Kate Bush

Catherine Bush CBE (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. She is the sister of John Carder Bush and Paddy Bush.

Quotes

Artists shouldn't be made famous. You know... they're just ... as important as... um doctors, and priests ... or maybe not as important sometimes, and yet they have this huge aura of almost god-like quality about them, just because their craft makes a lot of money. And at the same time it is a forced importance — you know, football stars and theatre stars — It is man-made so the press can feed off it.
- Profiles in Rock interview (December 1980)

I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman, can't understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other's roles, if we could actually be in each other's place for a while, I think we'd both be very surprised! ... And I think it would lead to a greater understanding. And really the only way I could think it could be done was either... you know, I thought a deal with the devil, you know. And I thought, "well, no, why not a deal with God!" You know, because in a way it's so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you. You see, for me it is still called "Deal With God", that was its title. But we were told that if we kept this title that it would not be played in any of the religious countries, Italy wouldn't play it, France wouldn't play it, and Australia wouldn't play it! Ireland wouldn't play it, and that generally we might get it blacked purely because it had God in the title.
- On her song "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)", in a Radio 1 Classic Albums interview with Richard Skinner (26 January 1992)

For me to get into that creative process I have to have a sort of quiet place that I work from. And if I was living the life of ... somebody in the industry, as a pop star or whatever, it's too distracting. It's too to do with other people's perceptions of who you are, and what's important to me is to be a human being who has a soul, and who hopefully has a sense of who they are, not who everybody else thinks you are.
And I think, you know, that's something that's very difficult for people who become extremely famous. I mean, I find it completely ridiculous this obsession with celebrities. ... Why are celebrities so important to people? It's absolute crap. I mean, the important people are surgeons and doctors and people actually put people back together and make a difference to people's lives. Not somebody who's in an ad on telly. I mean, okay, so that's valid for what it is, too. But why so much attention on something that's so shallow?
- Interview on The Mark Radcliff Show, BBC Radio 2 (7 November 2005)

Now all the shows are over, it's pretty difficult to explain how I feel about it all. It was quite a surreal journey that kept its level of intensity right from the early stages to the end of the very last show. It was also such great fun.
It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. I loved the whole process.... I was really delighted that the shows were received so positively and so warmly but the really unexpected part of it all was the audiences. Audiences that you could only ever dream of. One of the main reasons for wanting to perform live again was to have contact with that audience.They took my breath away. Every single night they were so behind us. You could feel their support from the minute we walked on stage. I just never imagined it would be possible to connect with an audience on such a powerful and intimate level; to feel such, well quite frankly, love. It was like this at every single show.
Thank you so very much to everyone who came to the shows and became part of that shared experience. It was a truly special and wonderful feeling for all of us.
- An open letter to her fans about her "Before the Dawn" concerts (26 August 2014 - 1 October 2014), in "After the Dawn" at her official "FISH P∑ΩPL∑" site "(22 October 2014)

David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.
- Tribute to David Bowie, in "David Bowie, as remembered by…" in The Guardian (17 January 2016)

I think musicians have a responsibility to try and do something that is good. It's so hard. It's very difficult to pull something out of the hat creatively. Although I say it's their responsibility, it's really just people trying to do the best that they can.
- As quoted in "Kate Bush Speaks" by Owen Myers in Fader (23 November 2016)

I'm really very happy if people can connect at all to anything I do. I don't really mind if people mishear lyrics or misunderstand what the story is. I think that's what you have to let go of when you send it out in the world. I'm sure with a lot of paintings, people don't understand what the painter originally meant, and I don't really think that matters. I just think if you feel something, that's really the ideal goal. If that happens, then I'm really happy.
- As quoted in "Kate Bush Speaks" by Owen Myers in Fader (23 November 2016)

As an artist, you're never happy with anything you do. It's part of the process. You're never really happy. I'm certainly not. That's a good thing. It means you're always striving to do better. You hope the next piece will be better.
- As quoted in "In conversation with Kate Bush" by Elio Iannacci in MacLeans (28 November 2016)

The great thing about art on any level is that it can speak to all people if it's achieved properly. When I've heard a piece of music or seen a painting that moves me, it gives me something. That's such an incredibly special experience. I have intentions as a writer, but people — when they're listening to a track — will take from it what they interpret. Sometimes people mishear my lyrics and think a song's about something it isn't. That doesn't matter. If it speaks to them and they get something positive from it, it's great.
- As quoted in "In conversation with Kate Bush" by Elio Iannacci in MacLeans (28 November 2016)

MOJO interview (2005)

Excerpts from an interview in MOJO magazine (3 November 2005) as quoted in The Guardian (28 October 2005)

I do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I'm some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y'know, I'm a very strong person and I think that's why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, 'She had a nervous breakdown' or 'She's not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature'.

There were so many times I thought, "I'll have the album finished this year, definitely, we'll get it out this year." Then there were a couple of years where I thought, "I'm never gonna do this." If I could make albums quicker, I'd be on a roll wouldn't I? Everything just seems to take so much time. I don't know why. Time... evaporates.

There was a story that some EMI execs had come down to see you and you'd said something like: "Here's what I've been working on," and then produced some cakes from your oven. True?
"No! I don't know where that came from. I thought that was quite funny actually. It presents me as this homely creature, which is all right, isn't it?"

For the last 12 years, I've felt really privileged to be living such a normal life. It's so a part of who I am. It's so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don't know how dishwashers work. For me, that's frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you've got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody's been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?

Song lyrics

The Kick Inside (1978)

Full lyrics online

Moving

This first track of Bush's first album is a tribute to Bush's mime and dance instructor Lindsay Kemp, and opens and closes with a whale song.

Moving stranger,
Does it really matter,
As long as you're not afraid to feel?

Touch me, hold me.
How my open arms ache!
Try to fall for me.

How I'm moved.
How you move me
With your beauty's potency.

The Saxophone Song

There's something very special indeed,
In all the places where I've seen you shine, boy.
There's something very real in how I feel, honey.
It's in me.
It's in me,
And you know it's for real.
Tuning in on your saxophone...

You'll never know that you had all of me.
You'll never know the poetry you've stirred in me.
Of all the stars I've seen that shine so brightly,
I've never known or felt in myself so rightly,
It's in me...

Strange Phenomena

Soon it will be the phase of the moon
When people tune in.
Every girl knows about the punctual blues,
But who's to know the power behind our moves?

We raise our hats to the strange phenomena.
Soul-birds of a feather flock together.

Kite

There's a hole in the sky with a big eyeball
Calling me: "Come up and be a kite,
On a diamond flight!"

A diamond kite
On a diamond flight.
Over the lights, under the moon.
Over the lights, under the moon.
Over the moon, over the moon!

The Man with the Child in His Eyes

I hear him, before I go to sleep
And focus on the day that's been.
I realise he's there,
When I turn the light off and turn over.

Nobody knows about my man.
They think he's lost on some horizon.
And suddenly I find myself
Listening to a man I've never known before,
Telling me about the sea,
All his love, 'til Eternity.

Ooh, he's here again,
The man with the child in his eyes.

Wuthering Heights

Out on the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green.
You had a temper like my jealousy:
Too hot, too greedy.
How could you leave me,
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you. I loved you, too.

Bad dreams in the night.
They told me I was going to lose the fight,
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights.

Heathcliff, it's me — Cathy.

Ooh, it gets dark! It gets lonely,
On the other side from you.
I pine a lot. I find the lot
Falls through without you.
I'm coming back, love.
Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream,
My only master.

Ooh! Let me have it.
Let me grab your soul away.

James And The Cold Gun

Ooh, James, are you selling your soul to a cold gun?

You're a coward, James.
You're running away from humanity.
You're running away from reality.
It won't be funny when they rat-a-tat-tat you down.

Feel It

Nobody else can share this.
Here comes one and one makes one,
The glorious union.
Well it could be love,
Or it could be just lust,
But it will be fun.
It will be wonderful.

God, but you're beautiful, aren't you?
Feel your warm hand walking around.
I won't pull away.
My passion always wins.
So keep on a-moving in.
So keep on a-tuning in.
Synchronise rhythm now.

Oh To Be In Love

I could have been anyone.
You could have been anyone's dream.
Why did you have to choose our moment?
Why did you have to make me feel that?
Why did you make it so unreal?

Oh! To be in love,
And never get out again.

All the colours look brighter now.
Everything they say seems to sound new.
Slipping into tomorrow too quick,
Yesterday always too good to forget.
Stop the swing of the pendulum! Let us through!

L'Amour Looks Something Like You

You came out of the night,
Wearing a mask in white colour.
My eyes were shining
On the wine, and your aura.

You look like an angel,
Sleeping it off at a station.
Were you only passing through?

I'm dying for you just to touch me,
And feel all the energy rushing right up-a-me.
L'amour looks something like you.

Them Heavy People

Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me...

I must work on my mind. For now I realise:
Everyone of us has a heaven inside.

Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Them heavy people help me.

They open doorways that I thought were shut for good.
They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu.
They build up my body, break me emotionally.
It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!

