FEATURE:
The Kate Bush Interview Archive
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for the 50 Words for Snow track, Misty
2011: HuffPost (Mike Ragogna)
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AS Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for the 50 Words for Snow track, Lake Tahoe
turns ten on 21st November, I am doing a few features around the album. I have already sourced an interview or two for this feature where Bush discusses the album. One that caught my eye this time was with Mike Ragogna of HuffPost. I cannot find too many American interviews promoting the album. Most of the press for the 2011 album was with U.K. journalists. It is interesting when Ragogna speaks with Bush about her success in the U.S. and some of the videos/singles that fared well. I am always keen to see what different journalists discuss when they feature an album. I like the chat between them. I have selected some sections that are particularly noteworthy:
“MR: I already said, "Wow," right? Okay, getting to your new album 50 Words For Snow, can you tell us a little bit about what inspired it?
KB: Well, I guess originally, I thought I would try to make a kind of wintry album, then it quickly became all about snow as I began writing.
MR: And lyrically, it's like the songs emulate the complexity and uniqueness of each snowflake.
KB: Yeah. It's so fascinating to think about how each snowflake is completely individual -- there are millions and millions of them but each one is so unique. I think snow is so evocative and has such a powerful atmosphere. Here in the UK, we don't really get much snow, and I suppose that's why it's such a precious thing to us. What I was trying to do is create an atmosphere that was run throughout the album that somehow felt like there was a kind of snowy landscape, you know?
MR: Absolutely, especially with songs like "Lake Tahoe."
KB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't think that that one is specifically all about snow, but I like to think that the atmosphere is still running from that first track.
MR: True. The song, to me, isn't even really about Lake Tahoe, per se. Would you agree?
KB: No, I agree. I mean, Lake Tahoe is such a large mountainous lake with incredibly cold water and so that's really why I chose that lake. It's a vehicle for the song, really. But it just happens to be a huge lake with ice-cold water.
MR: Nice. Could you go into some background on "Misty"?
KB: The thing about that song, aside from having sort of unusual subject matter, is that it's a very long song -- it's the longest song on the album. I think it runs about 14 minutes. It wasn't even that I set out to write a song that long, but I was trying to explore the idea of working with longer song structures and moving away from the more traditional form. I wanted to be able to tell the story through a much longer piece of time and so I was able to go through various elements of the story and, hopefully, make the song build. The subject matter is sort of just about a girl who builds a snowman, and later the snowman comes to visit her in her bedroom.
MR: Would you say that this album is maybe a continuation of the approaches you began with the albums Red Shoes and Sensual World?
KB: Yeah, I guess so. For me, each album is a sort of an evolving process; it's quite a natural progression to move from one album to the next. So, yes, there are a lot of connections with all of the albums. I guess the main thing is that I've started exploring much longer song structures on this album. I would say that that's what makes this one a little different than previous albums.
MR: Will there be any music videos associated with the album?
KB: Yeah, I think so. We're working on something at the moment, which is great fun and I hope people like it.
MR: That's great. I hope you know your status of being one of the great music video pioneers. There was a period of time on the USA Network where you couldn't get away from Kate Bush videos. (laughs)
KB: Oh, really? I'm so surprised. I didn't really think my videos got shown very much in the States at all. (laughs)
MR: Beautifully put. I have to ask, of the 50 actual words for snow, which is your favorite?
KB: (laughs) Well, my favorite is furloopingjumpala. (laughs) What's yours?
MR: I would have to say mine is shnamistafloppin. (laughs)
KB: Oh, yeah. That's a good one.
MR: How much fun was putting that list together?
KB: Well, it wasn't as much fun as getting Stephen Fry to say them. We had such a load of fun doing that -- he's a lovely man. It was really fun working with him. I have to say that the whole album was a lot of fun to make. It came together really quickly, it had a flow to it. It was like there was a kind of simplicity that ran through this album, although there was some complex structures and ideas going on. What I hoped that song allowed to happen was to have a bit of fun, you know? It's not meant to be taken seriously at all -- it's meant to have a bit of a sense of humor. Stephen Fry is very popular here; he's a lovely man and very talented actor, and very intelligent. He's the kind of person that whenever he says something, it's with such a sensible authority that people automatically assume that it's important. So, I thought that it would be great to get him to read the words because he still maintained that sense of authority. He also just has an extremely beautiful voice.
MR: That's great. Speaking of beautiful voices, the album includes a track called "Snowed In At Wheeler Street" with Sir Elton John, right? What was it like working with him?
KB: It was fantastic. He is one of my great musical heroes, and when I wrote the song, I very much had him in mind and hoped that he would be interested enough to come and sing on the song. At the risk of sounding corny, it was like a dream come true having him come into the studio and sing so beautifully. I think his performance on the song is so fantastic; it's so emotive. I love him singing in that lower key. I really couldn't have been happier with what he brought to the track”.
There is something odd about featuring Kate Bush interviews around the release of 50 Words for Snow. Though it is not the most recent album she has promoted – the live album for Before the Dawn arrived in 2016 -, it is almost ten years since Bush was widely on the promotional trail. I am not sure when (if at all) there will be another studio album, but I think people should spend more time with 50 Words for Snow. It is quite underrated in my opinion. Go and listen to the Kate Bush album that ranks as…
ONE of her very best.