya Buena of Sugababes

  • I know this may give her a mystique and make the press all the more curious about her, but that's not the intention; it's not a ploy to get her more attention. She genuinely doesn't see why people should be interested in her personal life and she certainly doesn't like going out to clubs or trendy restaurants. It's just not her.
    • Paddy Bush, Kate's brother.

  • For me, it's not important how well the songs will be received because I think she's already an amazing influence in what she's done. I listen to her stuff a lot while I sketch and I think there is a weird sense of emotional encouragement in her work. There's something therapeutic in her voice and in her attitude, so that sometimes just listening to it can encourage you or give you some kind of energy.

  • I didn't realise how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like Joni Mitchell — the level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas.
    • David Gilmour of Pink Floyd who helped Kate's career get started.

  • One of music's most reclusive and enigmatic figures has re-emerged into what some have seen as a rich era for British female singer-songwriters. Bush's new double album, Aerial, is due out in November, only her eighth after three decades in the business. It will be treated with due reverence.

  • That's a song where we were listening to a lot of Kate Bush last summer, and we wanted a song which had a lot of tom-toms in it,I just had my daughter up also, and was kind of feeling in a sense of awe and wonderment, so the song is kind of a Kate Bush song about miracles.
    • Chris Martin, on the links between Coldplay's song "Speed of Sound" and Kate Bush's "Running up that Hill (A Deal with God)". He later said "we tried to copy the drums, guitar, melody....etc"

  • Of course she's still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like "Wuthering Heights" still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.
    • Katie Melua

  • Her music remains reassuringly the same ecstatic alchemy of the humdrum and otherworldly. Recalling the hello-clouds wonder of The Big Sky from 1985's Hounds of Love or the frank paean to menstruation that is Strange Phenomena from her debut, The Kick Inside, Aerial finds Bush marvelling in the magic of the everyday: the wind animating a skirt hanging on a clothes line, the trace of footprints leading into the sea, the indecipherable codes of birdsong.

  • I simply think she is one of the greatest figures in British music over the last 30 years. There are an awful lot of people in the business wandering around claiming to be artists, but she is one of the few who can genuinely make that claim... I don't think there is any competition, she's on a different level and quite outside them all.
    • Paul Rees, editor of Q Magazine, as quoted in The Independent (2005-09-02)

  • With a voice you either love or hate, she belts out a song with a desperation that grabs you and won't let go.
    • Amy Standen in Salon (2001-03-20)

  • I'm really looking forward to Kate Bush's return — I'm no expert on her work but I know some of it and I think she's an incredibly original and talented artist. Anyone who writes most of an album like her first album, The Kick Inside, at 15 years old has got to be pretty special.
    • KT Tunstall

  • When EMI invites a group of journalists to the Royal Academy of Music, in London, for a one-off listen to Kate Bush's new album, they are sending a clear signal — this album is not to be dismissed lightly.

  • A Sky of Honey is, in a sense, a lyric poem set to music. Full of lush, fecund melodies which swing from jazz to rock, it is threaded through with bird song and chatter and feels distinctly organic and earthy.... Side two is the album Pink Floyd might have made if Kate Bush had been their lead singer and lyricist in 1979.
    • Darren Waters in a BBC Review: Kate Bush's Aerial] (2005-10-28)
    • Bush has written a lyric poem set to music, which has an epic quality, transporting the listener to a deeply lush and fertile landscape. Lyrically cryptic, but strangely seductive, side two is the album Pink Floyd might have made in 1979 if Bush had been their lead singer.
      Concept albums are not everyone's cup of tea — but this is a masterpiece.

