Strange Phenomena: The Genius of Kate Bush
“Ooh, do you know you have the face of a genius?”
The word ‘genius’ has lost its luster. It’s been shrunk and stretched to fit a wide array of people, haphazardly slapped onto seemingly any artist like a cheap bumper sticker. In the glimmering world of music, the once-coveted term is often thrown around carelessly to describe someone with a hit song or a decent album. A feat indeed, but not one innately deserving of the term ‘genius’. A true musical genius can do it all — write, sing, play, produce — and with a burning passion. Their music is a key to a previously unopened door, a lens through which we can find a new perspective. They are someone from whom music cannot be separated, it is an intrinsic part of them, woven in their hair and flowing through their veins. Their heart is a drum pounding in their chest, their minds home to a thousand symphonies. They are an individual of complete originality who takes what we know about music and turns it on its head. In reality, it is rare that someone can be accurately labeled as a musical genius, but the mercurial Kate Bush is unquestionably one of them.
From the get-go, Kate Bush seemed destined to harbor some sort of artistry. She was born into a family bursting at the seams with creativity and intellect. Her father was a doctor who moonlighted as an amateur pianist, while her mother worked as a nurse with a penchant for Irish dancing. Kate’s brothers, Paddy and John, were both heavily entangled in the local folk music scene. Paddy found work manufacturing musical instruments, while John became a poet and photographer, Kate often finding herself as the subject of these photos. Bush family discussions routinely revolved around everything under the sun, from music to the philosophical teachings of Gurdjieff. Kate would be no exception to the creativity so bountiful in her home.
By age eleven, Kate had begun to teach herself piano while also studying the organ, the violin, and martial arts. During her martial arts training, Kate earned the moniker “Ee-ee” for her squeaky, high-pitched Kiai — an early hint at the singer’s impeccable three-octave vocal range.
At the same time, Kate began composing songs and filling them in with her own lyrics. By the time she reached thirteen, her songbook was bubbling over with her copious quantities of original compositions. She was a true prodigy. With the assistance of her older brothers, she endeavored to create a demo tape to send to various record companies, hoping that one of them might sign her, granting her an outlet for her burgeoning musical talent. The finished demo contained over fifty songs, each one a unique Kate Bush composition. The tape would circulate for years between numerous record labels, but it seemed none of them wanted to take a chance on Kate.
In a stroke of divine luck, or simply via well-connected friends, Kate’s demo would eventually find its way into the hands of a man who was highly accomplished in the music industry and scouting for fresh talent: Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. Gilmour had instantly appreciated the innate brilliance Kate possessed and immediately arranged to meet her.
“I was intrigued by this strange voice… I went to her house, met her parents down in Kent. And she played me, gosh, it must have been 40 or 50 songs on tape. And I thought: ‘I should try and do something.’”*
Gilmour did do a little something — he financed studio time for Kate, helping her to create a more professional demo tape and effectively changing Kate’s life forever. Now sixteen years old, she recorded just three songs for the new demo — two of which (“The Man With the Child in His Eyes” and “The Saxophone Song”) would wind up on her debut album, The Kick Inside. The demo was produced by Geoff Emerick, sound engineer for The Beatles, and Andrew Powell.
Gilmour played the tape for EMI executives while in the studio with Pink Floyd. EMI signed Kate almost immediately, granting her a three-thousand-pound advance. Gilmour and Bush would maintain a lifelong friendship, Gilmour often acting as a sort of Sensei to Bush, a guiding light in the dark world of the music industry (watch their 2002 performance of Comfortably Numb here!).
The next three years were spent in preparation for the release of The Kick Inside. Kate began to study dance and movement, something that would become a characteristic addition to her music, and practiced performing her material for live audiences in pubs. In the summer of 1977, Kate Bush would finally enter the studio and record eleven more songs for The Kick Inside. Bush was determined to control her work as much as she could, and rightfully so. She directly challenged her much older EMI higher-ups when she insisted her debut single be “Wuthering Heights.” Kate would ultimately win this fight and demonstrate her proficiencies when the song topped both the UK and Australian charts — establishing her as the first British woman to reach number one with a self-written song. It was one of the rare instances that a record company relinquished its tight grip and allowed a young female talent to thrive on her own.
The Kick Inside is pure artistry and confirmation of Kate’s absolute genius. The album was unlike anything else on the market, especially anything by a woman. Kate Bush’s brilliance is indisputable. Her songs drew on influences of cinema and literature, exploring themes of sexuality and religion, intellect, and divine “strange phenomena.” She told tales of tragic love and paid tributes to her role models, one of whom was her dance instructor, Lindsay Kemp (who also mentored David Bowie).
Kate poked and prodded with her songs, lifting the listener high into the sky or pinning them uncomfortably against the wall with her lyrics, sung in her swooping, gliding vocals. Each song on the album is more akin to a miniature masterpiece than a pop song. It is so timeless in that it could be from the year 2073 or 1742 with its components of both rock and baroque styles. The Kick Inside is more evocative of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” than it is reminiscent of the sound of 1978, drawing on matters ever-present in the human experience rather than modern hot-topics. The album’s titular track alone, an achingly beautiful suicide note from a woman carrying the child of her brother, seems more like a Shakespearean tragedy than a pop song. While Bush was singing stories of love and intellect, touching topics no one else dared to and marrying them with her distinct movement, the other prominent albums being released were The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, Blondie’s Parallel Lines, and The Ramones’ Road To Ruin.
At only 19 years old, Kate Bush was pushing the boundaries and kicking down doors in any way she could. From her lyrics to her vocal style, Bush set the tone for the rest of her career by doing things precisely as she wanted them. She produced nearly every single one of her albums and was involved in every aspect of her career, even when others told her it was unnecessary. Kate has never once strayed from the high standards she set for herself. She sang for herself and wrote from her heart, never trying to placate an audience or morph herself into a typical pop star. Kate Bush is undeniably one of the most unique musicians ever and one of the few legitimate musical genii.
Watch Kate’s 1978 performance of “Them Heavy People” below!
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kick_Inside#Track_listing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Bush
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-gilmour-pink-floyd-discovered-kate-bush/ *