I love the whirling of the dervishes.
I love the beauty of rare innocence.
You don't need no crystal ball,
Don't fall for a magic wand.
We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.

Room For The Life

Hey there, you lady in tears,
Do you think that they care if they're real, woman?
They just take it as part of the deal.

Like it or not, we were built tough,
Because we're woman.

No, we never die for long,
While we've got that little life
To live for, where it's hid inside.

Like it or not, we keep bouncing back,
Because we're woman.

The Kick Inside

I'm giving it all in a moment or two.
I'm giving it all in a moment, for you.

This kicking here inside
Makes me leave you behind.
No more under the quilt
To keep you warm.
Your sister I was born.
You must lose me like an arrow,
Shot into the killer storm.

You and me on the bobbing knee.
Didn't we cry at that old mythology he'd read!
I will come home again, but not until
The sun and the moon meet on yon hill.

Lionheart (1978)

Full lyrics online

Symphony in Blue

I spend a lot of my time looking at blue,
The colour of my room and my mood...

When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in,
Go blowing my mind on God:
The light in the dark, with the neon arms,
The meek He seeks, the beast He calms,
The head of the good soul department.

My terrible fear of dying
No longer plays with me,
for now I know that I'm needed
For the symphony.

The more I think about sex, the better it gets.
Here we have a purpose in life:
Good for the blood circulation,
Good for releasing the tension,
The root of our reincarnations.

In Search Of Peter Pan

I no longer see a future.
I've been told when I get older
That I'll understand
It all.
But I'm not sure if I want to.

They took the game right out of it.
When I am a man
I will be an astronaut,
And find Peter Pan.

Wow

We're all alone on the stage tonight.
We've been told; we're not afraid of you.
We know all our lines so well, ah-ha,
We've said them so many times:
Time and time again,
Line and line again.

You say we're fantastic,
But still we don't head the bill.
Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! Unbelievable!

Ooh, yeah, you're amazing!
We think you are really cool.
We'd give you a part, my love,
But you'd have to play the fool.

Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake

Emma's come down.
She's stopped the light
Shining out of her eyes.

Oh, come on, you've got to use your flow.
You know what it's like, and you know you want to go.
Don't drive too slowly.
Don't put your blues where your shoes should be.
Don't put your foot on the heartbrake.

Oh England My Lionheart

Oh! England, my Lionheart!
Dropped from my black Spitfire to my funeral barge.
Give me one kiss in apple-blossom.
Give me one wish, and I'd be wassailing
In the orchard, my English rose,
Or with my shepherd, who'll bring me home.

Fullhouse

I am my enemy
Mowing me over,
And towing the light away.

Remember yourself.
You've got a Full House in your head tonight...
- "Remember yourself" was a motto of G. I. Gurdjieff, whose ideas were an early influence on Bush.

Surely by now I should know
I can control
My highs and my lows
By questioning all that I do,
Examining every move,
Trying to get back to the rudiments.

In The Warm Room

In the warm room
She'll touch you with your Mamma's hand.
You'll long to kiss those red lips,
But when you do
It'll feel like kicking a habit.

Kashka From Baghdad

Kashka from Baghdad
Lives in sin, they say,
With another man,
But no one knows who.

At night
They're seen
Laughing,
Loving.
They know
The way
To be
Happy.

Coffee Homeground

Well, you won't get me with your Belladonna — in the coffee,
And you won't get me with your aresenic — in the pot of tea,
And you won't get me in a hole to rot — with your hemlock
On the rocks.

Maybe you're lonely,
And only want a little company,
But keep your recipes
For the rats to eat,
And may they rest in peace with coffee homeground.

Hammer Horror

You stood in the belltower,
But now you're gone.
So who knows all the sights
Of Notre Dame?

Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror,
Won't leave me alone.
The first time in my life,
I leave the lights on
To ease my soul.

I've got a hunch that you're following,
To get your own back on me.
So all I want to do is forget
You, friend.

Never for Ever (1980)

Full lyrics online

Babooshka

She wanted to test her husband.
She knew exactly what to do:
A pseudonym to fool him.
She couldn't have made a worse move.

She sent him scented letters,
And he received them with a strange delight.
Just like his wife
But how she was before the tears,
And how she was before the years flew by,
And how she was when she was beautiful.

Just like his wife before she freezed on him,
Just like his wife when she was beautiful.

Delius (Song Of Summer)

A song about the composers Frederick Delius and Eric Fenby.

Ooh, he's a moody old man.
Song of Summer in his hand.
Ooh, he's a moody old man.
...in...in...in his hand.
...in his hand.

To be sung of a summer night on the water.
Ooh, on the water.
"Ta, ta-ta!
Hmm.
Ta, ta-ta!
In B, Fenby!"

Blow Away (For Bill)

Dedicated to Bill Duffield, Bush's lighting engineer, who died in a stage accident.

One of the band told me last night
That music is all that he's got in his life.
So where does it go?
Surely not with his soul.
Will all of his licks and his R'n'B
Blow away?

Our engineer had a different idea
From people who nearly died but survived,
Feeling no fear of leaving their bodies here,
And went to a room that was soon full of visitors.

Put out the light, then, put out the light.
Vibes in the sky invite you to dine.
Dust to dust,
Blow to blow.

All We Ever Look For

The whims that we're weeping for
Our parents would be beaten for.

Leave the breast
And then the nest
And then regret you ever left.

All we ever look for — a god.
All we ever look for — ooh, a drug.
All we ever look for — a great big hug.
All we ever look for — a little bit of you.
All we ever look for — a little bit of you, too.
All we ever look for,
But we never do score.

Egypt

Follow the Nile
Deep to much deeper.
The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.

Follow the Nile
Deep to much deeper.
The Pyramids sound lonely tonight.
The sands run red
In lands of the Pharoahs.
Their symmetry gets right inside me.

Oh, I'm in love
With Egypt.

My Pussy Queen
Knows all my secrets.
I'll never fall in love again.

The Wedding List

We've come together in the very same room,
And I'm coming for you!

Somehow this was it, I knew.
Maybe fate wants you dead, too:
We've come together in the very same room,
And I'm coming for you!

All I see is Rudi.
I die with him, again and again.
And I'll feel good in my revenge.
I'm gonna fill your head with lead
And I'm coming for you!

Violin

Four strings across the bridge,
Ready to carry me over…

Four strings across the bridge,
Ready to carry me over,
Over the quavers, drunk in the bars,
Out of the realm of the orchestra...

Get the bow going!
Let it scream to me:
Violin! Violin! Violin!

Give me the Banshees for B.V.s.
- B.V.s : backing vocals.

The Infant Kiss

Ths song was inspired by the film The Innocents (1961), itself derived from The Turn of the Screw (1898) by Henry James. Bush also wrote and sang a French version of this song: "Un Baiser d'enfant"

I say good night-night
I tuck him in tight.
But things are not right.
What is this? An infant kiss
That sends my body tingling?

His little hand is on my heart.
He's got me where it hurts me.
Knock, knock. Who's there in this baby?
You know how to work me.
All my barriers are going.
It's starting to show.

I cannot sit and let
Something happen I'll regret.
Ooh, he scares me!
There's a man behind those eyes.
I catch him when I'm bending.

I want to smack but I hold back.
I only want to touch.
But I must stay and find a way
To stop before it gets too much!
All my barriers are going.
It's starting to show.

Army Dreamers

What could he do?
Should have been a father.
But he never even made it to his twenties.
What a waste —
Army dreamers.
Ooh, what a waste of
Army dreamers.

Oh, Jesus Christ, he wasn't to know,
Like a chicken with a fox,
He couldn't win the war with ego.
Give the kid the pick of pips,
And give him all your stripes and ribbons.
Now he's sitting in his hole,
He might as well have buttons and bows.

Breathing

Outside
Gets inside
Through her skin.

Breathing my mother in,
Breathing my beloved in,
Breathing,
Breathing her nicotine,
Breathing,
Breathing the fall-out in,
Out in, out in, out in, out in.

We've lost our chance.
We're the first and the last, ooh,
After the blast.

I love my
Beloved, ooh,
All and everywhere,
Only the fools blew it.
You and me
Knew life itself is
Breathing...

I hold a cup of wisdom,
But there is nothing within.

The Dreaming (1982)

Full lyrics online

Sat in Your Lap

This song incorporates a bit of Bush's eccentric wordplay: Sat is a Hindu and Sikh term for Truth, or Knowledge related to the concept of Dharma.

Some say that knowledge is something that you never have.
Some say that knowledge is something sat in your lap.
Some say that heaven is hell.
Some say that hell is heaven.

I must admit, just when I think I'm king,

I just begin.

I hold a cup of wisdom,
But there is nothing within.

There Goes a Tenner

The sense of adventure
Is changing to danger…

The sense of adventure
Is changing to danger.
The signal has been given.

My excitement
Turns into fright.
All my words fade.
What am I gonna say?
Mustn't give the game away.

Pull Out The Pin

Just one thing in it:
Me or him.
Just one thing in it:
Me or him.
And I love life!

