FEATURE:
Ten of the Best
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush’s Most-Streamed Songs on Spotify
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RATHER than zero in…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
on a specific song or album, I want to do a more general Kate Bush feature. I think that it is important people buy her albums - though a lot of people will discover her music through streaming sites. It is valuable that people have access to Bush’s magnificent music in as many forms as possible. I have not covered this before, but I wanted to do a features about her ten most-streamed songs on Spotify. I know that many people will discover Bush through this medium. I feel it is important people seek out all her songs, though there is something interesting when you consider the most-streamed/popular ones – and why people gravitate towards those (I am writing this on 3rd May, so these numbers/positions are accurate as of that date). Here are the ten Kate Bush songs that…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
PEOPLE are streaming the most.
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One: Wuthering Heights
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 95,992,787
From the Album: The Kick Inside (1978)
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/kate-bush/the-kick-inside-7a5278e6-76b3-40e7-a55f-2d9471a311ae
Producer: Andrew Powell
Track Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush, released as her debut single in January 1978. She wrote the song after seeing the last ten minutes of the 1967 BBC mini-series based on the book ‘Wuthering Heights’, written by Emily Brontë. Reportedly, she wrote the song within the space of just a few hours late at night. The actual date of writing is estimated to be March 5, 1977.
Lyrically, "Wuthering Heights" uses several quotations from Catherine Earnshaw, most notably in the chorus - "Let me in! I'm so cold!" - as well as in the verses, with Catherine's confession to her servant of "bad dreams in the night." It is sung from Catherine's point of view, as she pleads at Heathcliff's window to be allowed in. This romantic scene takes a sinister turn if one has read Chapter 3 of the original book, as Catherine is in fact a ghost, calling lovingly to Heathcliff from beyond the grave. Catherine's "icy" ghost grabs the hand of the Narrator, Mr Lockwood, through the bedroom window, asking him to let her in, so she can be forgiven by her lover Heathcliff, and freed from her own personal purgatory.
The song was recorded with Andrew Powell producing. According to him, the vocal performance was done in one take, "a complete perfomance" with no overdubs. "There was no compiling," engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning." The guitar solo that fades away with the track in the outro was recorded by Edinburgh musician Ian Bairnson, a session guitarist” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/5YSI1311X8t31PBjkBG4CZ?si=iNuSphLhSHSSn0lCP1DwlA
Two: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 76,290,090
From the Album: Hounds of Love (1985)
Buy: https://store.hmv.com/store/music/vinyl/hounds-of-love
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush. The song was reportedly written in one evening in the summer of 1983. It was the first song recorded for the subsequent fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. The electronic drums, programmed by Del Palmer, and the Fairlight part were present from the first recording of the song. The lyrics speak of Bush's impossible wish to become her lover, and he her, so that they could know what the other felt. Kate played the first versions of the songs to Paul Hardiman on 6 October 1983. He commented later: "The first time I heard 'Running Up That Hill' it wasn't a demo, it was a working start. We carried on working on Kate and Del's original. Del had programmed the Linn drum part, the basis of which we kept. I know we spent time working on the Fairlight melody/hook but the idea was there plus guide vocals."
The track was worked on between 4 November and 6 December, with Stuart Elliott adding drums, but closely following the programmed pattern. Alan Murphy added guitar parts whereas Paddy Bush, always providing the most ingenious instruments, played the rather better known balalaika on this track.
