FEATURE:
It Started with a Treasured Brown Jug…
Kate Bush’s Aerial at Fifteen: A Coral Room
___________
THIS will be one of the shorter features…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton/The National Portrait Gallery, London
although I always say that and it turns into something epic! Because Aerial is fifteen on 7th November, I want to put out a final feature regarding the album and a particular aspect of it. I think I have covered the biggest songs, and I have also investigated the second disc of the (double) album, A Sky of Honey. There is one song that I had to mention before the anniversary, as it was highlighted by a fair few reviewers when it came to the best and most memorable tracks from Aerial. A Coral Room, in a way, reminds me of Moments of Pleasure from 1993’s The Red Shoes. In the song, we hear the lines “And I can hear my mother saying/"Every old sock meets an old shoe"/Isn't that a great saying?”. In interviews, Bush was asked about those lines and she said, when promoting Director’s Cut (2011) – in which she reworks that track -, that her mother found those lines hysterical. Hannah Bush died in 1992, so she would not have got the chance to see how those lines in Moments of Pleasure resonated with people all these years later. It is inevitable, as her mother was ageing when Bush wrote Moments of Pleasure, that she would have been reminded of upbringing; how little sayings like that made a difference and stuck in the mind! Even though a lot of the sadder and more reflective songs on The Red Shoes were written when Bush’s mother was still alive, one feels that there was a general sense and feeling that pushed remembrance and her mother’s wisdom to the heart.
By the time Aerial arrived in 2005, Bush’s mother, obviously, had departed and Bush was a mother herself –she gave birth to her son, Bertie, in 1998. As the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia presents, Bush spoke about the origins of A Coral Room in a 2005 interview:
“There was a little brown jug actually, yeah. The song is really about the passing of time. I like the idea of coming from this big expansive, outside world of sea and cities into, again, this very small space where, er, it's talking about a memory of my mother and this little brown jug. I always remember hearing years ago this thing about a sort of Zen approach to life, where, you would hold something in your hand, knowing that, at some point, it would break, it would no longer be there. (Front Row, BBC4, 4 November 2005)“.
It seems like there are similarities with Moments of Pleasure, and A Coral Room. If the former employed a saying that seems quite cute but actually is very true, then the latter seems more haunting and effecting; almost like a piece of her mother has been left behind. I think, as Bush was building a family and released her first album since The Red Shoes, that her mother’s influence and importance would return - “My mother and her little brown jug/It held her milk/And now it holds our memories/I can hear her singing/"Little brown jug don't I love thee"/"Little brown jug don't I love thee"/Ho ho ho, hee hee hee”.
There are a few things that strike me about Aerial. I think the first disc, A Sea of Honey, is very home-based and domestic; where Bush guides us through various objects and rooms in the house. Although she is putting characters into some songs, one can feel the home flowing through the tracks. The only exclusion might be the opening track, King of the Mountain, which concerns Elvis Presley being alive and well and hiding in a mountain above us. Maybe, in my metaphor, Bush has started in the music room and has a vinyl of Presley with her as her mind wanders. Π is about the mathematical constant, and that could either be influenced by maths books, Bush’s fascination with numbers and, perhaps, her son as a young child - knowing that he would soon be entering school and thinking about what he would go on to learn. Bertie, track-three, is about her son, and Mrs. Bartolozzi takes us into the laundry room, as we get vivid images of clothing entwined in the washing machine and some on the line outside. Joanni, concerning Joan of Arc, seems less about Bush transplanting herself alongside the French heroine and more about Bush reading about her. How to Be Invisible finds Bush singing “I found a book on how to be invisible/Take a pinch of keyhole/And fold yourself up/You cut along the dotted line/You think inside out/And you're invisible”, so I can picture Bush moving between books and rooms through these songs.
The final song of the first side, A Coral Room, is almost the centrepiece of the house, where Bush has this brown jug, but she allows her mind to wander and uses it as this gateway into a world of imagination. If A Sea of Honey is more Bush in the house using everyday objects and inspirations to weave gorgeous songs and moments, A Sky of Honey is her in the garden absorbing the inspiration nature is giving it – Bush is breathing in and relaxing, whereas the first disc is the opposite. That is just me imagining and speculating, but it is significant that one of the finest and most emotively-performed songs on Aerial brings Bush’s mother to heart. I think A Coral Room finds Bush near her peak when it comes to her lyrics, and how a domestic vessel can provoke and stir such imagery: “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”. At 6:12, A Coral Room is the longest song on A Sea of Honey, and it is one of the album’s longest songs – only bested by Nocturn, and Aerial on A Sky of Honey. I love how imaginative and spellbinding A Coral Room is, but I also really like the fact that, clearly, her mother is at heart.
In an interview Bush gave to The Guardian in 2005, she was asked about A Coral Room:
“The shiver-inducing stand-out track on Aerial, however, comes at the end of the first disc. A Coral Room is a piano-and-vocal ballad that Bush admits she first considered to be too personal for release, dealing as it does with the death of her mother, a matter that she didn't address at the time in any of the songs on The Red Shoes.
"No, no I didn't," she says. "I mean, how would you address it? I think it's a long time before you can go anywhere near it because it hurts too much. I've read a couple of things that I was sort of close to having a nervous breakdown. But I don't think I was. I was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time".
Also, when Bush was interviewed by Mark Radcliffe – in an interview that, sadly, I cannot find on YouTube as a whole video (it is there in segments) -, the subject of motherhood was explored:
“Mark: How much has being a mother, and a mother and son, how much has that has inspired and infused this record, do you think?
Kate: I think it's all over it. You know, it's everywhere in the record. He's such a big part of my life so, you know, he's a very big part of my work.
Mark: Yeah. The life you lead, has been because you prioritized being a mother, more or less, above everything else, isn't it?
Kate: Yes, and it's something I really wanted to do, through choice. It's such a great thing, being able to spend as much time with him as I can. And, you know, he won't be young for very long. You know, already he's starting to grow up and I wanted to make sure that I didn't miss out on that, that I spent as much time with his as I could. So, the idea was that he would come first, and then the record would come next, which is also one reason why it's taken a long time (laughs) Yes, it's a wonderful thing, having such a lovely son”.
As Aerial prepares to celebrates fifteen years in the world, I was very keen to highlight one of the best songs from the album. It is amazing listening to the album now and hearing things you missed or certain tracks growing in stature. To me, A Coral Room has always been one of…
KATE Bush’s finest moments.