He's big and pink, and not like me.
He sees no light.
He sees no reason for the fighting...

Suspended in Gaffa

Out in the garden
There's half of a heaven,
And we're only bluffing.
We're not ones for busting through walls,
But they've told us
Unless we can prove
That we're doing it,
We can't have it all.

I don't know why I'm crying.
Am I suspended in Gaffa?
Not until I'm ready for you,
Not until I'm ready for you
Can I have it all.

I won't open boxes
That I am told not to.
I'm not a Pandora.
I'm much more like
That girl in the mirror.
Between you and me
She don't stand a chance of getting anywhere at all.

Mother, where are the angels? I'm scared of the changes.
- Whispered in a childlike voice.

Leave It Open

My door was never locked,
Until one day a trigger come cocking.
(But now I've started learning how,)
I keep it shut.

Harm is in us.
Harm in us, but power to arm.
Harm is in us.
Leave it open!

We let the weirdness in.

The Dreaming

This song deals with the Australian traditions of "The Dreaming"

See the light ram through the gaps in the land.
Many an Aborigine's mistaken for a tree
'Til you near him on the motorway
And the tree begin to breathe.

'Coming in with the golden light
In the morning.
Coming in with the golden light
Is the New Man.

The civilised keep alive
The territorial war...
Erase the race that claim the place
And say we dig for ore,
Or dangle devils in a bottle
And push them from the pull of the Bush.

See the sun set in the hand of the man.

Night Of The Swallow

If you go, I'll let the law know,
And they'll head you off when you touch the ground.
Ooh, please, don't go through with this.
I don't like the sound of it.

In Malta, catch a swallow,
For all of the guilty — to set them free.
Wings fill the window,
And they beat and bleed.
They hold the sky on the other side
Of borderlines.

Give me a break!
Ooh, let me try!
Give me something to show
For my miserable life!
Give me something to take!
Would you break even my wings,
Just like a swallow?

All The Love

We needed you
To love us too.
We wait for your move.

Only tragedy allows the release
Of love and grief never normally seen.
I didn't want to let them see me weep,
I didn't want to let them see me weak,
But I know I have shown
That I stand at the gates alone.

I needed you
To love me too.
I wait for your move.

All the love, all the love,
All the love we should have given.
All the love, all the love,
All the love you could have given.
All the love...

Houdini

The tambourine jingle-jangles.
The medium roams and rambles.
Not taken in,
I break the circle.
I want this man
To go away now.

With a kiss
I'd pass the key
And feel your tongue
Teasing and receiving.
With your spit
Still on my lip,
You hit the water.

Rosabel believe,
Not even eternity
Can hold Houdini!
"Rosabel, believe!"

Get Out Of My House

I will not let you in.
I face towards the wind.
I change into the Mule.

Hounds of Love (1985)

Full lyrics online

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)

Official video at YouTube

It doesn't hurt me.
Do you want to feel how it feels?
Do you want to know that it doesn't hurt me?
Do you want to hear about the deal that I'm making?
You, it's you and me.

And if I only could,
I'd make a deal with God,
And I'd get him to swap our places,
Be running up that road,
Be running up that hill,
Be running up that building.

You don't want to hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware I'm tearing you asunder.
Ooh, there is thunder in our hearts.

Is there so much hate for the ones we love?
Tell me, we both matter, don't we?
You, it's you and me.
It's you and me won't be unhappy.

C'mon, baby, c'mon darling,
Let me steal this moment from you now.
C'mon, angel, c'mon, c'mon, darling,
Let's exchange the experience, oh...

If I only could
Be running up that hill
With no problems...

Hounds Of Love

It's in the trees!
It's coming!

I found a fox
Caught by dogs.
He let me take him in my hands.
His little heart,
It beats so fast,
And I'm ashamed of running away
From nothing real —
I just can't deal with this,
But I'm still afraid to be there,
Among your hounds of love...

Do you know what I really need?
I need love love love love love, yeah!

The Big Sky

They look down
At the ground,
Missing.
But I never go in now.
I'm looking at the Big Sky.

You never really understood me.
You never really tried.

This cloud, this cloud —
Says "Noah,
C'mon and build me an Ark."
And if you're coming, jump,
'Cause
We're leaving with the Big Sky.

Mother Stands For Comfort

She knows that I've been doing something wrong,
But she won't say anything.

Am I the cat that takes the bird?
To her the hunted, not the hunter.

Mother stands for comfort.
Mother will hide the murderer.
Mother hides the madman.
Mother will stay mum.

Cloudbusting

This song is sung from the perspective of Wilhelm Reich's son Peter, whose memoir A Book of Dreams inspired it. · Official video at YouTube

I still dream of Orgonon.
I wake up crying.
You're making rain,
And you're just in reach,
When you and sleep escape me.

I just know that something good is going to happen.
I don't know when,
But just saying it could even make it happen.

On top of the world,
Looking over the edge,
You could see them coming.
You looked too small
In their big, black car,
To be a threat to the men in power.

I hid my yo-yo
In the garden.
I can't hide you
From the government.
Oh, God, Daddy —
I won't forget...

If they find me racing white horses, they'll not take me for a buoy…

The Ninth Wave

And Dream Of Sheep

Little light shining,
Little light will guide them to me.
My face is all lit up,
My face is all lit up.

If they find me racing white horses,
They'll not take me for a buoy.
Let me be weak,
Let me sleep
And dream of sheep.

Ooh, their breath is warm
And they smell like sleep,
And they say they take me home.
Like poppies heavy with seed
They take me deeper and deeper.

Under Ice

There's something moving
Under, under the ice,
Moving under ice,
Through water,
Trying to get out of the cold water.
"It's me."
Something, someone — help them.
"It's me."

Waking The Witch

Wake up!...You must wake up!

"Don't you know you've kept him waiting?"
"Look who's here to see you!"

I question your innocence!
Help this blackbird!
She's a witch!
There's a stone around my leg.

What say you, good people?
"Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!"
Help this blackbird...

"Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!"

Watching You Without Me

You can't hear me.
You can't hear me.
You can't hear what I'm saying.
You can't hear what I'm saying to you.

I should have been home
Hours ago,
But I'm not here.
But I'm not here...

Jig Of Life

Co-written with her brother John Carder Bush

I'll be sitting in your mirror.
Now is the place where the crossroads meet.
Will you look into the future?

Never, never say goodbye
To my part of your life.

"This moment in time,"
(She said.)
It doesn't belong to you,"
(She said,)
It belongs to me,
And your little boy and your little girl,
And the one hand clapping:
Where on your palm is my little line,
When you're written in mine
As an old memory?

Can't you see where memories are kept bright?
Tripping on the water like a laughing girl.
Time in her eyes is spawning past life,
One with the ocean and the woman unfurled,
Holding all the love that waits for you here.
Catch us now for I am your future.
A kiss on the wind and we'll make the land.
Come over here to where When lingers,
Waiting in this empty world,
Waiting for Then, when the lifespray cools.
For Now does ride in on the curl of the wave,
And you will dance with me in the sunlit pools.
We are of the going water and the gone.
We are of water in the holy land of water
And all that's to come runs in
With the thrust on the strand.
- This is the portion of "Jig of Life" which was actually written as well as spoken by Kate's brother John Carder Bush.

I was there at the birth, Out of the cloudburst, The head of the tempest…

Hello Earth

Watching storms
Start to form
Over America.
Can't do anything.
Just watch them swing
With the wind
Out to sea.

I was there at the birth,
Out of the cloudburst,
The head of the tempest.
Murderer!
Murder of calm...

The Morning Fog

The light
Begin to bleed,
Begin to breathe,
Begin to speak.
D'you know what?
I love you better now.

I'll kiss the ground.
I'll tell my mother,
I'll tell my father,
I'll tell my loved one,
I'll tell my brothers
How much I love them.

The Sensual World (1989)

Full text online

The Sensual World

Video performance

He said I was a flower of the mountain, yes,
But now I've powers o'er a woman's body, yes.
Stepping out of the page into the sensual world.
Stepping out...
To where the water and the earth caress
And the down on a peach says mmh, Yes...
- "The Sensual World"; The lyrics of this song are derived from the last lines of Ulysses by James Joyce. Kate had initially wanted to set much of Molly Bloom's Soliloquy to music, just as Joyce had written it, but when the Joyce estate refused, she altered it enough as to not infringe on copyright. As she explained it in an interview: "The song was saying "Yes, Yes" and when I asked for permission they said "No! No!".

Do I look for those millionaires
Like a Machiavellian girl would
When I could wear the sunset?

You don't need words — just one kiss, then another.

Stepping out, off the page, into the sensual world.
And then our arrows of desire rewrite the speech...

I said, mmh... yes,
But not yet, mmh... yes,
Mmh... Yes.

Love and Anger

Video performance

It lay buried here. It lay deep inside me.
It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it.
It could take me all of my life,
But it would only take a moment to
Tell you what I'm feeling,
But I don't know if I'm ready yet.

