Kate Bush – Happy Witchy Feminine Musical Genius And Badass
Kate Bush’s song Running Up That Hill made it to #1 in the UK, 37 years after it was released when they used it in Stranger Things.
Alex has been a fan of Kate Bush since the 80s and when a listener suggested we do an episode on her, he got to research her and find out just how awesome she is.
BTWs include drag queens vs. evil Disney queens.
Links
- Kate Bush – Cloudbusting – Official Music Video
- Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights – Official Music Video – Version 1 (white dress)
- Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights – Official Music Video – Version 2 (red dress)
- Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill – Official Music Video
- Kate Bush – Babooshka – Official Music Video
- Kate Bush – Tour Of Life – Nationwide Documentary 1979 (BEST QUALITY)
- Kate Bush interview on Woman’s Hour – 22 June 2022
- KATE BUSH – TOUR OF LIFE (complete show – 1979)
- How ‘Stranger Things’ Landed the Kate Bush Song ‘Running Up That Hill’ – Variety
- The Enduring, Incandescent Power of Kate Bush | The New Yorker
- I claim Kate Bush for dance
Excellent video, I need to add a few things to what you said, Kate started writing songs when she was aged 11, adding more complex lyrics from the age of 13. At the time she had reached her mid-teens she had written well over a hundred songs, Kate has said that the total was nearer two hundred!
David Gilmour was given the demo tape by a friend of the family, after previous efforts to get record companies interested had failed. He went to the family house to see her play in person, after that there was a session with her at his house with other musicians to how she could work with others. It was at that stage he paid for studio time and session musicians to record three tracks which he selected from her many songs. Two of those songs ended up on her debut album “The Kick Inside” one of the songs had been written when she was just 13 and it subsequently won songwriting award.
When she was signed from EMI there was a gap before starting on the album and Kate used this to improve some skills and also to perform in a band touring pubs in South London, in addition since she felt that dancing had an important part to enable her to put forward her music, she took dancing lessons including some from Lindsay Kemp, who also taught David Bowie.
WRT to Wuthering Heights Kate shares the same Birthday as Emily Bronte the author of Wuthering Heights. EMI wanted to release a different song “James and the Cold Gun” as her debut single, Kate pushed back and EMI finally agreed thinking that it would be a massive flop and it would teach her a lesson. Instead it was so different to anything else in the charts, it became a massive worldwide hit, only surpassed in terms of chart success by “Running Up Thaf Hill” in 2022.
The vocal for Wuthering Heights was recorded in one take and Kate said that she was channelling Cathy when she was singing, this aspect of Kate becoming the character she’s singing about, explains her performance on some of her videos.
In 2014 Kate performed live in a 22 date concert residency called “Before The Dawn” tickets for all 22 dates sold out in under 15 minutes and people travelled from all over the world to attend (I know because I talked to a few people when I was waiting to go in).
A centre piece of the concert was the live performances of two concept pieces first “The Ninth Wave” – the second side of the “Hounds Of Love” album and then a performance of “A Sky Of Honey” the 2nd disc from her double album Aerial.
For “And Dream Of Sheep” the 1st track from “The Ninth Wave” Kate sung live while wearing a life jacket floating in water, the video of this performance was projected on a large screen at the concert, Kate spent so long in the very cold water she got a mild case of hypothermia, Kate’s certainly willing to suffer for her art. That video and all her others can be found on the KateBushMusic YouTube channel they are well worth a look.
BTW if you decide to dive into Kate’s extensive catalogue of excellent music, you will notice that she will cover very dark subject matters and some subjects that other artists wouldn’t go anywhere near, Kate is absolutely fearless which is why she has been such an inspiration for the artists and musicians that have followed her.
Finally my favourite Kate Bush album is the same as Bjork’s.