Wednesday 25 August 2010

The Wonderful Miss Bush



I simply love, adore and secretly desire to be Kate Bush. No one compares to the genius that is Kate (bar Morrissey but more on that another time).

I grew up listening to Kate Bush and still feel the same way now as I did then when I hear her songs, she transports you to another place where you can't help but daydream. I love the lyricism in Kate's music which urges you to escape. She doesn't sing about love and heartbreak like most others, she is a storyteller. From an entire B side apparently inspired by the Fastnet yaghting disaster and Celtic mythology of The 9th Wave to 'Breathing' the song about a nuclear Holocaust written from a foetus' perspective, there's no lazy song writing here.

My favourite story told by Kate is that of her interpretation of 'A Book of Dreams'.  In this song she tells the true story of the inventor of the cloudbuster and Orgone accumulator sung through the eyes of his son who still dreams of living at home in Organon after his Father is taken away and all of his work is destroyed  by the govenernment. I remember staring at the picture of Kate Cloudbusting on her album cover in awe as a child wondering what the strange contraption was. If it wasn't for Kate Bush I probably would never have known about Cloudbusting and the fascinating story behind it .

But my favourite song of all time still remains 'Running up that Hill'. I'm not a fan of remakes but due to the melodic and lyrical genius of this song I'm yet to hear a bad cover no matter how terrible the artist. The song is so beautiful it's simply impossible to ruin. Well almost. See Kiki and Herb's attempt at destroying it, they do a very good job but I can still hear Kate's beauty within.

2 comments:

  1. Eerily, I'm also a Kate Bush obsessive and have everything she's ever produced. Yes, I can sing along to 'Kafka from Baghdad' 'Under the Ivy' and 'Houdini'. Kindred spirits it appears.

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  2. Unfortunately I don't have such a broad knowledge of her music. I just tend to stick to the same old repertoire on repeat!

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