FEATURE:
Terrifying, Awe-Inspiring, Stunning…
A Gem from Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave: Kate Bush’s Waking the Witch
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I think I have written about…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
every other track on Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. The album’s second half, The Ninth Wave, is especially captivating and immersive. Every song forms part of a suite – where a heroine is cast adrift in the sea and is hoping for rescue (and she eventually is) - that was a new thing for Bush. She had not really done anything like this before. It is a genius idea, and it gives Hounds of Love two distinct sides; almost like two E.P.s forming an album (like The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour). A song I have mentioned and not really gone into depth about is Waking the Witch. The third of seven tracks on The Ninth Wave, it is the most startling, frantic and head-tripping track on the entire album. It follows the beautiful opener of And Dream of Sheep. Almost lullaby-like (as the heroine desires a comfortable sleep and salvation), Under Ice follows. That is a colder and more urgent track. The third track is one of the most important. It needs to move the story on – as nightmares fill her head and the thoughts of an icy tomb await – and create a new sound and sensation. Whereas Under Ice relies more on a singular, deeper vocal and stern, almost-gothic string strike, Waking the Witch is busier. Starting quite calm and building to this madness and strange energy, it is a song that one does not hear played on the radio too much.
Before moving on, the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia sources an interview where Bush discussed Waking the Witch. Listening to it now, it is a song that really moves the senses and drags you into its world:
“These sort of visitors come to wake them up, to bring them out of this dream so that they don't drown. My mother's in there, my father, my brothers Paddy and John, Brian Tench - the guy that mixed the album with us - is in there, Del is in there, Robbie Coltrane does one of the voices. It was just trying to get lots of different characters and all the ways that people wake you up, like you know, you sorta fall asleep at your desk at school and the teacher says "Wake up child, pay attention!". (...) I couldn't get a helicopter anywhere and in the end I asked permission to use the helicopter from The Wall from The Floyd, it was the best helicopter I'd heard for years for years [laughs].
I think it's very interesting the whole concept of witch-hunting and the fear of women's power. In a way it's very sexist behavior, and I feel that female intuition and instincts are very strong, and are still put down, really. And in this song, this women is being persecuted by the witch-hunter and the whole jury, although she's committed no crime, and they're trying to push her under the water to see if she'll sink or float. (Richard Skinner, 'Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)”.
After Waking the Witch, there are two tracks where, sonically, things calm a bit with Watching You Without Me. The lyrics are quite haunting (the heroine imagining people she loves and her not being there), whilst Jig of Life takes the energy back up. Whereas Waking the Witch is anxious, scary and dark, Jig of Life is full of Irish passion as, at last, there is that kick of life and determination to survive! I like the fact that Waking the Witch comes one song before the midway point of that suite; Jig of Life emphatically opens the second – the shift between doom and a lack of hope and signs that things might be alright. On paper, a concept like The Ninth Wave seems easy and a lot of fun. Lesser artists would have written seven songs that sounded the same or lacked necessary emotion and impact. Bush managed to create this suite and concept (even if we do not know how the heroine was saved and how she ended up in the water) and, along the way, concocted so many moods and differing compositions. To me, the darkly terrifying jolt you get in Waking the Witch is one of the standout moments from The Ninth Wave. With helicopter sound from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and some of Bush’s best lyrics (the opening verse where various voices urge the heroine to wake up is spellbinding and harrowing in equal measures), Waking the Witch is a phenomenal and unforgettable song…
ON an album of masterpieces.