FEATURE:
Kashka’s Sister
PHOTO CREDIT: Claude Vanheye
Kate Bush: A Pride/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ Icon
__________
IT would be interesting…
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
putting together as playlist of songs from Kate Bush that are Pride-related. That are empowering to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community or, in the case of Lionheart’s Kashka from Baghdad, feature two male lovers. That was unusual in 1978. Not many mainstream artists recording songs of that nature. That is not the only example of Bush speaking with the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community and resonating. Even if she has not come out explicitly as an ally or spoken about them, there is no doubt she has been taken to heart by many L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ people. Last year, I did write how Kate Bush is this idol and source of strength for outsiders. I may repeat a little of what I shared back then. However, as it is Pride Month, I did want to take the opportunity to explore Kate Bush as someone who many see as an icon. A gay or queer icon. Someone who has not been discussed as much in these terms as she should be. Starting out with an article/thesis from 2022, there are interesting examples of queer identity being explored and examined in Kate Bush’s music – especially on early songs (when Bush was still a teenager):
“One of those identities is a queer identity. Bush’s inclusion of queer identity in her music is not surprising considering that she once mentioned in an interview “I like to think I’m a man […] in the areas that they explore. […] I just think I identify more with male musicians than female musicians, because I tend to think of females musicians as…ah… females.”[5] Her statement shows that Bush does not want to be limited in her music by what people would consider to be appropriate for a female. She wants to explore on her own terms. This identity exploration is expressed in the album Lionheart from 1978. The cover of Lionheart is the first sign that the Bushian Feminine Subject has undergone a change. Bush is portrayed in a lion costume which creates gender ambiguity.[6] Her hair is long, but her staring fiercely at the ‘audience’ who sees the cover, with make-up that is suggestive of the individual being male, creates confusion and ambiguity.
The song ‘In Search of Peter Pan’ from the album Lionheart provides an opportunity to analyse the BFS’s exploration of queer identity. In the opening verse, the BFS seems to be a child or at least of younger age because they are told “when I get older / That I’ll understand it all.”[7] Their high pitched and somewhat “squeaky” sounding singing voice supports the child identity.[8] The high pitch creates a feeling of discomfort in the listener which might reflect how the BFS is feeling as a child being told they are “too sensitive.” Withers points out how being too sensitive is a common stereotype applied to females.[9] This stereotype is juxtaposed with the BFS feeling “like an old man.”[10] As Withers notes, this juxtaposition causes confusion in the listener[11] but also clearly contrasts the BFS from the stereotypical societal female they do not want to become.
The chorus highlights a true wish and frustration about societal standards at the same time. The BFS wishes to be a man. At the same time, the BFS makes us aware that in our cliché-based society, they would have to be a man in order to become an astronaut.[12] Them, trying to “find Peter Pan” (an androgynous figure) expresses the wish for freedom and self-actualisation in a world where they feel like this is only granted to men. Their shift to a lower voice for the pre-chorus “They took the game right out of it,” indicates a change of lyrical content which is emphasised with the lowest voice thus far on “out of it” in the second line of the pre-chorus.[13] Following right after is the chorus starting with “When I am a man” for which the pitch increases again. Particularly on the word “astronaut,” the BSF returns to an uncomfortable high pitch which could highlight the metaphor of the astronaut by opposing the male-gendered astronaut with a female voice”.
Even if Kate Bush has not really framed herself as a queer icon or someone who is reparenting the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, her music has been embraced and taken to heart by many fans who feel more heard and seen. A campness in her early videos definitely proves that Kate Bush has always allied herself to the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community. Kashka from Baghdad was a case of Bush addressing something somewhat taboo. Two gay lovers who fear persecution and hide themselves away, it sounds remarkably relevant to this day. In 2022, Stranger Things used Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). A source of strength and hope for one of the show’s characters, Max, it is another case of Bush’s music speaking to a new generation of L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ people. Whilst Max Mayfield’s sexuality is not revealed, many feel that she is bisexual. This article explored queer representation on Stranger Things. This 2022 article from The Pink News writes why Kate Bush is this eternal gay icon:
“Though her work has become sporadic, successive generations have fallen in love with Kate Bush thanks to the enduring appeal of her songs. Right now, her 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” is captivating new fans after featuring prominently in the record-breaking fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
The track is expected to return to the UK chart on Friday (3 June). It’s already reached the top of Spotify’s UK daily songs chart, displacing reigning pop prince Harry Styles, and became Spotify’s fourth-most streamed track globally.