Take away the love and the anger,
And a little piece of hope holding us together.
Looking for a moment that'll never happen,
Living in the gap between past and future.
Take away the stone and the timber,
And a little piece of rope won't hold it together.

If you can't tell your sister,
If you can't tell a priest,
'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it
To anyone,
Can you tell it to your heart?
Can you find it in your heart
To let go of these feelings...

We could be like two strings beating,
Speaking in sympathy...

We're building a house of the future together.
(What would we do without you?)

You might not, not think so now,
But just you wait and see — someone will come to help you.

The Fog

Just like a photograph,
I pick you up.
Just like a station on the radio,
I pick you up.

Just like a feeling that you're sending out,
I pick it up.
But I can't let you go.
If I let you go,
You slip into the fog...

This love was big enough for the both of us.
This love of yours was big enough to be frightened of.
It's deep and dark, like the water was,
The day I learned to swim.

Is this love big enough to watch over me?
Big enough to let go of me
Without hurting me,
Like the day I learned to swim?

Reaching Out

YouTube video

See how the child reaches out instinctively
To feel how fire will feel.
See how the man reaches out instinctively
For what he cannot have.
The pull and the push of it all.

Reaching out for that hand to hold.
Reaching out for the Star.
Reaching out for the Star that explodes.
Reaching out for Mama.

See how the flower leans instinctively
Toward the light.
See how the heart reaches out instinctively
For no reason but to touch...

Heads We're Dancing

You talked me into the game of chance.
It was '39, before the music started,
When you walked up to me and you said,
"Hey, heads we dance."
- Audio at YouTube

They say that the Devil is a charming man.
And just like you I bet he can dance.

Well, I couldn't see what was to be
So I just stood there laughing
A picture of you, a picture of you in uniform
Standing with your head held high
Hot down to the floor but it couldn't be you
It couldn't be you, it's a picture of Hitler

Deeper Understanding

YouTube video

As the people here grow colder I turn to my computer
And spend my evenings with it
Like a friend.

Hello, I know that you've been feeling tired.
I bring you love and deeper understanding.
Hello, I know that you're unhappy.
I bring you love and deeper understanding….

I turn to my computer like a friend.
I need deeper understanding.
Give me deeper understanding...

Between A Man And A Woman

YouTube video

He said it was her fault.
She said it wasn't at all.
But the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Where angels fear to tread,
You go rushing in.
Stay out of this
You must not interfere
Don't you see this is
Between a man and a woman?

Never Be Mine

I look at you and see
my life that might have been
your face just ghostly in the smoke.
They're setting fire to the cornfields
as you're taking me home.
The smell of burning fields
will now mean you and here.

This is where I want to be.
This is what I need.
This is where I want to be,
But I know that this will never be mine.

I want you as the dream,
Not the reality.
That clumsy good-bye kiss could fool me.
But looking back over my shoulder
at you happy without me.

The thrill and the hurting
Will never be mine.

Rocket's Tail

I thought you were crazy, wishing such a thing.
I saw only a stick on fire,
Alone on its journey
Home to the quickening ground,
With no one there to catch it.

I am a rocket
On fire.
Look at me go, with my tail on fire...

This Woman's Work

Video

I know you have a little life in you yet.
I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking
Of all the things I should've said,
That I never said.
All the things we should've done,
That we never did.
All the things I should've given,
But I didn't.

Walk Straight Down The Middle

We're calling out for Middle Street.

We hang on to every line,
And walk straight down the middle of it.

He thought he was gonna die,
But he didn't.
She thought she just couldn't cope,
But she did.
We thought it would be so hard,
But it wasn't...
It wasn't easy, though!

The Red Shoes (1993)

Full lyrics online

Rubberband Girl

See those trees
Bend in the wind
I feel they've got a lot more sense than me
You see I try to resist...

A rubberband bouncing back to life
A rubberband bend the beat
If I could learn to give like a rubberband
I'd be back on my feet...

And So Is Love - Performance on Top of the Pops (1994)

We let it in
We give it out
And in the end
What's it all about?
It must be love.

We used to say
"Ah Hell, we're young"
But now we see that life is sad
And so is love.

What really matters?
It's all we've got
Isn't that enough?

All for love
Just for the sake of love.

Eat the Music

Split me open
With devotion
You put your hands in
And rip my heart out
Eat the music.

All is revealed
Not only women bleed.

What am I singing?
A song of seeds — The food of love. Eat the music.

Moments of Pleasure

I think about us diving
Diving off a rock, into another moment...

Just being alive
It can really hurt
These moments given
Are a gift from time.
Just let us try
To give these moments back
To those we love
To those who will survive...

And I can hear my mother saying
"Every old sock meets an old shoe"
Isn't that a great saying?

Here come the Hills of Time

Song of Solomon

The Song of Solomon
The song of everyone
Who walks the path
Of the solitary heart.

The soul cries out
Hear a woman singing
Don't want your bullshit, yeah
Just want your sexuality.
Don't want excuses, yeah
Write me your poetry in motion
Write it just for me, yeah
And sign it with a kiss.

I'll do it for you
I'll be the Rose of Sharon for you
Ooh I'll come in a hurricane for you
I'll do it for you...

Lily

Oh thou, who givest sustenance to the universe
From whom all things proceed
To whom all things return
Unveil to us the face of the true spiritual sun
Hidden by a disc of golden light
That we may know the truth
And do our whole duty
As we journey to thy sacred feet
- Recited by "Lily"

I said
"Lily, Oh Lily I'm so afraid
I fear I am walking in the Veil of Darkness"
And she said
"Child, take what I say
With a pinch of salt
And protect yourself with fire"

Gabriel before me
Raphael behind me
Michael (archangel) to my right
Uriel on my left side
In the circle of fire.

The Red Shoes

With no words, with no song
You can dance the dream with your body on
And this curve, is your smile
And this cross, is your heart
And this line, is your path
Oh it's gonna be the way you always thought it would be
But it's gonna be no illusion
Oh it's gonna be the way you always dreamt about it
But it's gonna be really happening to ya...

Feel your hair come tumbling down
Feel your feet start kissing the ground
Feel your arms are opening out
And see your eyes are lifted to God
With no words, with no song
I'm gonna dance the dream
And make the dream come true...

Top of the City

I don't know if I'm closer to Heaven but
It looks like Hell down there.
These streets have never been paved with gold.

It's no good for you baby
It's no good for you now
Keep looking up for the ladder.

I don't mind if it's dangerous
I don't mind if it's raining
Take me up to the top of the city
And put me up on the angel's shoulders.

Constellation of the Heart

We take all the telescopes
And we turn them inside out
And we point them away from the big sky.
Put your eye right up to the glass.
Here we'll find the constellation of the heart.
Steer your life by these stars
On the unconditional chance
'Tis here where Hell and Heaven dance.
This is the constellation of the heart.

Well we think you'd better wake up capt'n
There's something happen'n up ahead
We've never seen anything like it
We've never seen anything like it before.

Who said anything about it hurting?
It's gonna be beautiful
It's gonna be wonderful
It's gonna be paradise.

Ooh find me the man with the ladder
And he might lift me up to the stars.

Without the pain there'd be no learning
Without the hurting we'd never change.

Big Stripey Lie

All young gentle dreams drowning
In life's grief
Can you hang on to me?

Your name is being called by sacred things
That are not addressed nor listened to.
Sometimes they blow trumpets.

Hey all you little waves run away.
Mmm... run away.

Why Should I Love You?

This chapter says
"Put it out of your mind"
Mmm, give it time....

The fine purple
The purest gold
The red of the Sacred Heart
The grey of a ghost
The "L" of the lips are open
To the "O" of the Host
The "V" of the velvet
The "E" of my eye
The eye in wonder
The eye that sees
The "I" that loves you.

Have you ever seen a picture
Of Jesus laughing?
Mmm, do you think
He had a beautiful smile?
A smile that healed.

You're the One

Let's change things.
Let's danger it up.
We're crazy enough.
I just can't take it.

You're the only one I want...

I know where I'm going.
But I don't want to leave.
I just have one problem
We're best friends, yeah?
We tied ourselves in knots
Doing cartwheels 'cross the floor
Just forget it alright.

Aerial (2005)

Full lyrics online

A Sea of Honey (Disc 1)

King of the Mountain

Could you see the aisles of women?
Could you see them screaming and weeping?
Could you see the storm rising?
Could you see the guy who was driving?
Could you climb higher and higher?
Could you climb right over the top?

Elvis are you out there somewhere
Looking like a happy man?
In the snow with Rosebud|
And King of the Mountain.

Another Hollywood waitress
Is telling us she's having your baby
And there's a rumour that you're on ice
And you will rise again someday.

π

Sweet and gentle and sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation
Of π.

He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity
3.14159 26535897932 3846 264 338 3279...

Bertie

Here comes the sunshine
Here comes that son of mine
Here comes the everything
Here's a song and a song for him.

You bring me so much joy
And then you bring me
More joy...

