FEATURE:
With Love to Bertie
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for Aerial/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
Kate Bush’s Aerial at Seventeen
__________
I am winding up…
my anniversary features for Kate Bush’s Aerial. Her return following 1993’s The Red Shoes, Aerial was released as a double album on 7th November, 2005. It has been interesting looking deeper at one of Kate Bush’s best albums. I have already talked about the gap between The Red Shoes and Aerial. I have also explored various songs on the album, in addition to the second disc suite, A Sky of Honey. What is at the centre of Aerial’s brilliance and wonderful scope? It is an album as ambitious as Hounds of Love (her 1985 masterpiece), but it has a different sound. If the singles and first side of Hounds of Love is quite propulsive and has a definite rush, the second side, The Ninth Wave, is dark, scary and emotional. In contrast, Aerial’s first disc has one or two bolder and racing songs (King of the Mountain kicks off Aerial beautifully!), but it seems more personal and emotive. Contemplative, gorgeous and steeped in nature and the open, A Sky of Honey has the feeling of an artist as incredible as she was in 1985 but, fifteen years later, her music was taken on fresh meaning and energy. I think it is good to compare Hounds of Love and Aerial, as both albums are extremely important and personal. The former was a bit of a rebirth for Bush. After the exhaustion and endless hard work put into 1982’s The Dreaming, Hounds of Love found Bush finding new space and inspiration.
Things changed in terms of her living conditions, work rate and the how she recorded. Hounds of Love is as fantastic as it is because she was surrounded by family and had a studio at her family home. It allowed her the environment to make some of the best music from any artist ever! Similarly, with home very much at its heart, Aerial is as fantastic as it is because of the importance and influence of family. Rather than her parents, brother and boyfriend (Del Palmer) fusing into Hounds of Love, there is someone who I feel not only influenced most of Aerial, but also subsequent albums and Bush’s return to the stage with 2014’s Before the Dawn. Her son Bertie was born in 1998 (I am not sure which month). Before then, Bush had started working on Aerial - but his birth certainly changed the direction and meaning of this hugely important album. There is one song that is very much about him. I feel A Sky of Honey is Bush imagining the course of a summer’s day with her new son. Songs on the first disc, including Pi and A Coral Room, I feel, can be linked to Bertie. It is the eponymous song that is very much about her treasured new son. As she revealed to Ken Bruce in a 2005 interview, there was always going to be a song about him on Aerial:
“He's such a big part of my life so, you know, he's a very big part of my work. It's such a great thing, being able to spend as much time with him as I can. And, you know, he won't be young for very long. And already he's starting to grow up and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out on that, that I spent as much time with his as I could.
So, the idea was that he would come first, and then the record would come next, which is also one reasons why it's taken a long time (laughs). It always takes me a long time anyway, but trying to fit that in around the edges that were left over from the time that I wanted to spend with him.
It's a wonderful thing, having such a lovely son. Really, you know with a song like that, you could never be special enough from my point of view, and I wanted to try and give it an arrangement that wasn't terribly obvious, so I went for the sort of early music... (Ken Bruce show, BBC Radio 2, 3 November 2005)”.
Whilst Bush has said Aerial is her favourite album, she never really revealed the reasons why. It is personal to her, but I think it is because it was recorded and released at such a happy time! With so much expectation on its shoulders, there could have been disappointment. Maybe it was because The Red Shoes was not quite Bush’s best and most acclaimed album. If she had departed with a phenomenal album, some might have felt a tinge of underwhelm with Aerial. One cannot really compare The Red Shoes and Aerial. So vastly different, I think Bush starting a family really did something to her creative vision and recording! Perhaps her warmest sounding and feeling album ever, it is beautifully produced (by Bush), ewngineered (by Del Palmer) and arranged. I do not love every song on Aerial, but the overall album is flawless. Everything works perfectly together! Of course, not every song is about Bertie. I feel he was very much in Bush’s mind when she was writing and recording these songs. There is no doubt that her young son infuses the material throughout, and he definitely gave her motivation to keep recording! 2011’s 50 Words for Snow features Bertie, as does its predecessor, Director’s Cut. Now that Bertie is twenty-four, one wonders whether he will feature on his mum’s next album – if there is one that is! Maybe a vocal duet, some guitar playing or something else, it seems strange to imagine Bertie as a grown man or not appearing on an album by his mum! MOJO named Aerial their third-best album of 2005. Aerial received a BRIT Award nomination for Best British Album in 2006. Bush was also nominated for Best British Female in the same year. Such a remarkably successful album (it charted at three in the U.K.), this was a music icon in peak form twelve years after her previous album! Although many factors go into Aerial, I think her new bundle of joy, Bertie, was a constant inspiration and source of influence. For many reasons, Kate Bush fans offer Bertie…
OUR love and appreciation.