FEATURE:
Heavy Dreaming
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for The Dreaming (single) in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Kate Bush as the Activist
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I may have covered this before…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Rex Features
when I was discussing Kate Bush as a lyricists and how her albums incorporate challenging themes. I want to return to the subject because, when we think of Bush’s lyrical content, I wonder how many people consider her to be someone who brings up big subjects and the fact that she has that fight in her. Apart from Bush being accused of supporting the Tories – she since refuted this claim -, we have not really heard too much about her political take and approach. I think the fact that this was never introduced into her music is a good thing. Instead, through many of her albums, we have these songs that stands up for causes and have a sense of protest. I will highlight The Dreaming’s title track as a good example but, in a couple of recent features, I have asked whether Bush is someone who puts herself into the music or whether she is quite distant and oblique. There are some that say she never fully exposed herself through music; a songwriter who speaks through characters and masks. I think many of her songs are raw and exposing, but Bush often wrote from character perspectives as she found them more interesting than she was. This is me returning to the point of Bush being a serious artist. As much as I adore her earlier work and the love songs on them, I think too many people used that to define who she was - they would then apply easy labels.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Andy Phillips
Critics do it with all artists but, even in the first year of her professional career, Bush was writing about suicide, incest and really deep subjects! Even if a lot of her vocals hid a lot of the darkness of what she was singing about, that is not to say that she was ever featherweight or lacking in any real clout! I may spend another feature writing about this, but Bush became a vegetarian in her childhood and she was very concerned about animal welfare and their rights. When she set up a pop-up show to promote the release of remastered albums, she donated the profits to the charity, Crisis. Bush said in a statement how, at Christmas (the shop was announced in November 2018), how the subject of homelessness comes to her mind; how she could not imagine what it was like to be homeless. This altruism and sense of responsibility did not surprise me as I think, throughout her life, Bush has given a lot of herself and her heart to others. Whilst her pledging money to Crisis is not activism, Bush is a staunch supporter of the charity, and it shows a charitable and new side to her that many people might not be aware of. I definitely have covered this before but, when her third album came out, we started to hear songs that were more overtly campaigning and hard-hitting.
Breathing’s visions of nuclear holocaust and the fear of warfare was not just her picking up a book and being inspired by something interesting – as she was on other songs through her career. By 1980, the Cold War was still very much in full swing – it didn’t end until the start of the 1980s -, so Bush articulated a dread and sense of anger that many would have felt at the time. This was one of her first songs to really show her activist/campaigning side. Whilst she does not turn Breathing into something political and sloganeering, this was her creating a masterpiece of a track where you believe every note she sings! The emotion and power of that song is still moving and I don’t think one can negatively compare Bush to Punk artists of that time. If they were more direct and personal with their attacks and statements, Bush was still able to discuss a big social issue - albeit told through the preservative of characters. The same is true of another song from Never for Ever, Army Dreamers. I think she displayed enormous maturity and potency at such a young age (she was in her early-twenties) when a lot of her Pop/Rock peers were still singing about love and something much less urgent. One can also say that Bush’s activism extends beyond politics and social commentary. Activism means “the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change” so, in that sense, one can hear a lot of her songs about love, relations and gender as being about social change and greater understanding.
I am skipping ahead to Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) from Hounds of Love and Bush’s desire for men and women to swap places so they can better understand one another. It is a song about harmony and understanding and, for that reason, I think it is important activism. Never for Ever was a time of awakening and evolution in terms of Bush mixing songs with a political tone and those which were separated from that. I will come to The Dreaming’s eponymous cut soon but, on that album, Pull Out the Pin, I think, is Bush producing some form of commentary and activism by discussing the horrors of the Vietnam War and the futility of conflict. Apart from it being one of the oddest songs on The Dreaming, Pull Out the Pin is also one of the most striking and memorable. This article puts in an interview where Bush talked about the track:
“I saw this incredible documentary by this Australian cameraman who went on the front line in Vietnam, filming from the Vietnamese point of view, so it was very biased against the Americans. He said it really changed him, because until you live on their level like that, when it's complete survival, you don't know what it's about. He's never been the same since, because it's so devastating, people dying all the time.