Mrs. Bartolozzi

Oh and the waves are going out
Oh and the waves are coming in
Out of the corner of my eye
I think I see you standing outside
But it's just your shirt
Hanging on the washing line
Waving it's arm as the wind blows by
And it looks so alive
Nice and white
Just like it's climbed right out
of my washing machine...

How To Be Invisible

I found a book on how to be invisible
You take a pinch of keyhole,
And fold yourself up,
You cut along the dotted lines.
You think inside out.
You're invisible.

Joanni

All the banners stop waving
And the flags stop flying
And the silence comes over
Thousands of soldiers...

Who is that girl? Do I know her face?

Joanni, Joanni wears a golden cross
And she looks so beautiful in her armour
Joanni, Joanni blows a kiss to God
And she never wears a ring on her finger...

A Coral Room

There's a city, draped in net
Fisherman net
And in the half light, in the half light
It looks like every tower
Is covered in webs
Moving and glistening and rocking
It's babies in rhythm
As the spider of time is climbing
Over the ruins.

Put your hand over the side of the boat
What do you feel?

My mother and her little brown jug
It held her milk
And now it holds our memories...

A Sky of Honey (Disc 2)

Prelude

Mummy...
Daddy...
The day is full of birds
Sounds like they're saying words...
- Spoken by Bush's son, Berty.

Prologue

We're gonna be laughing about this
We're gonna be dancing around
It's gonna be so good now.

It's gonna be so good now
It's gonna be so good
Can you see the lark ascending?

Oh will you come with us
To find the song of the oil and the brush?

An Architect's Dream

Watching the painter painting
And all the time, the light is changing
And he keeps painting
That bit there, it was an accident
But he's so pleased
It's the best mistake, he could make
And it's my favourite piece.
It's just great.

The Painter's Link

Who knows who wrote that song of summer,
That blackbirds sing at dusk…

So all the colours run
See what they have become
A wonderful sunset

Sunset

Who knows who wrote that song of summer,
That blackbirds sing at dusk,
This is a song of colour,
Where sands sing in crimson, red and rust,
Then climb into bed and turn to dust.

Every sleepy light
Must say goodbye
To the day before it dies
In a sea of honey
A sky of honey
Keep us close to your heart
So if the skies turn dark
We may live on in
Comets and stars.

Somewhere In Between

It was just so beautiful.

This is where the shadows come to play twixt the day
And night
Dancing and skipping
Along a chink of light

Somewhere in between
The waxing and the waning wave
Somewhere in between
What the song and the silence says
Somewhere in between
The ticking and the tocking clock
Somewhere in a dream between
Sleep and waking up
Somewhere in between
Breathing out and breathing in
Like twilight is neither night nor morning

Not one of us would dare to break
The silence
And, oh how we have longed
For something that would
Make us feel so...

Nocturn

Could be in a dream
Our clothes are on the beach
These prints of our feet
Lead right up to the sea
No one, no one is here
No one, no one is here
We stand in the Atlantic
We become panoramic...

The stars are caught in our hair
The stars are on our fingers
A veil of diamond dust
Just reach up and touch it
The sky's above our heads
The sea's around our legs
In milky, silky water
We swim further and further...

Oh the dawn has come
And the song must be sung
And the flowers are melting.
What kind of language is this?

We dive deeper and deeper
Could be we are here
Could be in my dream
It came up on the horizon
Rising and rising
In a sea of honey, a sky of honey.

Bright, white coming alive jumping off of the aerial
All the time it's a changing, like now...

All the time it's a changing
And all the dreamers are waking.

Aerial

Oh the dawn has come
And the song must be sung
And the flowers are melting.
What kind of language is this?

I can't hear a word you're saying
Tell me what are you singing
In the sun

All of the birds are laughing
Come on let's all join in.

50 Words for Snow (2011)

Snowflake

I was born in a cloud...
Now I am falling.
I want you to catch me.
Look up and you'll see me.
You know you can hear me.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.

I am ice and dust. I am sky.
I can see horses wading through snowdrifts.
My broken hearts, my fabulous dances.
My fleeting song, fleeting.
The world is so loud. Keep falling. I'll find you.

Wild Man

Lying in my tent
I can hear your cry
Echoing round the mountainside
You sound lonely

You were playing in the snow
You were banging on the doors
You climbed up on the roof
Roof of the world
You were pulling up the rhododendrons
Loping down the mountain
They want to know you
They will hunt you down
Then they will kill you
Run away, run away...
We found your footprints in the snow
We brushed them all away...
You're the wild man.

Snowed In at Wheeler Street

Excuse me I'm sorry to bother you,
But don't I know you?
There's just something about you.
Haven't we met before?
We've been in love forever.

When we got on top of the hill,
We saw Rome burning.
I just let you walk away.
I've never forgiven myself.

And I'd never know where you'd gonna be next
But I'd know that you'd surprise me.

Among Angels

Only you can do something about it.
There's no-one there, my friend, any better.

Aren't we all the same? In and out of doubt.
I can see angels standing around you.
They shimmer like mirrors in Summer.
But you don't know it.
And they will carry you o'er the walls.
If you need us, just call.

There's someone who's loved you forever but you don't know it.
You might feel it and just not show it.

Singles and rarities

Disbelieving Angel (unreleased demo, c. 1973)

Full text online

So much for all the prayers you've learned.
They are no help to basic needs.
And all the worlds they've shown you
Just make you even greedier.

I feel so sorry for you,
Believing because they control.
And of all the guardian angels
They chose me to save your soul!
Oh, I'm just trying to explain,
I'm a disbelieving angel.

Passing Through Air (1978)

Passing through air.
You mix the stars with your arms.
Walking through there.
The doom of eternity balms.
Skies of grey are not today.

Oh! Don't you throw my love away,
I need your loving, I need your loving...

The Magician (1979)

When you reach for a star
Only angels are there
And it's not very far
Just a step on a stair
Take a look at those clowns
And the tricks that they play
In the circus of life
Life is bitter and gay
There are clowns in the night
Clowns everywhere
See how they run
Run from despair ...
- This was a song written for the soundtrack of The Magician of Lublin (1979), based on the 1960 novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer; Kate's singing of it appears at times in the background within the film - YouTube video

When the fantasy bells
Of the universe ring
You can fly through the sky
On a dragonfly's wing.
There is magic within
There is magic without
Follow me and you'll learn
Just what life's all about.

December Will Be Magic Again (1980)

December will be magic again.
Take a husky to the ice
While Bing Crosby sings White Christmas.
He makes you feel nice.
December will be magic again.

See how I fall like the snow,
Come to cover the lovers,
(But don't you wake them up)
Come to sparkle the dark up,
With just a touch of make up.
Come to cover the muck up.
Ooh with a little luck —
December will be magic again.

December will be magic again.
Don't miss the brightest star,
Kiss under mistletoe,
I want to hear you laugh,
Don't let the mystery go now.

Warm And Soothing (1980)

Warm and soothing
That's how I remember home.
Walking into arms through the back door
Hearing voices I know well and long for.

I'm reeling in the music,
And I've only had a few...
And I'm afraid by the way we grow old...
My darling...

Under the Ivy (1985)

This little girl inside me
Is retreating to her favourite place.
Go into the garden.
Go under the ivy,
Under the leaves,
Away from the party.
Go right to the rose.
Go right to the white rose
(For me.)

It's not easy for me
To give away a secret —
It's not safe...

Burning Bridge (1985)

I know it works for me.
As we cross the bridge — the burning bridge —
With flames behind us,
We front the line.
It's you and me, baby, against the world.

Be Kind To My Mistakes (1986)

Song for the film Castaway (1986); later included in the collection This Woman's Work

I don't know you,
And you don't know me.
It is this that brings us together.

You Want Alchemy (B-side of The Red Shoes single) (4 April 1994)

What a lovely afternoon
On a cloudbusting kind of day.
We took our own 'Mystery Tour'
And got completely lost somewhere up in the hills.
And we came up on a bee-keeper,
And he said "Did you know they can change it all?"

They got alchemy.
They turn the roses into gold
They turn the lilac into honey
They're making love for the peaches.
And they'll do it,
Do it for you.

Quotes about Kate Bush

Arranged alphabetically by author.

One of the main things that brings people to the Brontë Museum from all over the world is Kate Bush. We have copies of her No 1 hit single "Wuthering Heights" in our collection of Brontë-related items. People often arrive at the Brontë novels through that song.
- Alan Bentley, director of the Parsonage Museum

To me, Kate Bush will always represent the age of exploring your sexuality, when you change from a girl to a woman. I guess that's what I found fascinating about Kate, she totally stuck out. She created her own look and sound. There's a timelessness to her music.
- Björk

I think she is still relevant. It's nice to see people reinvent themselves. She was a great performer and a great singer. I like that song, you know the one, "It's me, I'm Cathy…" I love that song. I remember listening to it growing up.
- Mutya Buena of Sugababes

I know this may give her a mystique and make the press all the more curious about her, but that's not the intention; it's not a ploy to get her more attention. She genuinely doesn't see why people should be interested in her personal life and she certainly doesn't like going out to clubs or trendy restaurants. It's just not her.
- Paddy Bush, Kate's brother, as quoted in "Kate Bush" by Amy Standen, in Salon (20 March 2001)

For me, it's not important how well the songs will be received because I think she's already an amazing influence in what she's done. I listen to her stuff a lot while I sketch and I think there is a weird sense of emotional encouragement in her work. There's something therapeutic in her voice and in her attitude, so that sometimes just listening to it can encourage you or give you some kind of energy.
- Hussein Chalayan, fashion designer

I didn't realise how commercially successful she might be. I thought of her more really, I suppose, in the terms of someone like Joni Mitchell — the level of a lady who's very talented, but would appeal to a more esoteric audience. But she had different ideas.
- David Gilmour of Pink Floyd who helped Kate's career get started.