  • A Sky of Honey is a celebration of song itself, which has a child's joyful lack of inhibition about it — Kate Bush is heard laughing freely towards the end while a young child, possibly her son, is heard several times... Aerial stands alongside The Hounds of Love and The Kick Inside as her finest work.
    • Darren Waters in a BBC Review: Kate Bush's Aerial] (2005-10-28)

  • I always heard about Kate Bush being considered one of the most influential female artists during the modern era of pop/rock music, but never understood what her appeal was... But when I recently stumbled upon her debut 1978 single, "Wuthering Heights," I found myself spending hours absorbing as much of her pre-1985 material as possible . . . Listening to an early Kate Bush album brings you far, far, away to a dreamworld filled with pixies and love and Peter Pan and pure hearts . . . "Wuthering Heights" and the rest of The Kick Inside display all of Bush's trademarks: a literary consciousness; flourishing, heartfelt waves and the ability to successfully incorporate just about every eccentric vocal style you've never heard into each song.
    • Jared Wolfe, in The Cornell Daily Sun (2005-10-20)

  • Illusion, dance, mime, even magic — the Tour of Life, as it was called, had the lot.
    I shan’t forget the way those Pink Floyd-like whale sounds that open The Kick Inside album heralded Kate’s entry to the stage as waves were projected on huge screens and her band launched into Moving.
    For a split second, the audience thought Kate was lip-synching because there was no microphone, but in pre-dating Madonna by a couple of decades, she was wearing a headset to allow free movement around the stage.
    Every song from that first album was performed before the switch to stuff from follow-up Lionheart, virtually every number warranting a change of costume and stage set. ... The entire show was pure theatre.

The Unique Poetry Of Kate Bush (1985)

Review by Sue Hudson in Hi-Fi & Record Review (December 1985)

  • We've been holding our breath for a long time. Three years of playing the old songs and wondering "whatever next?" Would it be even weirder than The Dreaming? Would it leave more admirers by the wayside, shaking their heads?... The real fans will happily go along for the ride, even if she isn't going the pretty way.

  • Kate journeys into new and exciting territories. She is an original in a music world dominated by cover versions, regressive movements and identikit superstars. The direct opposite of the archetypal rock star: compulsively introvert in a world of screaming extraverts, middle-class and deeply English amid England's all-pervasive working class American ethos, boldly feminine in rock's macho climate. Her melodic genius and articulate lyrics make the rest seem moronically simplistic.

  • After a thousand songs on the theme of boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl or Thatcher's Britain, exposure to her music comes as an imaginative release as we go giddily flying into the limitless possibilities of the poetic viewpoint. Here is talk of whales, of Peter Pan, kites, Houdini, mysticism... Acquaintances have observed, "She lives in a world of her own." But it's a world that lives within all of us, and her songs shine light into neglected areas of our minds.

  • Her subjects come tripping from library shelves, television and cinema screens and musty books of fairy tales, the stuff that dreams are made of. She spins tunes that haunt, twist and turn the mind, triggering long forgotten moods. Listening intently to her albums is an experience akin to having a lucid and feverish dream. Jungian symbols of youth, innocence, spiritual escape and the dark, feminine realm abound. Ghosts haunt the black vinyl grooves... But it's not all brooding intensity. There are jokes, too...

  • It's a mischievous paradox that, while rock at its ultra-macho best is exhilarating and energizing, yet just at the moment when it is most strident and loud it leaves you needing something more. Then along comes a shy doctor's daughter from Welling who out-screams the best, out-powers the noisiest and tops it with the satisfying impact of musical and psychological depth. It's almost Wagnerian.

  • Her talent was precocious. "The Saxophone Song" and "The Man With the Child in His Eyes" were recorded as demo tapes when Kate was still at school. The first album, The Kick Inside (1978), caused tremendous media interest and is still the public's favourite. Her voice, criticized at the time, was small and childlike, the range erratic, if impressive. Since then it has improved enormously, deepening and gaining power and flexibility, until now it is a great asset, individual and capable of both subtle and stunning effects.

  • The album Never for Ever came next and starts in happy mood, with a summer night of a cha-cha-cha tribute to a new-found hero, "Delius". The philosophic All We Ever Look For creates a remarkable and rare mood of reassurance and upbeat resignation, a Bush specialty . . . The end comes in the horrifying "Breathing", a vision of the nuclear holocaust through the eyes of an unborn child.

  • On to The Dreaming, a strange, alien album full of mysticism and obscurantae. Its impact owes much to sheer production quality. Kate has gradually taken over this aspect of her records since Lionheart, and each LP is technically more impressive. Her voice here is forward and strong and, on "Leave It Open", deliberately distorted to create a surreal effect. Get Out of My House is a shattering trip into madness, with a stunning culmination which finds Kate braying like a mule amid a chorus of Indian drum talk.