Of course, it’s not just the television gods Kate Bush can thank for sustaining her over the years. As with many female pop stars through the ages, a driving force of her enduring popularity has been her deep-rooted connection with the LGBTQ+ community.
“Becoming acquainted with all of Kate’s work was such a unique experience that I’ve never had since. It was like meeting a great friend that you know will be in your life forever,” Olly Waldron, a 23-year-old gay male DJ and Kate Bush superfan, tells PinkNews. To Waldron, Bush’s music offers an escapism from the mundanity of day-to-day life which is very appealing.
“Of course, her earlier performances and videography were exceptionally camp and theatrical. However, the world she built, not only with her storytelling lyricism but also her production, is the most perfect escapism,” he explains. “Kate transcended all norms and genres that were present in the music industry at that time which I think a lot of queer people can relate to”.
It is important to not only look at the themes explored within Kate Bush’s music when identifying her as a queer/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ icon. A lot of articles focus on the queer icon element, whilst there are few articles that embrace the fuller spectrum. How she speaks to trans people or those who identify as bisexual or asexual even. I will end with a 2018 feature from Attitude. They write why Kate Bush is an icon for the L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ community, forty years after her debut single (Wuthering Heights) was released:
“Her frank openness and recognition of a gamut of gender norms and of the reality of sexual fluidity became a recurrent theme in her work; ‘Wow’, a biting satire of the theatrical business, finds Kate singing “He’ll never make the scene / he’ll never make the Sweeney / be that movie queen / he’s too busy hitting the Vaseline.” If we were in any doubt as to her underlying meaning, her performance in the video removes all doubt as she taps her buttock on the payoff line.
Kate’s deep and thoughtful understanding of men in her songs is an underrated value in her arsenal; there are the men sent to war in ‘Army Dreamers’, or the kindly but increasingly distant father figure in ‘The Fog’, the misunderstood mathematician in “Pi,” and, most of all, the exquisite ‘This Woman’s Work’, where she sings about parenthood and birth from the male perspective. And no one could inhabit Peter Gabriel’s lyric as the voice of reason and comfort in ‘Don’t Give Up’ better than Kate Bush.
Perhaps most poignant of all, the father-son narrative of ‘Cloudbusting’ climaxes with the Shakespearean pun “your son’s coming out.” The rush of hearing Bush equate positivity, happiness, open-mindedness, and the promise of good things with the emergence – sexually or otherwise – into the world at large remains a profound thrill.
Kate made hits of these songs, and they remain enduring in the public consciousness. She brought the joys and sorrows of hidden human life to the forefront through normalising phrases and ideas, and streamlined all elements of her craft into a unique musical and visual style.
She studied movement with the choreographer and mime artist Lindsay Kemp at his dance studios in Covent Garden; Kemp had worked with Bowie and had a small but memorable role in 1973’s The Wicker Man as a sinister pub landlord. Bush had seen Kemp’s production of Flowers and was rapt.
Her theatricality didn’t just extend to her music, be it the cabaret Weimar camp of ‘Coffee Homeground’ or the flamboyant ‘Hammer Horror’: Her wide-eyed facial expressions, interpolation of mime, and her swooping, balletic movements made not just ‘Wuthering Heights’ but all of her early performance films iconic.
The fact that the Kate of ‘Wuthering Heights’ – a figure of incredible talent but, at the time (and to a lesser degree to this day), somewhat roundly mocked – blossomed into the art-pop auteur of 1982’s The Dreaming and 1985’s Hounds of Love, a woman of universally-acknowledged originality, creative excellence, and innovation, indeed an artist who changed the landscape of pop music forever, chimes with the gay audience too.
What at first the public may mistake for novelty, or frivolity, reveals itself over time to be intelligent, compassionate, and wise.
Kate Bush is an LGBT icon for several reasons, not least because she built a successful career, without compromise, on her own terms, with thorough originality, ingenuity, and, crucially, trueness to herself. She did, and continues to do, things her own way, and is undaunted in her distinctiveness and navigation of the peculiarities of life”.
I will end things there. From her fashion choices to her sexual liberation and freedom through her records, to the way she overcome so much criticism and narrow-mindedness from critics, there are multiple reasons why Kate Bush was and is a Pride/L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+ role model. As we are in Pride Month, I wanted to revisit a subject I explored fairly recently. There are articles here and there that argue why Kate Bush is an L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.+/Pride icon. It is something that needs to be…
TALKED about more.