FEATURE:
The Spirit of Love
IN THIS PHOTO: Whilst The Hair of the Hound was released on VHS in the U.K., it was released on laserdisc in Japan
Kate Bush: The Hair of the Hound at Thirty-Five
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I try to capture ‘big anniversaries’…
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
when it comes to Kate Bush. In June, we have one in the form of Sat in Your Lap. That song turns forty. It was the first single from Bush’s fourth studio album, The Dreaming. Sat in Your Lap marked a real sonic change for her. I have written a few features already about that song – and I will mark its anniversary on 21st June. Although it might not rank alongside the anniversary of a single or album, I wanted to mention a video collection that was released after Hounds of Love’s success. On 16th June, 1986, The Hair of the Hound was released. I like the title – whether it refers to the term ‘hair of the dog’ (meaning alcohol that is consumed with the aim of lessening the effects of a hangover) or meaning a taster of the album as a whole –, and I know there would have been a lot of demand for the VHS back in 1986. It wouldn’t be until 27th October of that year until people got a new Bush single in the form of Experiment IV. On 10th November, the greatest hits collection, The Whole Story, was released (Experiment IV was a new track on that greatest hits package). Not that The Hair of the Dog is inferior in any way. It was designed, I guess, to keep the momentum for Hounds of Love going. More than that, it allowed people to view four excellent videos!
I have said how Bush could have released more than the four singles from the album – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love, and The Big Sky are the singles. As each video is very different and Bush directed the last two singles herself (and would continue to direct videos until the 1990s), it would have been a real treat. Whereas I feel a track from Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave, could have been released as a single – And Dream of Sheep? Watching You Without Me? -, the four singles that were put into the world did well. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) reached number-three in the U.K.; Hounds of Love went to number-eight; The Big Sky went to number thirty-seven (which was unexpectedly low – perhaps owing to the fact many people had the album already and did not buy the single); Cloudbusting reached twenty. Because Hounds of Love did reach number-one in the U.K. and was such a successful album, I can see why the video collection was compiled. I am turning to the always-reliable Kate Bush Encyclopaedia for assistance. Let’s get an overview of The Hair of the Dog first:
“Collection of music videos by Kate Bush. It contains all four of her music videos from the album Hounds Of Love. It was released on 16 June 1986.
The Hair Of The Hound' features the following music videos:
Running Up That Hill
Hounds Of Love
The Big Sky
Cloudbusting”.
I will conclude and give more thoughts at the end. It is worth knowing more about the videos and stories behind the four singles featured on The Hair of the Hound – ahead of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the collection. First up is the iconic Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God):
“'Running Up That Hill' was intended as a fond farewell to dance, at least as far as Kate's video appearances were concerned. The music video, directed by David Garfath, featured Bush and dancer Michael Hervieu (who won an audition after Stewart Avon-Arnold was not available due to other commitments) in a performance choreographed by Diane Grey. The pair are wearing grey Japanese hakamas. The choreography draws upon contemporary dance with a repeated gesture suggestive of drawing a bow and arrow (the gesture was made literal on the image for the single in which Bush poses with a real bow and arrow), intercut with surreal sequences of Bush and Hervieu searching through crowds of masked strangers. At the climax of the song, Bush's partner withdraws from her and the two are then swept away from each other and down a long hall in opposite directions by an endless stream of anonymous figures wearing masks made from pictures of Bush and Hervieu's faces. MTV chose not to show this video (at the time of its original release) and instead used a live performance of the song recorded at a promotional appearance on the BBC TV show Wogan. According to Paddy Bush, 'MTV weren't particularly interested in broadcasting videos that didn't have synchronized lip movements in them. They liked the idea of people singing songs'.
'Running Up That Hill' was one of the first songs that I wrote for the album. It was very nice for me that it was the first single released, I'd always hoped that would be the way. It's very much about a relationship between a man and a woman who are deeply in love and they're so concerned that things could go wrong - they have great insecurity, great fear of the relationship itself. It's really saying if there's a possibility of being able to swap places with each other that they'd understand how the other one felt, that when they were saying things that weren't meant to hurt, that they weren't meant sincerely, that they were just misunderstood. In some ways, I suppose the basic difference between men and women, where if we could swap places in a relationship, we'd understand each other better, but this, of course, is all theoretical anyway. (Open Interview, 1985)”.
Rather than put the videos in chronologically (Hounds of Love was released after Cloudbusting, for instance), they were assorted so that Hounds of Love’s title single came second. It was the first music video directed by Kate Bush. I really like her directing style. As she had wanted to direct for a long time, there must have been a certain amount of pressure. What she does with the video is quite extraordinary:
“The music video (directed by Bush herself) was very much inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's film 'The 39 Steps'. 'Hitchcock' also features in the video (a nod to the director's famous cameo appearances in his movies).
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)”.
