FEATURE:
From Whale Song to a Suicide Note…
Back Inside Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside
___________
THE will reason I am coming back to…
Kate Bush’s 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside, is that it turns forty-three on 17th February. It is my favourite album ever and, more and more, I think it needs to be reappraised. I have spoken about this before but, when people review and assess The Kick Inside, they tend to provide praise - but they also say that Bush would go on to do better work. Maybe this is true, though that does seem to be a rather dismissive way of highlighting a very important album. I will bring in a couple of reviews for The Kick Inside but, the more that I listen, the more I get from the album. One can spend hours discussing Kate Bush’s debut single, Wuthering Heights, and how unusual it is. The track reached number-one, and it is seen as one of the most impressive and loved debut singles ever. Watching the video for that song was my introduction to Kate Bush. I was captivated by something so unused to what I was listening and watching as a child! Throughout the album, there is so much variety and brilliance. The other U.K. single, The Man with the Child in His Eyes, is a song Bush wrote when she was thirteen – she recorded it at the age of sixteen. I admire the bravery and confidence of Bush’s lyrics and how the language she employs is so far removed from the conventions of Pop music in 1978. When The Kick Inside arrived that year, it must have taken people by surprise!
There has been criticism that Bush’s voice is divisive and quite extreme through the album. I think a lot of people are basing that off of Wuthering Heights and the fact Bush heightened her voice for dramatic effect. Listen to a song like The Saxophone Song – recorded at the same time as The Man with the Child in His Eyes – and Bush’s voice is quite deep and mature. There is a whole cast of vocal characters to be heard on The Kick Inside. Bush’s ability to layer vocals and create these different personas is amazing! Although her compositions and sonic experimentations would become bolder in time, I think the relative simplicity of the music is not a negative. With musicians like Ian Bairnson – whose guitar solo at the end of Wuthering Heights is a highlight -, David Patton, and Duncan Mackay providing solidity and experience, The Kick Inside is a compelling and engrossing listen! I think it is Bush’s imagination and originality that defines the album. From the incredible whale song that opens the album (on Moving), to the suicide note-like title track that ends the album, one is stunned by the lyrics and how arresting they are. Whether singing passionately about love on Feel It, or L'Amour Looks Something Like You, synchronicity and menstruation on Strange Phenomena, or incest and suicide on The Kick Inside, this was phenomenal songwriting from a teenager on her debut album!
I feel, forty-three years after its release, the album is inspiring artists still. I have heard of quite a few new acts being compared to Kate Bush and, whilst one hears elements of various albums from Bush in their music, I think The Kick Inside is a definite source of inspiration. It is such a beautiful record to immerse yourself in that reveals new layers and pleasures every time you hear it. I want to finish by bringing in a couple of reviews. When AllMusic reviewed The Kick Inside, they remarked the following:
“Kate Bush's first album, The Kick Inside, released when the singer/songwriter was only 19 years old (but featuring some songs written at 15 and recorded at 16), is her most unabashedly romantic, the sound of an impressionable and highly precocious teenager spreading her wings for the first time. The centerpiece is "Wuthering Heights," which was a hit everywhere except the United States (and propelled the Emily Brontë novel back onto the best-seller lists in England), but there is a lot else here to enjoy: The disturbing "Man with the Child in His Eyes," the catchy rocker "James and the Cold Gun," and "Feel It," an early manifestation of Bush's explorations of sexual experience in song, which would culminate with "Hounds of Love." As those familiar with the latter well know, she would do better work in the future, but this is still a mightily impressive debut”.
For those who feel Bush created much better albums and The Kick Inside provides only a few flecks of genius, I would say for people to listen again and spend some serious time with it. I know that Bush herself is a little dismissive towards her earliest albums, but I think that has more to do with the fact she did not produce them – and didn’t have as much input as she’d hoped – rather than the quality. Drowned in Sound were full of praise when they assessed a magnificent debut album:
“One funny thing about The Kick Inside is that from the atmospheric bleed in of ‘Moving’, it sounds like a Kate Bush-produced album - which of course it isn’t, the little-known Andrew Powell doing the honours.. There is a maturity to the songwriting that is matched by the musicianship: it doesn’t feel like there’s any attempt to patronise the teenager, or market her as such. I think it must have been a pretty extraordinary record to hear at the time. Peculiarly, though, The Kick Inside is almost dated by the strength of its fundamentals: in some respects it sounds like a less good version of what she’d do later, and I wonder if a less slick version of her debut might have stood up a bit better, historically. But detail and polish were always her thing, in a good way, and to say she'd bottled nothing of her youth would be wrong: both ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘The Man with the Child In His Eyes’ have a gorgeous gaucheness. At the end of the day it still just about nudges classic status, but it would be eclipsed soon enough (plus sue me but the ’86 ‘Wuthering Heights’ is way better). (8)”.
I have so much love for Kate Bush’s incredible debut album. One might expect a debut album to have some signs of future potential, but I think Bush was hugely authoritative and moving on The Kick Inside. Maybe her ambitions broadened further through her career, but it would be wrong to suggest The Kick Inside is weaker than most of her other albums. It is an exceptional revelation from a songwriter who has not been equalled since her arrival. Maybe we will get a new Kate Bush album in the next year or two but, rather than wait for new material, I would suggest people explore her remarkable back catalogue. The best place to start is The Kick Inside because, not only is it accessible and full of wonder, it is an album with so many phenomenal images, performances and moments. I would urge people to buy The Kick Inside on vinyl if they are new to Kate Bush and they want an introduction album. I have so much affection for Bush’s albums, but The Kick Inside has a very special place in my heart. As it approaches its forty-third anniversary, I feel Kate Bush’s sensational debut album is…
WORTHY of notice and celebration.