Kate Bush's celebrated full return to the stage after a 35-year absence is proving that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Eight positions of the current British albums chart are occupied by the art-rock icon's albums, according to The New York Times, which sets a new record for the artist, whose 1978 debut single "Wuthering Heights" made her the first female in British charts history to have a self-written Number One.
In addition to being the only woman in U.K. charts history to have that many albums in the Top 40, Bush is now trailing Elvis Presley and the Beatles for having simultaneous Top 40 records; Presley had 12 at one point in his career, while the Beatles, at another time, had 11.
- Kory Grow, in "Kate Bush Lands Eight Albums on British Chart Following Comeback Shows", in Rolling Stone (2 September 2014)

One of music's most reclusive and enigmatic figures has re-emerged into what some have seen as a rich era for British female singer-songwriters. Bush's new double album, Aerial, is due out in November, only her eighth after three decades in the business. It will be treated with due reverence.
- Terry Kirby in The Independent (2 September 2005)

That's a song where we were listening to a lot of Kate Bush last summer, and we wanted a song which had a lot of tom-toms in it,I just had my daughter up also, and was kind of feeling in a sense of awe and wonderment, so the song is kind of a Kate Bush song about miracles.
- Chris Martin, on the links between Coldplay's song "Speed of Sound" and Kate Bush's "Running up that Hill (A Deal with God)". He later said "we tried to copy the drums, guitar, melody….etc"

Of course she's still relevant. I wasn't actually in the country when her music first came out, so I only discovered it three or four years ago. What's amazing is that something like "Wuthering Heights" still sounds so different. I actually saw her about nine months ago, we were just passing at an industry event and I went up to her and said I was a big fan and asked her about the new record. She was really excited about it but quite nervous because she felt that everyone was hyping it up a bit and she just wanted to bring out an album. You know, she's a musician.
- Katie Melua

Her music remains reassuringly the same ecstatic alchemy of the humdrum and otherworldly. Recalling the hello-clouds wonder of The Big Sky from 1985's Hounds of Love or the frank paean to menstruation that is Strange Phenomena from her debut, The Kick Inside, Aerial finds Bush marvelling in the magic of the everyday: the wind animating a skirt hanging on a clothes line, the trace of footprints leading into the sea, the indecipherable codes of birdsong.
- MOJO magazine as quoted in The Guardian (28 October 2005)

I simply think she is one of the greatest figures in British music over the last 30 years. There are an awful lot of people in the business wandering around claiming to be artists, but she is one of the few who can genuinely make that claim... I don't think there is any competition, she's on a different level and quite outside them all.
- Paul Rees, editor of Q Magazine, as quoted in The Independent (2 September 2005)

Could Keely Garfield be the Kate Bush of downtown dance? The question is raised by “Wow,” the bizarre, hilarious, enthralling, confounding and cathartic new work that Ms. Garfield presented on Thursday at Danspace Project. Surely it is the recent comeback tour of Ms. Bush that has put that singer-songwriter on Ms. Garfield's mind. But it is “Wow” that suggests the comparison: two British-born women, intensely idiosyncratic and theatrical with outlandish taste in costumes, who follow their imaginations uninhibitedly.
The salient difference would seem to be irony. Much of Ms. Bush's power stems from her absolute sincerity, the sense that she is unaware that anyone might find what she's doing ridiculous. But Ms. Garfield has always been wry, droll, deadpan. Her assertion in a program note that she meant “Wow” to be “entirely sincere without a hint of irony or cleverness” cannot and should not be taken as entirely sincere.
The program also credits Matthew Brookshire with “music inspired by the poetry of Kate Bush.” What we actually hear, though, are Kate Bush songs. Some are played in the original recordings, some chopped up and looped, but most are performed live by the marvelous Mr. Brookshire, on vocals and piano, joined by Ms. Garfield and her four terrific dancers. The arrangements are stripped down and seductively vibrant. Some lyrics are recited in a manner between sports cheer and Greek chorus. Some singsongy melodies are swapped for the tunes of actual nursery rhymes.
Ms. Garfield, in other words, does not shy from the naïveté of her material. Much of her choreography illustrates the lyrics literally, in the manner of a children's pageant.
- Brian Seibert, in "Sincerity and Irony Meet on the Dance Floor" in The New York Times (17 December 2014)

With a voice you either love or hate, she belts out a song with a desperation that grabs you and won't let go.
- Amy Standen , in "Kate Bush" in Salon (20 March 2001)

Bush has always teetered dangerously at the edge of sentimentality and cliché, and her early songs (what one reviewer called her “soft-focus Victorian melodramas”) could have gone all wrong had her bizarre phrasing not somehow let us know how serious she was.
Bush sang melodramas, but she meant them like truth; those “oohs” aren't filler. The conviction in her voice, the baldness and great crushing desperation of it, is overpowering. It's the kind of music that grabs your innards and you turn it up, squint your eyes with the strain of it. Kate Bush was younger than 20 when she wrote “Wuthering Heights.” She couldn't (and still can't) read or write music, but she knew how to make a song true, how to up the tension with a key change, repeat the chorus with a hardness in her voice.
She was a prodigy, an 18-year-old who looked 35, with an ethereal voice and a knack for inventive songwriting. She looks, in photos of the time, simultaneously naive and defiant, like someone who doesn't need other people. Much later in life, when she was asked in an interview with Rolling Stone why she toured so infrequently, Bush replied: “The more I got into presenting things to the world, the further it was taking me away from what I was, which was someone who just used to sit quietly at a piano and sing and play. It became very important to me not to lose sight of that.”
In other words, Bush decided early on that our approval didn't matter. She was doing this from herself and largely for herself and if people didn't like her, or if they didn't understand her, well then, screw them.
- Amy Standen , in "Kate Bush" in Salon (20 March 2001)

I'm really looking forward to Kate Bush's return — I'm no expert on her work but I know some of it and I think she's an incredibly original and talented artist. Anyone who writes most of an album like her first album, The Kick Inside, at 15 years old has got to be pretty special.
- KT Tunstall

When EMI invites a group of journalists to the Royal Academy of Music, in London, for a one-off listen to Kate Bush's new album, they are sending a clear signal — this album is not to be dismissed lightly.
- Darren Waters in a BBC Review: Kate Bush's Aerial (28 October 2005)

A Sky of Honey is, in a sense, a lyric poem set to music. Full of lush, fecund melodies which swing from jazz to rock, it is threaded through with bird song and chatter and feels distinctly organic and earthy.... Side two is the album Pink Floyd might have made if Kate Bush had been their lead singer and lyricist in 1979.
- Darren Waters in a BBC Review: Kate Bush's Aerial] (28 October 2005)
- Bush has written a lyric poem set to music, which has an epic quality, transporting the listener to a deeply lush and fertile landscape. Lyrically cryptic, but strangely seductive, side two is the album Pink Floyd might have made in 1979 if Bush had been their lead singer.
  Concept albums are not everyone's cup of tea — but this is a masterpiece.
  - Variant in a later BBC summary review

A Sky of Honey is a celebration of song itself, which has a child's joyful lack of inhibition about it — Kate Bush is heard laughing freely towards the end while a young child, possibly her son, is heard several times... Aerial stands alongside The Hounds of Love and The Kick Inside as her finest work.
- Darren Waters in a BBC Review: Kate Bush's Aerial] (28 October 2005)

I always heard about Kate Bush being considered one of the most influential female artists during the modern era of pop/rock music, but never understood what her appeal was... But when I recently stumbled upon her debut 1978 single, "Wuthering Heights," I found myself spending hours absorbing as much of her pre-1985 material as possible . . . Listening to an early Kate Bush album brings you far, far, away to a dreamworld filled with pixies and love and Peter Pan and pure hearts . . . "Wuthering Heights" and the rest of The Kick Inside display all of Bush's trademarks: a literary consciousness; flourishing, heartfelt waves and the ability to successfully incorporate just about every eccentric vocal style you've never heard into each song.
- Jared Wolfe, in The Cornell Daily Sun (20 October 2005)

Illusion, dance, mime, even magic — the Tour of Life, as it was called, had the lot.
I shan't forget the way those Pink Floyd-like whale sounds that open The Kick Inside album heralded Kate's entry to the stage as waves were projected on huge screens and her band launched into Moving.
For a split second, the audience thought Kate was lip-synching because there was no microphone, but in pre-dating Madonna by a couple of decades, she was wearing a headset to allow free movement around the stage.
Every song from that first album was performed before the switch to stuff from follow-up Lionheart, virtually every number warranting a change of costume and stage set. ... The entire show was pure theatre.
- Jade Wright, quoting a fan who was at the opening of Kate's one and only musical tour, in "Kate Bush at the Empire, April 3, 1979" by Jade Wright in the Liverpool Echo (29 October 2007)

The Unique Poetry Of Kate Bush (1985)

Review by Sue Hudson in Hi-Fi & Record Review (December 1985)

We've been holding our breath for a long time. Three years of playing the old songs and wondering "whatever next?" Would it be even weirder than The Dreaming? Would it leave more admirers by the wayside, shaking their heads?... The real fans will happily go along for the ride, even if she isn't going the pretty way.

