FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Deep Cuts
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush shot for The Ninth Wave/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
The Morning Fog
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IN one of the last…
of these Kate Bush Deep Cuts pieces, I am coming to a song that may divide people. Not in terms of its quality, you understand! This may divide people who feel a song from an album as well-known as Hounds of Love cannot be a deep cut. I am saying any tracks not widely played, known or associated with the artist is a deep cut. On Hounds of Love, most can name and recall Cloudbusting and Hounds of Love. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is definitely recognisable, and I feel most would know And Dream of Sheep. That song is from the album’s second side, The Ninth Wave. As a suite, fans know it and have their own relationships with it. The final song on the seven-track suite is The Morning Fog. I don’t think this song is greatly known. I have only heard it played on the radio a few times, so I can confidently say it is a deep cut. Even on a masterpiece that has been out for decades, you can get tracks that fly under the radar. I think because The Morning Fog is at the end of The Ninth Wave, it is not often played in isolation. Maybe some feel it would be out of content and alien if it were played on its own. There is so much atmosphere to the song, because it is the resolution and climax of this incredible story. In it, as I have explained before, a woman is cast at sea without backstory. Presuming she fell from a ship, but she is in the water with a life jacket and looking for rescue. The Morning Fog is the heroine being rescued. That said, there is ambiguity as to whether it is a rescue, a vision by the woman, or her spirit watching over an imagined reality or happy ending.
Bush did perform The Morning Fog for her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, where she was winced to safety by a helicopter. I think Hounds of Love’s version sees the heroine dreaming about rescue rather than actually seeing it come true – which is quite tragic. I love the mood and composition of The Morning Fog. With Paddy Bush on violins and fujare and some guitar from John Williams, there are these textures and sonic threads that run through the song to give it the sense of both tension and relief. For a 1992 interview, Kate Bush discussed The Morning Fog in the context of The Ninth Wave. That conclusion that the listener is waiting for:
“Well, that's really meant to be the rescue of the whole situation, where now suddenly out of all this darkness and weight comes light. You know, the weightiness is gone and here's the morning, and it's meant to feel very positive and bright and uplifting from the rest of dense, darkness of the previous track. And although it doesn't say so, in my mind this was the song where they were rescued, where they get pulled out of the water. And it's very much a song of seeing perspective, of really, you know, of being so grateful for everything that you have, that you're never grateful of in ordinary life because you just abuse it totally. And it was also meant to be one of those kind of "thank you and goodnight" songs. You know, the little finale where everyone does a little dance and then the bow and then they leave the stage. [laughs] (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)”.
I don’t think there is a huge amount of awareness when it comes to The Morning Fog. In terms of those who are not massive Kate Bush fans. Most people wouldn’t recognise the track. If you feel the track is Bush’s heroine making it to safety, there are lines that seem to offer resignation and acceptance rather than joy and salvation: “I'm falling/And I'd love to hold you know/I'll kiss the ground/I'll tell my mother/I'll tell my father/I'll tell my loved one/I'll tell my brothers/How much I love them”. I love examining Bush’s lyrics, as I think she starts with these words and sketched ideas, and then she’ll imagine and plot the composition and production around it. I suppose she wrote the songs for The Ninth Wave more or less sequentially, so I get the feeling she wanted to leave the final track a little open-ended. There is no real confirmation that the stranded at sea woman was saved. Nor is there suggestion that she died or was simply dreaming of everything past And Dream of Sheep (the first song of the suite). Bush said in that 1992 interview that there is a rescue, but I feel that was more to give an answer and make people feel uplifted. The truth might be different. I love the fact the lyrics are quite oblique, whereas other songwriters would use The Morning Fog to be celebratory, or obvious. Maybe declarations and cliches mixed together. Bush’s lyrics make you think: “I am falling/Like a stone/Like a storm/Being born again/Into the sweet morning fog/D'you know what?/I love you better now”. The final song of her fifth studio album, Bush would release another fog-themed song, The Fog, on the next album, 1989’s The Sensual World. I love The Morning Fog, though I do feel it is a deep cut, because it is a song a lot of people have never heard – even though it is from Bush’s best-known (and one of her most played) albums. If you have not heard the brilliant song yourself, I would suggest you take a few minutes out and…
SURRENDER yourself to it.