The way he portrayed the Vietnamese was as this really crafted, beautiful race. The Americans were these big, fat, pink, smelly things who the Vietnamese could smell coming for miles because of the tobacco and cologne. It was devastating, because you got the impression that the Americans were so heavy and awkward, and the Vietnamese were so beautiful and all getting wiped out. They wore a little silver Buddha on a chain around their neck and when they went into action they'd pop it into their mouth, so if they died they'd have Buddha on their lips. I wanted to write a song that could somehow convey the whole thing, so we set it in the jungle and had helicopters, crickets and little Balinese frogs. (Kris Needs, 'Dream Time In The Bush'. Zigzag (UK), November 1982)”.
The single, The Dreaming, might have performed quite poorly in the charts but I can understand why Bush decided to mark it as a single. Rather than go for a song that was more conventional or explored aspects of relationships, this very important and meaningful song was put into the ether. Bush always wanted to release music with an Australian flavour as she was a fan of the music of the country and experimenting with those sounds. Bush was becoming more aware of the situation that existed in Australia between the white population and the aborigines; they were being wiped out by man's greed for uranium. Bush was distraught at this beautiful culture being wiped out for greedy reasons. She felt that we should learn from the aborigines and take lessons from them rather than attempting to purge them.
Bush could have simply mentioned her frustration in an interview but, in 1982, she wrote a song about something that she felt passionate about and wanted to bring to wider public attention. In an article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, we get a statement from her that explains the title, The Dreaming, and why she applied it to a song about aborigines:
“The Aboriginals are not alone in being pushed out of their land by modern man, by their diseases, or for their own strange reasons. It is very sad to think they might all die. 'The Dreaming' is the time for Aboriginals when humans took the form of animals, when spirits were free to roam and in this song as the civilized begin to dominate, the 'original ones' dream of the dreamtime. (Press statement by Kate Bush, 1982)”.
Even if many of Bush’s other songs were more about social change and activism (rather than political), I think many of her themes and albums have raised vital discussions and helped to give voice to many different sections of society. Bush is an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ idol because of her fearlessness regarding ‘taboo’ subjects and how open she was about sexuality and expression. This gave voice and strength to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. They saw someone in the mainstream who was speaking to them in a way other artists were not. This article from Attitude talks about a very interesting aspect of her music:
“Observational songs like 'Kashka' highlight Kate’s keen eye for detail and empathetic lyrical style; her warm, graceful acceptance – and endorsement – of homosexual desire marked her out as an LGBT advocate from the outset.
Her frank openness and recognition of a gamut of gender norms and of the reality of sexual fluidity became a recurrent theme in her work; 'Wow', a biting satire of the theatrical business, finds Kate singing “He’ll never make the scene / he’ll never make the Sweeney / be that movie queen / he’s too busy hitting the Vaseline.” If we were in any doubt as to her underlying meaning, her performance in the video removes all doubt as she taps her buttock on the payoff line”.
Songs like Wuthering Heights are liberating for people who felt repressed or like they had to hide away. Bush’s freedom and sense of individuality was incredibly impactful and, whilst it was not direct activism and a call for greater rights for the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, it is evident that she was very concerned and keen to see equality and change. If you pick away at a lot of Kate Bush’s songs, you can hear her fighting for others, trying to see change in the world; she was exploring love and human connection in a way nobody else was. It makes me bridle at those who accused Bush of being kooky, insincere or apolitical; someone who was sort of in a world of her own and not serious. You still do hear that sort of nonsense from some, and I think that was a perception that was attached to her for quite a while. From her political songs and disgust at those who vanquish life needless and destroy precious cultures, through to her urge for people to better understand one another, Bush’s fearlessness, incredible songwriting versatility and thought-provoking music, I feel, can be called activism. She has certainly opener doors, inspired so many people and influenced fans and countless artists alike; whether that is because she has made them less fearful and better enlightened or her music has enriched their lives, one has to doth their cap to Bush. The songs and themes I have just mentioned not only show how socially and politically conscious Bush is, but also how affecting her music is! Because of this, Kate Bush remains a role model and idol…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for The Dreaming (single) in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
FOR so many people around the world.