Kate journeys into new and exciting territories. She is an original in a music world dominated by cover versions, regressive movements and identikit superstars. The direct opposite of the archetypal rock star: compulsively introvert in a world of screaming extraverts, middle-class and deeply English amid England's all-pervasive working class American ethos, boldly feminine in rock's macho climate. Her melodic genius and articulate lyrics make the rest seem moronically simplistic.

After a thousand songs on the theme of boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl or Thatcher's Britain, exposure to her music comes as an imaginative release as we go giddily flying into the limitless possibilities of the poetic viewpoint. Here is talk of whales, of Peter Pan, kites, Houdini, mysticism... Acquaintances have observed, "She lives in a world of her own." But it's a world that lives within all of us, and her songs shine light into neglected areas of our minds.

Her subjects come tripping from library shelves, television and cinema screens and musty books of fairy tales, the stuff that dreams are made of. She spins tunes that haunt, twist and turn the mind, triggering long forgotten moods. Listening intently to her albums is an experience akin to having a lucid and feverish dream. Jungian symbols of youth, innocence, spiritual escape and the dark, feminine realm abound. Ghosts haunt the black vinyl grooves... But it's not all brooding intensity. There are jokes, too...

It's a mischievous paradox that, while rock at its ultra-macho best is exhilarating and energizing, yet just at the moment when it is most strident and loud it leaves you needing something more. Then along comes a shy doctor's daughter from Welling who out-screams the best, out-powers the noisiest and tops it with the satisfying impact of musical and psychological depth. It's almost Wagnerian.

Her talent was precocious. "The Saxophone Song" and "The Man With the Child in His Eyes" were recorded as demo tapes when Kate was still at school. The first album, The Kick Inside (1978), caused tremendous media interest and is still the public's favourite. Her voice, criticized at the time, was small and childlike, the range erratic, if impressive. Since then it has improved enormously, deepening and gaining power and flexibility, until now it is a great asset, individual and capable of both subtle and stunning effects.

The album Never for Ever came next and starts in happy mood, with a summer night of a cha-cha-cha tribute to a new-found hero, "Delius". The philosophic All We Ever Look For creates a remarkable and rare mood of reassurance and upbeat resignation, a Bush specialty . . . The end comes in the horrifying "Breathing", a vision of the nuclear holocaust through the eyes of an unborn child.

On to The Dreaming, a strange, alien album full of mysticism and obscurantae. Its impact owes much to sheer production quality. Kate has gradually taken over this aspect of her records since Lionheart, and each LP is technically more impressive. Her voice here is forward and strong and, on "Leave It Open", deliberately distorted to create a surreal effect. Get Out of My House is a shattering trip into madness, with a stunning culmination which finds Kate braying like a mule amid a chorus of Indian drum talk.

The new album, Hounds of Love, breaks new ground for Kate with the b-side. This is a story — The Ninth Wave — told in a series of songs, like a Pink Floyd concept album.

Casual listeners will miss the depth of the music. You must sit down with the lyric sheet and find out what's going on. All the vocal acrobatics and weird sounds click into place when you know what ideas, stories and situations they are expressing. In most rock and pop, the music and words may be linked, but are basically separate. Kate creates, more and more, a fusion between the two — the sounds directly expressing the subject. This is a throwback to Wagner's music-drama, with its leitmotifs, turning music into an idea. The Beatles revived the technique, and bands of the hippy era like Pink Floyd carried the banner. . . Kate is fast becoming a master in the use of this sonic montage, perhaps because the ideas she is using are far more complex, have more "resonances", than those of her contemporaries.

Kate will never be an academic artist, drily applying intellectual music theory to the delight of a handful of peers, forging into new areas for the sake of "progress". Her style is personal, individual, impressionistic. Like Delius, her music will always flow from poetic necessity, breaking from the confines of tradition because expression demands it. I just hope that she will have the confidence to follow her instincts and not be discouraged by the music press, who in the main are baffled and annoyed by her uniqueness. Unable to pigeon-hole her music, they turn instead to ridicule and condescension to fill the pages. Which is a disservice to the British public who, to their undying credit, have made Kate Bush such a popular success.

Kate Bush rules, OK? (2005)

Article by Michael Berkeley, published in The Guardian (11 October 2005)

When the conductor Richard Hickox rang me one day in 1984 to ask if I could help with a rather unusual job for which he and his choir had been engaged, I was intrigued. Kate Bush, it transpired, was working on her new album, Hounds of Love, and for one track, Hello Earth, she wanted a chorus to recreate the orthodox singing/chanting that made such a contribution to the film Nosferatu.

I had always considered Kate Bush truly original both as a performer and as a songwriter with an unusually fresh sense of harmony. If her new album next month is awaited with some excitement after a long fallow period, then in 1985 it was assumed that Hounds of Love would be something of a final fling at the conclusion of a waning career. I soon realised how wrong this assumption was when Kate sent me a cassette: it was zany, ambitious and yet utterly Kate Bush, but with gaps where I was to do her bidding. Having chatted at length, she sent me a long letter with the words of the song and precise instructions on how it should unfold... Structure was carefully delineated, verses and choruses written out fully and marked up in colour, and she talked of the sound quality in the most graphic terms.

Although she had piano and violin lessons at school, Bush is essentially self-taught. I have always been fascinated by the difference of dynamics at work between popular artists and conventionally trained classical musicians, and had a similar experience with the Edge, of U2, when we worked together on the score of a film called Captive. In fact, gifted "pop" musicians like Bush and U2 are far more demanding of themselves in the studio than classical musicians can afford to be, and will spend days working on a tiny fragment.

Come the recording day, a group of male choristers, more accustomed to singing church services than backing vocals, descended on Bush's home, which was equipped with its own studio. Doubtless they were imagining that they were about to meet a wild-eyed rock babe, but Kate, quiet and unassuming — the kind of sympathetic, slightly shy girl who greets you from behind the counter at the local chemist — introduced us to her friend the bass player Del Palmer, who engineered the session. None of the singers or Richard had ever gone over and over four or five phrases so exactingly. No measure of Bach or Mozart had, in their experience, been subjected to such surgical scrutiny, and I began to worry that their voices might begin to tire. But Bush knew and got what she wanted and "Hello Earth" is, I think, a remarkable track on the album that finally broke the American market and established her as an iconic and hugely influential figure. I can't wait to hear what she has been up to now.

Admit it, guys, she's a genius (2005)

Article by Kitty Empire, in The Observer (30 October 2005)

For me, Kate Bush was always a trump card when the tiresome 'question' of female artistic genius came up. ... Before disgust stopped me getting dragged into these skirmishes, I had a ready arsenal of Girl Greats — Patti Smith, Björk, Nina Simone, Delia Derbyshire, Polly Harvey, and so on. And yet, there would often be some caveat why genius eluded my candidates (ripped off Dylan etc). Until we would get to Kate. Female genius? Kate Bush. End of.
Aerial, the first Kate Bush album in a young lifetime (12 years), re-establishes the fact. It is extraordinary — jaw-dropping, no less.

Aerial succeeds because it's all there for a reason. And because the good stuff is just so sublime. 'King of the Mountain', Bush's Elvis-inspired single, is both a fine opener and a total red herring. Bush's juices really get going on 'Pi', a sentimental ode to a mathematician, audacious in both subject matter and treatment. The chorus is the number sung to many, many decimal places. It's closely followed by a gushing ode to Bush's son, Bertie, that's stark and medieval-sounding. The rest of disc one (aka A Sea of Honey) sets a very high bar for disc two, with the Joan of Arc-themed 'Joanni' and the downright poppy 'How to Be Invisible' raising the hair on your arms into a Mexican wave.
Disc two, subtitled A Sky of Honey, is a suite of nine tracks which, among other things, charts the passage of light from afternoon ('Prologue') to evening ('An Architect's Dream', 'The Painter's Link') and through the night until dawn. Things get a little hairier here.