Although it was the poorest-performing single from Hounds of Love, The Big Sky is my favourite track. I also love the Bush-directed video. With some wild editing and jam-packed scenes, it is quite frenetic and busy video:
“The music video was directed by Bush herself. It was filmed on 19 March 1986 at Elstree Film Studios in the presence of a studio audience of about hundred fans. The Homeground fanzine was asked to get this audience together, and they did within two weeks. Two coaches took everyone from Manchester Square to Elstree studios early in the morning, after which the Homeground staff, who were cast as some of the aviators, were filmed, and finally the whole audience was admitted for the 'crowd scenes'. The scenes were repeated until Kate had them as she wanted.
'The Big Sky' was a song that changed a lot between the first version of it on the demo and the end product on the master tapes. As I mentioned in the earlier magazine, the demos are the masters, in that we now work straight in the 24-track studio when I'm writing the songs; but the structure of this song changed quite a lot. I wanted to steam along, and with the help of musicians such as Alan Murphy on guitar and Youth on bass, we accomplished quite a rock-and-roll feel for the track. Although this song did undergo two different drafts and the aforementioned players changed their arrangements dramatically, this is unusual in the case of most of the songs. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, Issue 18, 1985)”.
Ending up with the brilliant Cloudbusting. There are many reasons as to why the video is so brilliant. Not only does it feature Donald Sutherland…the video seems like a film in itself. It is a beautiful video indeed:
“The music video was directed by Julian Doyle and was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate as a short film. In it, Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, portrays Wilhelm Reich, and Kate Bush, portraying his son Peter. Filming took place at The Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, England. Bush found out in which hotel Sutherland was staying from actress Julie Christie's hairdresser and went to his room to personally ask him to participate in the project.
The video shows the two on the top of a hill trying to make the cloudbuster work. Reich leaves Peter on the machine and returns to his lab. In flashback, he remembers several times he and Peter enjoyed together as Reich worked on various scientific projects, until he is interrupted by government officials who arrest him and ransack the lab. Peter senses his father's danger and tries to reach him, but is forced to watch helplessly as his father is driven away. Peter finally runs back to the cloudbuster and activates it successfully, to the delight of his father who sees it starting to rain.
In the UK, the music video was shown at some cinemas as an accompaniment to the main feature. Due to difficulties on obtaining a work visa for Sutherland at short notice, the actor offered to work on the video for free. Although the events depicted in the story took place in Maine, the newspaper clipping in the music video reads "The Oregon Times," likely a reference to Reich's home and laboratory Orgonon. The Cloudbusting machine in the video was designed and constructed by people who worked on the Alien creature and bears only a superficial resemblance to the real cloudbusters, which were smaller and with multiple narrow, straight tubes and pipes, and were operated while standing on the ground. In a reference to the source material of the song, Bush pulls a copy of Peter Reich's "A Book of Dreams" out of Sutherland's coat.
“It's a song with a very American inspiration, which draws its subject from 'A Book Of Dreams' by Peter Reich. The book was written as if by a child who was telling of his strange and unique relationship with his father. They lived in a place called Organon, where the father, a respected psycho-analyst, had some very advanced theories on Vital Energy; furthermore, he owned a rain-making machine, the Cloudbuster. His son and he loved to use it to make it rain. Unfortunately, the father was imprisoned because of his ideas. In fact, in America, in that period, it was safer not to stick out. Sadly, the father dies in prison. From that point on, his son becomes unable to put up with an orthodox lifestyle, to adapt himself. The song evokes the days of happiness when the little boy was making it rain with his father. (Yves Bigot, 'Englishwoman Is Crossing The Continents'. Guitares et Claviers (France), February 1986)”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
I wanted to spend some time with a video collection, as I discovered Bush through the greatest hits VHS, The Whole Story. That is where I saw the video for Wuthering Heights (aged, maybe five or six). A love affair was born. In 1986, aside from music television, one did not have access to music videos. People might have already owned Hounds of Love - though they may not have seen the videos for the singles. The Hair of the Hound was a way of owning those incredible videos. Even though there is some duplication when it comes to The Whole Story – every single bar The Big Sky is included there -, owning The Hair of the Hound would have been an essential purchase for every Kate Bush fan. In terms of video compilations, there was The Hair of the Hound and The Whole Story in 1986. This Woman's Work: Anthology 1978–1990 (released in 1990) was not accompanied by a VHS. In 1994, Live at Hammersmith Odeon was released. Taken from a Hammersmith set during 1979’s The Tour of Life, the video and C.D. contain twelve songs from the tour, consisting mainly of songs from The Kick Inside and Lionheart. In terms of any DVD since the 1990s, it has been a bit sparse. I think fans would welcome a chance to see all of Bush’s music videos on a DVD. For that reason, I feel it is important to look back at compilations such as The Hair of the Hound, as it was a chance to have those videos on a physical format. With four wonderful videos from Kate Bush’s most-successful album, it is left to me to wish The Hair of the Hound…
A happy thirty-fifth anniversary.