The working title of 'Running Up That Hill' was 'A Deal With God'. Representatives at EMI were hesitant to release the single as 'A Deal With God' due its use of the word 'God', which might lead to a negative reception. Bush relented and changed the title for the single. On the album and subsequent releases the title was 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)'” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/75FEaRjZTKLhTrFGsfMUXR?si=--0zp9A9TVSX2CWANwy6rA
Three: Babooshka (2018 Remaster)
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 52,511,807
From the Album: Never for Ever (1980)
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Ever-2018-Remaster-VINYL/dp/B07HQ7HW19
Producers: Kate Bush and Jon Kelly
Track Information:
“It was really a theme that has fascinated me for some time. It's based on a theme that is often used in folk songs, which is where the wife of the husband begins to feel that perhaps he's not faithful. And there's no real strength in her feelings, it's just more or less paranoia suspicions, and so she starts thinking that she's going to test him, just to see if he's faithful. So what she does is she gets herself a pseudonym, which happens to be Babooshka, and she sends him a letter. And he responds very well to the letter, because as he reads it, he recognises the wife that he had a couple of years ago, who was happy, in the letter. And so he likes it, and she decides to take it even further and get a meeting together to see how he reacts to this Babooshka lady instead of her. When he meets her, again because she is so similar to his wife, the one that he loves, he's very attracted to her. Of course she is very annoyed and the break in the song is just throwing the restaurant at him... (...) The whole idea of the song is really the futility and the stupidness of humans and how by our own thinking, spinning around in our own ideas we come up with completely paranoid facts. So in her situation she was in fact suspicious of a man who was doing nothing wrong, he loved her very much indeed. Through her own suspicions and evil thoughts she's really ruining the relationship. (Countdown Australia, 1980)'” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/6VpNGCU2ig4NQmsLfALdJU?si=df8ntz7gQkm9UA-ZxSJQWA
Four: Cloudbusting
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 28,779,308
From the Album: Hounds of Love (1985)
Buy: https://store.hmv.com/store/music/vinyl/hounds-of-love
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Released as the second single from the album on 14 October 1985.
The song is about the very close relationship between psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and his young son, Peter, told from the point of view of the son. It describes the boy's memories of his life with Reich on their family farm, called Orgonon where the two spent time "cloudbusting", a rain-making process which involved pointing at the sky a machine designed and built by Reich, called a cloudbuster. The lyric further describes Wilhelm Reich's abrupt arrest and imprisonment, the pain of loss the young Peter felt, and his helplessness at being unable to protect his father. The song was inspired by Peter Reich's 1973 memoir, A Book of Dreams, which Bush read and found deeply moving.
Kate actually contacted Peter Reich to explain her motives in writing 'Cloudbusting' and to express the wish that she hoped he would approve of the song. She received his reply a while later, saying that he loved what she was doing'” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/5atQ2haKP5LT65WM0KUts3?si=Etl4z-ZPQf-cARQ3p0yFdw
Five: This Woman’s Work
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 27,457,158
From the Album: The Sensual World (1989)
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/kate-bush/the-sensual-world-e4747d6f-f1a1-4c91-bc7d-c5562cef6288
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“John Hughes, the American film director, had just made this film called 'She's Having A Baby', and he had a scene in the film that he wanted a song to go with. And the film's very light: it's a lovely comedy. His films are very human, and it's just about this young guy - falls in love with a girl, marries her. He's still very much a kid. She gets pregnant, and it's all still very light and child-like until she's just about to have the baby and the nurse comes up to him and says it's a in a breech position and they don't know what the situation will be. So, while she's in the operating room, he has so sit and wait in the waiting room and it's a very powerful piece of film where he's just sitting, thinking; and this is actually the moment in the film where he has to grow up. He has no choice. There he is, he's not a kid any more; you can see he's in a very grown-up situation. And he starts, in his head, going back to the times they were together. There are clips of film of them laughing together and doing up their flat and all this kind of thing. And it was such a powerful visual: it's one of the quickest songs I've ever written. It was so easy to write. We had the piece of footage on video, so we plugged it up so that I could actually watch the monitor while I was sitting at the piano and I just wrote the song to these visuals. It was almost a matter of telling the story, and it was a lovely thing to do: I really enjoyed doing it. (Roger Scott Interview, BBC Radio 1 (UK), 14 October 1989)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1Q0sruYhnsq6lmhWgeRFh5?si=fsfJUxFuRbKYNQtj4X2-6A
Six: Hounds of Love
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 16,768,803
From the Album: Hounds of Love (1985)
Buy: https://store.hmv.com/store/music/vinyl/hounds-of-love
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“When I was writing the song I sorta started coming across this line about hounds and I thought 'Hounds Of Love' and the whole idea of being chasing by this love that actually gonna... when it get you it just going to rip you to pieces, (Raises voice) you know, and have your guts all over the floor! So this very sort of... being hunted by love, I liked the imagery, I thought it was really good. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1 (UK), 26 January 1992)
In the song 'Hounds Of Love', what do you mean by the line 'I'll be two steps on the water', other than a way of throwing off the scent of hounds, or whatever, by running through water. But why 'two' steps?
