FEATURE:
All the Love Revisited and Remastered
The Podcast Plan: Episode One (The Dreaming)
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BACK in April…
I pitched out a Kate Bush podcast, All the Love. Since then, I have made amendments and there have been delays. COVID-19 has not helped, and it has not been ideal trying to plan something fairly ambitious and involved when there is no certainty - and it is not possible to interview people in person. As things might be brighter by summer, I guess it will be easier to have a podcast where people can get together in the room and we can have something a bit more professional-sounding – I am in a quite noisy area, so it is hard to soundproof and avoid outside interference on any recording. I am pretty determined that something will come about next year, as the motivation to do a podcast has not been there in a dark year. I am aiming, ideally, to record at a particular venue/studio rather than from home. The All the Love podcast will take in Bush’s studio albums, live albums, in addition to compilations. It would provide an opportunity for people to come together to give their thoughts regarding certain albums and go through them track by track. Rather than do all the albums and compilations chronologically, I thought it would be better to take them out of sequence, in order to provide a less predictable listening experience. It brings me to the proposed first episode and which album is best to kick things off in 2021.
I have a lot of love for The Dreaming and as the song, All the Love, is from that album, it seems like a great place to begin. I have already written quite a few features about The Dreaming and various songs from it; how it was this transformative and very experimental album that was different to anything that Bush had recorded before. I have not approached people regarding speaking about The Dreaming, but author Andy Miller is someone I know loves the album. Artists such as Björk and Big Boi have cited The Dreaming as one of their favourite albums and, whilst it might be hard to get them on board, I want to have at least two guests discussing the record. Not only is the podcast’s title taken from The Dreaming, but there is so much to discuss. In addition to all the sonic incorporations and vocals Bush deploys, there are so many terrific songs that deserve new attention! In terms of Bush’s best-reviewed albums, Hounds of Love (1985), 50 Words for Snow (2011), Aerial (2005), and The Sensual World (1989) are the ones that have got the biggest praise. I think The Dreaming remains so underrated and, whilst many fans love the album, it still sort of splits critics. Maybe some are put off by how intense some songs are and the fact that, in many places, it is a dark and edgy album.
It was a leap from 1980’s Never for Ever to The Dreaming just two years later, but I think Bush producing alone for the first time allowed her the freedom she needed to take the songs where she felt fit. I want to bring in some section from a Pitchfork review of last year. There are some interesting observations:
“The Dreaming was a turning point from Kate Bush, pop star to Kate Bush, artist: a fan favorite for the same reason it was a commercial failure. Part of the Athena myth around Bush is that she arrived to EMI at 16 with a huge archive of songs, and from this quiver came most of the material for the first four albums. The Dreaming was her first album of newly composed work and for it, her first real chance to rethink her songwriting praxis and to produce the songs on her own. Using mainly a Linn drum machine and the Fairlight CMI—an early digital synth she came to master in real time—she cut and pasted layers of timbres and segments of sound rather than recording mixing lines of instruments, a method that would later be commonplace among the producer-musician. At the time, it was still considered odd, especially for a first-time producer, and especially for a young woman prone to fabulous leotards.
The result was an internal unity, a more well-paced album than anything she’d done prior. The songs are full of rhythmic drive, moody synth atmospheres, and layered vocals free of the radio-friendly hooks on earlier albums. The sounds that kept her tethered to rock—such as guitar and rock drum cymbals—are mostly absent, as are the strings that sweetened her prior work. The fretless bass—often the masculine sparring partner to her voice—is still omnipresent. The instrument that connects this all, as always, is the piano, that plodding Victorian ringmaster of Bush’s weird carnival. Considering that the same new-wave combo of drum machines, synth leads, and girlie soprano drove fellow Brits Bananarama to the top of the charts in the same year, it’s easy to hear how far Bush went to tune out the zeitgeist. Accordingly, critics didn’t quite understand it, radio mostly ignored it, and the label hated it. But the album gave Bush the space to build her dream world, and once she figured out what sounds and character should be there, she could make pop again, her way.
All this excess is her sound: a strongly held belief that unites all of the The Dreaming. Nearly half of the album is devoted to spiritual quests for knowledge and the strength to quell self-doubt. Frenetic opener “Sat in Your Lap” was the first song written for the album. Inspired by hearing Stevie Wonder live, it serves as meta-commentary of her step back from the banality of pop ascendancy that mocks shortcuts to knowledge. A similar track, “Suspended in Gaffa,” laments falling short of enlightenment through the metaphor of light bondage in black cloth stagehand tape. It is a pretty queer-femme way of thinking through the very prog-rock problem of being a real artist in a commercial theater form, which is probably why it’s a fan favorite.
The closer “Get Out of My House” was inspired by two different maternal and isolation-madness horror texts: The Shining and Alien. In all three stories, a malevolent spirit wants to control a vessel. Bush does not let the spirit in, shouts “Get out!” and when it violates her demand, she becomes animal. Such shapeshifting is a master trope in Kate Bush’s songbook, an enduring way for her music and performance to blend elements of non-Western spirituality and European myth, turning mundane moments into Gothic horror. It’s also, unfortunately, the way that women without power can imagine escape. The mule who brays through the track’s end is a kind of female Houdini—a sorceress who can will her way out of violence not with language, but with real magic. At least it works in the world of her songs, a kingdom where queerly feminine excess is not policed, but nurtured into excellence”.
I don’t think there is a weak track on The Dreaming, and it is fascinating hearing Bush as lone producer letting her imagination run wild. There were doubts from EMI that Bush should produce again after The Dreaming but, even though she was exhausted, and it was a tough album to record, the autonomy she had meant a great deal. I think The Dreaming sowed the seeds for Hounds of Love; Bush proved she could produce alone. The Dreaming was not a massive commercial success but, when Hounds of Love did so well, I feel that this was proof that she was right!
I am looking forward to exploring The Dreaming and seeing how people perceive it after all these years. It is thirty-eight years old, and I feel perceptions have slightly improved since 1982. There are still many that feel The Dreaming is too eccentric and weird; that many songs are not overly-accessible. I love the balance of sounds and how the songs are sequenced. The first single, Sat in Your Lap, opens the album. It is quite fast-flowing and has that energy that perfectly welcomes people in. It is one of the songs on the album that is not quite as ‘out-there’ as many others. There Goes a Tenner sees Bush adopting a cockney accent, whilst Pull Out the Pin is one of the less accessible (but most extraordinary) songs. There is a blend of the edgier and warmer songs, and we end with the epic Get Out of My House – inspired by the Stephen King book, it is one of the most rapturous and intense songs Bush has ever recorded. There are so many textures and different themes explored throughout The Dreaming!
In terms of the production, how Bush’s career changed, the subjects tackled in the songs, and Bush’s various accent through the album, lots of talking points are available. It makes The Dreaming a great place to start and, hoping to get All the Love started and rolling by the summer (if things are better), things would go from there – maybe taking on 50 Words for Snow, or Aerial next, before heading further back. I am baffled by some of the mixed reviews and how some people feel the album has some weak moments. Maybe it is colder and more claustrophobic than many of her albums but, as Bush was always evolving and doing something different, The Dreaming is her expanding her horizons and doing something bigger than what was on her first three albums, but also paving the way for Hounds of Love and how she came to work thereafter – producing alone and, in many ways, trusting her own instincts. The Dreaming is a remarkable and fascinating album that…
MANY people need to listen to more closely.