  • The new album, Hounds of Love, breaks new ground for Kate with the b-side. This is a story — The Ninth Wave — told in a series of songs, like a Pink Floyd concept album.

  • Casual listeners will miss the depth of the music. You must sit down with the lyric sheet and find out what's going on. All the vocal acrobatics and weird sounds click into place when you know what ideas, stories and situations they are expressing. In most rock and pop, the music and words may be linked, but are basically separate. Kate creates, more and more, a fusion between the two — the sounds directly expressing the subject. This is a throwback to Wagner's music-drama, with its leitmotifs, turning music into an idea. The Beatles revived the technique, and bands of the hippy era like Pink Floyd carried the banner. . . Kate is fast becoming a master in the use of this sonic montage, perhaps because the ideas she is using are far more complex, have more "resonances", than those of her contemporaries.

  • Kate will never be an academic artist, drily applying intellectual music theory to the delight of a handful of peers, forging into new areas for the sake of "progress". Her style is personal, individual, impressionistic. Like Delius, her music will always flow from poetic necessity, breaking from the confines of tradition because expression demands it. I just hope that she will have the confidence to follow her instincts and not be discouraged by the music press, who in the main are baffled and annoyed by her uniqueness. Unable to pigeon-hole her music, they turn instead to ridicule and condescension to fill the pages. Which is a disservice to the British public who, to their undying credit, have made Kate Bush such a popular success.

Kate Bush rules, OK? (2005)

Article by Michael Berkeley , published in The Guardian (2005-10-11)

  • When the conductor Richard Hickox rang me one day in 1984 to ask if I could help with a rather unusual job for which he and his choir had been engaged, I was intrigued. Kate Bush, it transpired, was working on her new album, Hounds of Love, and for one track, Hello Earth, she wanted a chorus to recreate the orthodox singing/chanting that made such a contribution to the film Nosferatu.

  • I had always considered Kate Bush truly original both as a performer and as a songwriter with an unusually fresh sense of harmony. If her new album next month is awaited with some excitement after a long fallow period, then in 1985 it was assumed that Hounds of Love would be something of a final fling at the conclusion of a waning career. I soon realised how wrong this assumption was when Kate sent me a cassette: it was zany, ambitious and yet utterly Kate Bush, but with gaps where I was to do her bidding. Having chatted at length, she sent me a long letter with the words of the song and precise instructions on how it should unfold... Structure was carefully delineated, verses and choruses written out fully and marked up in colour, and she talked of the sound quality in the most graphic terms.

  • Although she had piano and violin lessons at school, Bush is essentially self-taught. I have always been fascinated by the difference of dynamics at work between popular artists and conventionally trained classical musicians, and had a similar experience with the Edge, of U2, when we worked together on the score of a film called Captive. In fact, gifted "pop" musicians like Bush and U2 are far more demanding of themselves in the studio than classical musicians can afford to be, and will spend days working on a tiny fragment.

  • Come the recording day, a group of male choristers, more accustomed to singing church services than backing vocals, descended on Bush's home, which was equipped with its own studio. Doubtless they were imagining that they were about to meet a wild-eyed rock babe, but Kate, quiet and unassuming — the kind of sympathetic, slightly shy girl who greets you from behind the counter at the local chemist — introduced us to her friend the bass player Del Palmer, who engineered the session. None of the singers or Richard had ever gone over and over four or five phrases so exactingly. No measure of Bach or Mozart had, in their experience, been subjected to such surgical scrutiny, and I began to worry that their voices might begin to tire. But Bush knew and got what she wanted and Hello Earth is, I think, a remarkable track on the album that finally broke the American market and established her as an iconic and hugely influential figure. I can't wait to hear what she has been up to now.

Kate Bush: Finally, something for the grown-ups (2005)

The Independent (2005-10-21)

  • Such is the idiosyncratic nature of her work that she could probably disappear for a half-century and still sustain her own unique position in the pop firmament. But then, who else would write about an obsessive-compulsive housewife or attempt a vocal duet with trilling birds, or, in the most courageous of the album's many unusual strategies, sing huge strings of numbers, a gambit that brings new meaning to the old critic's chestnut about being happy to listen to someone singing the telephone directory?