Because two steps is a progression. One step could possibly mean you go forward and then you come back again. I think "two steps" suggests that you intend to go forward.
But why not "three steps"?
It could have been three steps - it could have been ten, but "two steps" sounds better, I thought, when I wrote the song. Okay. (Doug Alan interview, 20 November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/0iluWxTpC9QOdVPg3PROvm?si=PufEkqrPRT-L4FbDIsWIIg
Seven: The Man with the Child in His Eyes
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 15,786,400
From the Album: The Kick Inside (1978)
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/kate-bush/the-kick-inside-7a5278e6-76b3-40e7-a55f-2d9471a311ae
Producer: Andrew Powell
Track Information:
“The inspiration for 'The Man With the Child in His Eyes' was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that's the same with every female. I think it's a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don't think we're all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child. (Self Portrait, 1978)
I just noticed that men retain a capacity to enjoy childish games throughout their lives, and women don't seem to be able to do that. ('Bird In The Bush', Ritz (UK), September 1978)
Oh, well it's something that I feel about men generally. [Looks around at cameramen] Sorry about this folks. [Cameramen laugh] That a lot of men have got a child inside them, you know I think they are more or less just grown up kids. And that it's a... [Cameramen laugh] No, no, it's a very good quality, it's really good, because a lot of women go out and get far too responsible. And it's really nice to keep that delight in wonderful things that children have. And that's what I was trying to say. That this man could communicate with a younger girl, because he's on the same level. (Swap Shop, 1979)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/4xjVfArXNQRxAvsUpjmfMt?si=dk3QybbGQzigdMoHuq9sDg
Eight: Army Dreamers (2018 Remaster)
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 12,578,304
From the Album: Never for Ever (1980)
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Never-Ever-2018-Remaster-VINYL/dp/B07HQ7HW19
Producers: Kate Bush and Jon Kelly
Track Information:
“No, it's not personal. It's just a mother grieving and observing the waste. A boy with no O-levels, say, who might have [??? Line missing!] whatever. But he's nothing to do, no way to express himself. So he joins the army. He's trapped. So many die, often in accidents. I'm not slagging off the army, because it's good for certain people. But there are a lot of people in it who shouldn't be. (Derek Jewell, 'How To Write Songs And Influence People'. Sunday Times (UK), 5 October 1980)
The Irish accent was important because the treatment of the song is very traditional, and the Irish would always use their songs to tell stories, it's the traditional way. There's something about an Irish accent that's very vulnerable, very poetic, and so by singing it in an Irish accent it comes across in a different way. But the song was meant to cover areas like Germany, especially with the kids that get killed in manoeuvres, not even in action. It doesn't get brought out much, but it happens a lot. I'm not slagging off the Army, it's just so sad that there are kids who have no O-levels and nothing to do but become soldiers, and it's not really what they want. That's what frightens me. (Kris Needs, 'Fire In The Bush'. ZigZag (UK), 1980)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/135ArLV1euyyeegU9D8HVR?si=58d4IgjNTIe_ELiFMMuqlw
Nine: And Dream of Sheep
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 6,278,192
From the Album: Hounds of Love (1985)
Buy: https://store.hmv.com/store/music/vinyl/hounds-of-love
