FEATURE:
Inside Kate Bush’s The Dreaming at Forty
Track Seven: Night of the Swallow
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THIS ten-part series…
is me going through the tracks on Kate Bush’s album, The Dreaming. I am looking at it ahead of its fortieth anniversary in September. I have reached track seven, Night of the Swallow. This is the case of a great song from the album that could have been a U.K. single. It was released a single in Ireland, probably because of the song’s Irish roots. One of the great things about Night of the Swallow is the fact there is instrumental accompaniment by members of the Irish bands Planxty and the Chieftains. Released as a single on 21st November, 1983, over a year after the release of the album The Dreaming, the B-side was Houdini. That is an incredibly strong single and B-side, but I feel the fact the album had been out for so long (as its first single came out in 1981) means, maybe, people had had their fill. With wonderful uilleann pipes and penny whistles from Liam O'Flynn, fiddles by Seán Keane, and bouzouki from Donal Lunny, Night of the Swallow is a gorgeous song where you get a taste of Ireland (Bush’s mother and a lot of her family were from Ireland). Like every song I am featuring in this run, I will highlight some of the lyrics. An amazing track that you do not hear played often, it is interesting hearing about the inspiration behind Night of the Swallow. The Kate Bush Encyclopaedia combined interviews where Bush revealed the background:
“Unfortunately a lot of men do begin to feel very trapped in their relationships and I think, in some situations, it is because the female is so scared, perhaps of her insecurity, that she needs to hang onto him completely. In this song she wants to control him and because he wants to do something that she doesn't want him to she feels that he is going away. It's almost on a parallel with the mother and son relationship where there is the same female feeling of not wanting the young child to move away from the nest. Of course, from the guys point of view, because she doesn't want him to go, the urge to go is even stronger. For him, it's not so much a job as a challenge; a chance to do something risky and exciting. But although that woman's very much a stereotype I think she still exists today. (Paul Simper, 'Dreamtime Is Over'. Melody Maker (UK), 16 October 1982)
Ever since I heard my first Irish pipe music it has been under my skin, and every time I hear the pipes, it's like someone tossing a stone in my emotional well, sending ripples down my spine. I've wanted to work with Irish music for years, but my writing has never really given me the opportunity of doing so until now. As soon as the song was written, I felt that a ceilidh band would be perfect for the choruses. The verses are about a lady who's trying to keep her man from accepting what seems to be an illegal job. He is a pilot and has been hired to fly some people into another country. No questions are to be asked, and she gets a bad feeling from the situation. But for him, the challenge is almost more exciting than the job itself, and he wants to fly away. As the fiddles, pipes and whistles start up in the choruses, he is explaining how it will be all right. He'll hide the plane high up in the clouds on a night with no moon, and he'll swoop over the water like a swallow.
Bill Whelan is the keyboard player with Planxty, and ever since Jay played me an album of theirs I have been a fan. I rang Bill and he tuned into the idea of the arrangement straight away. We sent him a cassette, and a few days later he phoned the studio and said, "Would you like to hear the arrangement I've written?"
I said I'd love to, but how?
"Well, Liam is with me now, and we could play it over the phone."
I thought how wonderful he was, and I heard him put down the phone and walk away. The cassette player started up. As the chorus began, so did this beautiful music - through the wonder of telephones it was coming live from Ireland, and it was very moving. We arranged that I would travel to Ireland with Jay and the multi-track tape, and that we would record in Windmill Lane Studios, Dublin. As the choruses began to grow, the evening drew on and the glasses of Guiness, slowly dropping in level, became like sand glasses to tell the passing of time. We missed our plane and worked through the night. By eight o'clock the next morning we were driving to the airport to return to London. I had a very precious tape tucked under my arm, and just as we were stepping onto the plane, I looked up into the sky and there were three swallows diving and chasing the flies. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, October 1982)”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982
Some songs on The Dreaming have few lyrics and it is more to do with sound or repetition. Others are wordier and have quite a lot of different thoughts. Night of the Swallow falls in the latter camp. It is a track that you immerse yourself in and follow along. If proof were needed that Kate Bush is one of the greatest storytellers and most original lyricists of her age, then Night of the Swallow provides proof: “It's funny how, even now/You're miles away/I won't let you do it/I won't let you do it/I won't let you go through with it/"Meet them over at Dover/I'll just pilot the motor/Take them over the water/"With a hired plane/And no names mentioned/Tonight's the night of the flight/Before you know/I'll be over the water/Like a swallow/There's no risk/I'll whisk them up in no moonlight/And though pigs can fly/They'll never find us/Posing as the night/And I'm home before the morning”. I do wonder how Bush writes songs like this. Whether she writes a song like a poem and puts the music over the top, or whether she has a composition and melody in mind and the words go on top. Such a fantastical and detailed set of lyrics, Night of the Swallow is definitely one of the most interesting song from The Dreaming. There is another passage that really caught my eye: “With a hired plane/And no names mentioned/Tonight's the night of the flight/Before you know/I'll be over the water/Like a swallow/There's no risk/I'll whisk them up in no moonlight/And though pigs can fly/They'll never find us/Posing as the night/And I'm home before the morning”. One big reason for spotlighting the ten tracks on The Dreaming is that they are all different and incredibly strong. Maybe not the most radio-play-accessible of Bush’s albums, there is so much diversity and brilliance through the 1982 album. The fabulous Night of the Swallow is a Kate Bush gem that I…
NEVER tire of.