  • Many years ago, back near the start of her career, she regarded the domestic demands of motherhood as a dubious prospect, claiming her work was her love, and how could she do that and bring up a child at the same time? The answer, presumably, was not to work for a dozen years.

  • She has always freely admitted being like a little girl in many ways, and furthermore, happily presumes she'll still be that way in her dotage. It's certainly still a factor on Aerial , both in the track "Bertie" itself and in the memories and reminiscences that cobweb some other songs. But compared to the darker corners of the mind sometimes mined in earlier songs, the new album seems a much sunnier affair: an enduring image I took away from it — not necessarily a lyric, though it might have been — was of windows flung wide open, their curtains billowing out in the breeze, a room's long-dormant dust stirred into life again.

  • She's unafraid, too, of tackling more problematic areas of sexuality, as for instance when she dealt with cradle-snatching in "The Infant Kiss" and incest in "The Kick Inside". But not all that seems erotic in her music is about sex, as an EMI employee discovered when he found her working on the hypnotic "out-in-out-in" chant section of "Breathing" (from 1980's Never For Ever), and expressed outrage at EMI's young pop princess making such an overtly sexual record. The song is, of course, about breathing. Duhhh!

  • At around an hour and a half, Aerial is unquestionably a substantial piece of work, and its manifold peculiarities and quirks offer much more interesting fare than that available from today's AOR mainstream. It's also a more mature undertaking than any of her previous albums, an extended meditation on art and light, fame and family, creativity and the natural world. Indeed it seems, come to think of it, like an expansion of the theme of Laura Veirs' gorgeous "Rapture". And since that was the finest song of last year, I'd have to say that leaves Kate Bush still operating at the cutting-edge of intelligent adult pop, every bit as relevant now as at any point in her career. Just a little bit weirder, thank heavens.

Admit it, guys, she's a genius (2005)

Article by Kitty Empire, in The Observer (2005-10-30)

  • For me, Kate Bush was always a trump card when the tiresome 'question' of female artistic genius came up. ... Before disgust stopped me getting dragged into these skirmishes, I had a ready arsenal of Girl Greats — Patti Smith, Björk, Nina Simone, Delia Derbyshire, Polly Harvey, and so on. And yet, there would often be some caveat why genius eluded my candidates (ripped off Dylan etc). Until we would get to Kate. Female genius? Kate Bush. End of.
    Aerial, the first Kate Bush album in a young lifetime (12 years), re-establishes the fact. It is extraordinary — jaw-dropping, no less.

  • Aerial succeeds because it's all there for a reason. And because the good stuff is just so sublime. 'King of the Mountain', Bush's Elvis-inspired single, is both a fine opener and a total red herring. Bush's juices really get going on 'Pi', a sentimental ode to a mathematician, audacious in both subject matter and treatment. The chorus is the number sung to many, many decimal places. It's closely followed by a gushing ode to Bush's son, Bertie, that's stark and medieval-sounding. The rest of disc one (aka A Sea of Honey) sets a very high bar for disc two, with the Joan of Arc-themed 'Joanni' and the downright poppy 'How to Be Invisible' raising the hair on your arms into a Mexican wave.
    Disc two, subtitled A Sky of Honey, is a suite of nine tracks which, among other things, charts the passage of light from afternoon ('Prologue') to evening ('An Architect's Dream', 'The Painter's Link') and through the night until dawn. Things get a little hairier here.

  • It's clear Bush is still a force to be reckoned with. The problem, though, with female genius — for many men at least — is that very frequently it is not like male genius. And with its songs about children, washing machines going 'slooshy sloshy', Joan of Arc, Bush's mother, not to mention the almost pagan sensuality that runs through here like a pulse, Aerial is, arguably, the most female album in the world, ever. ... the artistry here is so dizzying, the ambition and scope so vast, that even the deafest, most inveterate misogynist could not fail to acknowledge it. Genius. End of.
 
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