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“An engineer we were working with picked out the line in 'And Dream Of Sheep' that says 'Come here with me now'. I asked him why he liked it so much. He said, 'I don't know, I just love it. It's so moving and comforting.' I don't think he even knew what was being said exactly, but the song is about someone going to sleep in the water, where they're alone and frightened. And they want to go to sleep, to get away from the situation. But at the same time it's dangerous to go to sleep in water, you could drown. When I was little, and I'd had a bad dream, I'd go into my parents' bedroom round to my mother's side of the bed. She'd be asleep, and I wouldn't want to wake her, so I'd stand there and wait for her to sense my presence and wake up. She always did, within minutes; and sometimes I'd frighten her - standing there still, in the darkness in my nightdress. I'd say, 'I've had a bad dream,' and she'd lift bedclothes and say something like 'Come here with me now.' It's my mother saying this line in the track, and I briefed her on the ideas behind it before she said it. And I think it's the motherly comfort that this engineer picked up on. In fact, he said this was his favourite part of the album. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 21, 1987)
Once I wrote that, that was it, that was the beginning of what then became the concept. And really, for me, from the beginning. 'The Ninth Wave' was a film, that's how I thought of it. It's the idea of this person being in the water, how they've got there, we don't know. But the idea is that they've been on a ship and they've been washed over the side so they're alone in this water. And I find that horrific imagery, the thought of being completely alone in all this water. And they've got a life jacket with a little light so that if anyone should be traveling at night they'll see the light and know they're there. And they're absolutely terrified, and they're completely alone at the mercy of their imagination, which again I personally find such a terrifying thing, the power of ones own imagination being let loose on something like that. And the idea that they've got it in their head that they mustn't fall asleep, because if you fall asleep when you're in the water, I've heard that you roll over and so you drown, so they're trying to keep themselves awake. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love'. BBC Radio 1, 26 January 1992)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/15FBisvPECCYwyG4l8FJQ9?si=-m4ffLvIQGKbV2Ws9SOWdg
Ten: Suspended in Gaffa
Streams (as of 3rd May, 2021): 3,732,715
From the Album: The Dreaming (1982)
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/kate-bush/the-dreaming-03e10ee0-e2d3-4b54-948e-0afcb7e7c290/lp
Producer: Kate Bush
Track Information:
“I could explain some of it, if you want me to: Suspended in Gaffa is reasonably autobiographical, which most of my songs aren’t. It’s about seeing something that you want–on any level–and not being able to get that thing unless you work hard and in the right way towards it. When I do that I become aware of so many obstacles, and then I want the thing without the work. And then when you achieve it you enter…a different level–everything will slightly change. It’s like going into a time warp which otherwise wouldn’t have existed. (Richard Cook, 'My music sophisticated?...'. NME (UK), October 1982)
'Suspended In Gaffa' is, I suppose, similar in some ways to 'Sat In Your Lap' - the idea of someone seeking something, wanting something. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and had the imagery of purgatory and of the idea that when you were taken there that you would be given a glimpse of God and then you wouldn't see him again until you were let into heaven. And we were told that in Hell it was even worse because you got to see God but then you knew that you would never see him again. And it's sorta using that as the parallel. And the idea of seeing something incredibly beautiful, having a religious experience as such, but not being able to get back there. And it was playing musically with the idea of the verses being sorta real time and someone happily jumping through life [Makes happy motion with head] and then you hit the chorus and it like everything sorta goes into slow mo and they're reaching [Makes slow reaching motion with arm] for that thing that they want and they can't get there. [Laughs] (Interview for MTV, November 1985)” – Kate Bush Encyclopaedia
Link: https://open.spotify.com/track/1VsQhQbF4SwVvbbFeQ5EOa?si=b62sz2fQRQ6tRIs-k1ITXg