FEATURE:
Stepping Inside Oh England My Lionheart
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the Lionheart cover shoot at Great Windmill Street, London in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz
Kate Bush’s Lionheart at Forty-Four
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I am doling a big run…
of Kate Bush features because quite a few of her albums have anniversaries next month. One of them is her second studio album, Lionheart. Released on 13th November, 1978, I wanted to make the first feature about one of the ten tracks that is not talked about all that much. To be fair, Lionheart is underrated and many only refer to it in the context of Wow. It’s best-known song, it is a shame that more people have not delved into a brilliant album. I think there is a feeling not many songs sound like singles and are lesser versions of what we heard on The Kick Inside (Bush’s debut album). Released a matter of months after that debut, Lionheart is a brilliant album. One of the songs that should be celebrated and highlighted is the gorgeous Oh England My Lionheart. Kate Bush was quite hard towards Lionheart in retrospect. When promoting the album, she was praising it and saying it was a stronger work than The Kick Inside. Not that she has been harsh. It is just the fact she distanced herself or felt she was less experienced or something was lacking. Lionheart is much better and worthy than that. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia has a page where Bush was interviewed and talked about the album. I have chosen one section to focus on:
“Even on the first two records, I was doing what I'm doing now as a artist, only because I was a lot younger, and I didn't have the room and the space to be able to truly present my music. I had to work with a producer and within certain kind of set-ups because of the fact that... that's how it was, I wasn't powerful enough basically to be able to say, ``Look, I'm producing this myself. This is what I do.'' And that's what I do now. I think that if I had been a little older, and if I'd had the experience at the time, I would have done it then, too. But I was - When I was making my first album, I was 18. I had never really worked with a band before, let alone a producer in a studio setup. So I just had - [Laughs] -I mean I just about had the guts, you know, to sing and keep it together. But you learn very quickly what you want. By the time the second album was finished, I knew that I had to be involved. Even though they were my songs and I was singing them, the finished product was not what I wanted. That wasn't the producer's fault. He was doing a good job from his point of view, making it sound good and together. But for me, it was not my album, really. (John Dilberto, Britain's Renaissance of Concept Rock, Keyboard, 1985)”.
A definite Kate Bush deep cut, maybe it is too English a song to have found success around the world. I think it could have fared well in foreign territories. As it is, Hammer Horror, Wow, and Symphony in Blue. The latter was released in Japan and Canada. I have written about Oh England My Lionheart before in a defensive context. I will do another couple of features about Lionheart. I am keen to highlight the strengths and variation through the album. From the stunning and gorgeous Symphony in Blue, to the more eccentric Hammer Horror, Full House and Coffee Homeground, there is so much to enjoy and respect about Lionheart. This is what Bush said about Oh England My Lionheart when promoting her second studio album:
“It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away, you know, "ah, the wonderful England'' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it alot, you know, like "I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just a exploration of that. (Lionheart Promo Cassette, EMI Canada, 1978)
A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy. It's very classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and it's done ... almost madrigally, you know. I dare say a lot of people will think that it's just a load of old slush but it's just an area that I think it's good to cover. Everything I do is very English and I think that's one reason I've broken through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing. (Harry Doherty, Enigma Variations. Melody Maker, November 1978)”.
Maybe a combination of recorders and harpsichords put some people off! I really love Oh England My Lionheart, as it has heart and beauty. It has a classical and almost Elizabethan sound to it. A great contrast to the other songs on the album, I have barely heard it on the radio. Alongside In Search of Peter Pan – another beautiful and underrated song -, Oh England My Lionheart mentions Peter Pan: “Oh England, my Lionheart!/Peter Pan steals the kids in Kensington Park/You read me Shakespeare on the rolling Thames--/That old river poet that never, ever ends/Our thumping hearts hold the ravens in/And keep the tower from tumbling”. I think that there is something both calming and very stirring about Oh England My Lionheart. A great song from a terrific album, Lionheart and Oh England My Lionheart deserve a lot of love next month on its anniversary. I love 1978 and the material Bush was putting out. Oh England My Lionheart was a song written earlier than Lionheart. Bush performed it during The Tour of Life (her 1979 tour) as the first encore of the evening. Dressed in an old, oversized flying jacket and air helmet, she sung the song on a set inspired by old war films like A Matter of Life and Death and Reach For the Sky. Her dying comrades lay around the stage. I hope that, if people do listen to Lionheart, that they spend some time with its title track – well, it is close enough anyway! Go and spend some time with…
A terrific song.