Behind the Couch

Earlier this year when Kate Bush announced a series of live shows (her first since 1979’s Tour of Life ) fans the world over waited with baited breath to see what would happen. Before the Dawn , a 22 date residency at the Hammersmith Apollo, sold out within minutes of tickets going on sale. Despite several friends and myself trying on various sites, I was unable to obtain a ticket; until a friend of a friend revealed she had a spare. I was therefore lucky enough to go and see Kate perform on 16th September with said friend, and it was an evening we shall both treasure forever… Bush has almost always had a reputation for being reclusive, which has of course led to her being viewed through a particular shroud of mystique. In the words of one critic, she “got all the madwomen down from the attic and into the charts.” Few figures in contemporary music are as original, idiosyncratic and visionary as Kate Bush, and fewer, even those who share the same mythic reputation, could generate...

A couple of years back I wrote a piece about the influence of horror cinema and Gothic literature on the music of Kate Bush. I recently acquired The Whole Story , a ‘best of’ compilation released by Kate in 1986, and have since become rather obsessed with one of the tracks featured on it: Experiment IV . Said track was written especially for the compilation and released to promote it. Along with the accompanying video it once again demonstrates Kate Bush’s singular vision as an artist - and a lover of horror. Taking the storyline from the song quite literally, the video tells of a top secret and highly dubious government experiment to create a sound that can kill. That sound is, of course , portrayed by Kate in the video – initially as an alluring siren-like wraith (underpinning the notion of deadly music at the heart of the song; sirens lured seamen to watery graves by bewitching them with their irresistible but deadly voices), and then as a nightmarish spectre reminiscent of a ba...

There are few other creative figures of a more distinct, visionary and idiosyncratic nature to have emerged from the music industry in the twentieth century, than that of Kate Bush. Not only is she an artist who has accomplished the rare feat of combining musical innovation with commercial success, but she is one who also managed to do so on her own terms, whilst maintaining complete creative control of her work. Bush, in the words of one critic, ‘got all the madwomen down from the attic and into the charts.’ She is heavily inspired by the world of art, philosophy, literature and indeed cinema, drawing upon an almost encyclopaedic array of influences. When one takes a closer look at her work, it becomes apparent that Bush is something of a horror aficionado, drawing on a number of sources to lend her compositions rich, blood-dark depth. Out on the wiley, windy moors. ‘Wuthering Heights’ was a Gothic novel by Emily Brontë in which the conventions of the Gothic novel were refl...