It's clear Bush is still a force to be reckoned with. The problem, though, with female genius — for many men at least — is that very frequently it is not like male genius. And with its songs about children, washing machines going 'slooshy sloshy', Joan of Arc, Bush's mother, not to mention the almost pagan sensuality that runs through here like a pulse, Aerial is, arguably, the most female album in the world, ever. ... the artistry here is so dizzying, the ambition and scope so vast, that even the deafest, most inveterate misogynist could not fail to acknowledge it. Genius. End of.

Kate Bush: Finally, something for the grown-ups (2005)

The Independent (31 October 2005)

Such is the idiosyncratic nature of her work that she could probably disappear for a half-century and still sustain her own unique position in the pop firmament. But then, who else would write about an obsessive-compulsive housewife or attempt a vocal duet with trilling birds, or, in the most courageous of the album's many unusual strategies, sing huge strings of numbers, a gambit that brings new meaning to the old critic's chestnut about being happy to listen to someone singing the telephone directory?

Many years ago, back near the start of her career, she regarded the domestic demands of motherhood as a dubious prospect, claiming her work was her love, and how could she do that and bring up a child at the same time? The answer, presumably, was not to work for a dozen years.

She has always freely admitted being like a little girl in many ways, and furthermore, happily presumes she'll still be that way in her dotage. It's certainly still a factor on Aerial , both in the track "Bertie" itself and in the memories and reminiscences that cobweb some other songs. But compared to the darker corners of the mind sometimes mined in earlier songs, the new album seems a much sunnier affair: an enduring image I took away from it — not necessarily a lyric, though it might have been — was of windows flung wide open, their curtains billowing out in the breeze, a room's long-dormant dust stirred into life again.

She's unafraid, too, of tackling more problematic areas of sexuality, as for instance when she dealt with cradle-snatching in "The Infant Kiss" and incest in "The Kick Inside". But not all that seems erotic in her music is about sex, as an EMI employee discovered when he found her working on the hypnotic "out-in-out-in" chant section of "Breathing" (from 1980's Never For Ever), and expressed outrage at EMI's young pop princess making such an overtly sexual record. The song is, of course, about breathing. Duhhh!

At around an hour and a half, Aerial is unquestionably a substantial piece of work, and its manifold peculiarities and quirks offer much more interesting fare than that available from today's AOR mainstream. It's also a more mature undertaking than any of her previous albums, an extended meditation on art and light, fame and family, creativity and the natural world. Indeed it seems, come to think of it, like an expansion of the theme of Laura Veirs' gorgeous "Rapture". And since that was the finest song of last year, I'd have to say that leaves Kate Bush still operating at the cutting-edge of intelligent adult pop, every bit as relevant now as at any point in her career. Just a little bit weirder, thank heavens.

The Kate Bush Story (2014)

Quotes of various people from the BBC documentary The Kate Bush Story (2014), listed alphabetically.

One of the things I love about Kate Bush is her absolute ability to take things, to pluck things that you would never expect to see on a rock album, and put them there and make them work. ~ Neil Gaiman

When Kate Bush came along, sort of '78, I was in The Slits , and I remember I was sitting in a van outside our singer's house, waiting to do a gig, and "Wuthering Heights" came on the radio, and I was like "Ooh, WHAT? What's this?" And I kept waiting for the melody to repeat, because, you know, at that time, pop music was very much Radio One, you know it was repeating melodies very quickly, and this melody it meandered on, and this high-pitched voice warbling and dropping, but I was absolutely spellbound.
- Viv Albertine

Babooshka's just one of those song's you just can't get out of your head, can you? You know, how she just takes a word, and you start seeing images and pictures. To a word that maybe you haven't used ... it's "Babooshka" and she's turned that into an emotion, that's just how she's able to use a combination of a word and a combination of a melody and the rhythm of that, and it creates a new language.
- Tori Amos

I just remember pulling aside, I was driving, and I heard it on the radio, in the states — and she didn't really get played a lot in the states, until that song — that really got played — a lot. I remember, I had to pull over, and listen to it, because I'd never heard anything like it.
- Tori Amos, on first hearing "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)"

The intention is to tell a story, to create a sonic world for us, a sonic painting, for us to walk into, without having to see her. She's transcending that. She's choosing to transcend that. And that's a very powerful thing to do.
- Tori Amos

I don't think she's ever particularly wanted to "play the game", has she? But when you've done great work, like she's done, and then you retract from the public, people almost have to make up their own version of you, don't they?
- Brett Anderson

I've spent many, many hours listening to that 30 minutes of music. It's an incredible piece of music, and I would advise anyone who's never heard it to go and listen to it, because it's one of the great pieces of music.
- Brett Anderson, on "The Ninth Wave" section of Hounds of Love

She's sort of stretching the fabric, not just of her voice, but of the whole kind of pop form. ... It's like a child, it's like a kind of reveling in what her voice can do.
- Katherine Angel, on Kate's singing

It's as if, within her voice, there's everything — every possible facet of human experience is their under her surface, and her work as a writer is to constantly draw that out. Not just the particularity of her experiences as a female body, but her experience as a person, which is to be prey to all kinds of forces and sensations.
- Katherine Angel

That's one of like my all-time favorite songs, dude. Music is supposed to evoke emotion, you know what I'm saying, It makes you feel a certain way, you know, that's what the vibrations are. Its, its not stagnant, its not just, not just plain — every time you listen to it, it touches you, it strikes a chord.
- Big Boi, on "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)"

You can hear one note of a Kate Bush song, or one note of her voice even, and know immediately what it is. And that is the biggest feat of any artist, especially when you consider, you know, all the roads that she's gone down.
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent), on Bush's singing

For that to have come out of someone's brain, period, is a remarkable feat. For that to have come out of someone's brain, at 17 years old — this incredible song, incredible song ... there aren't that many amazing pop songs that have two or three key changes in them —‚ and I'm not talking about some modulations, I'm talking: "Okay, now we're in the key of Q." It's like WHAT? But it's so brilliant, it's so memorable. I always karaoke that song — if I drink enough.
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent), on the song "Wuthering Heights"

I read an interview with her one time, where she was asked, something along the lines of "Why do you write from the perspective of a lot of characters?" and she said very simply and eloquently "because they're more interesting than I am."
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent)

I'm convinced that, as great as that record sounds, if you had anyone else sing it, you know, anyone else try to kind of weave and make it do that thing where it burns like wildfire and it comes alive, no one else could do it. It's incredible the way she kind of brings this cold arctic atmosphere, It's just like fire, you know? It's like all aaarh coming out of her mouth. ... and now I'm listening to the song in my head. "Do you know what I really need? Do you know what I really need? I need lalalala yea yo yea yo your love."
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent), on the song "The Sensual World"

I still remember going to the CD store and buying The Sensual World when I was 16, and the cover — there was a rose in front of her mouth, that has bloomed, she's got big wide eyes, and I remember, you know, putting it on the shitty car stereo on the way home, you know — and my life was forever changed.
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent)

You don't ever get the sense that she's making music to pander to anyone. I think you always get her absolute best attempt at her true vision whenever you get a Kate Bush record.
- Annie Clark (AKA St. Vincent)

She's a gift for satirists. Of course it's easy, because dull artists, especially in pop music, are very difficult to satirize. It's all there on a plate wasn't it?
- Steve Coogan

I was called by my agent, who said "Would you like to record a track with Kate Bush?" To which there is only F-ing one possible answer. Unless its me singing. I said, "She does know I can't sing?" "No-no-no, it would be voicing, saying words for snow. … I still can't believe it says "Kate Bush-Stephen Fry."
- Stephen Fry, talking about his work with Kate on 50 Words for Snow, and the credits on the album.

She has a very intense poetic mind. That's what makes it — that voice that comes in.
- Stephen Fry, listening to 50 Words for Snow

The Man with the Child in His Eyes is still one of those things, which right from the get-go ... has its own life, because it's just a great song. ... For all the time that she or I or anyone spend decorating and creating moods, its actually the key element of what your saying, the melody and the chords which still speak louder than all the stuff around, on a great song.
- Peter Gabriel

Creativity comes from the freedom to fail. And freedom to fail comes from experimentation, and that's what gives something its individuality. And, you know, I think her courage, which is the positive way of interpreting it, or bloody-mindedness, which is the negative, is part of what gives her real value as an artist.
- Peter Gabriel

It's extraordinary what that song has been used for — I think a lot of people who have gotten into trouble, have attached themselves to that song, and I think a lot of it is Kate's wonderful voice is there, in a sort of reassuring and loving way, and it just makes them think that perhaps there is going to be that type of love out there for them.
- Peter Gabriel, on his duet with Kate on his song "Don’t Give Up", on his album So

I'd never heard anything like it before. It was like banshee music. This absolutely otherworldly voice, singing about a book, and as a bookish kid, I was always fascinated by anything, any music that seems to be about or inspired by books.
- Neil Gaiman, on the song "Wuthering Heights"

One of the things I love about Kate Bush is her absolute ability to take things, to pluck things that you would never expect to see on a rock album, and put them there and make them work. James Joyce's Ulysses — one of the greatest passages in all of English or Anglo-Irish literature, is Molly Bloom's glorious soliloquy ending in a sequence of Yeses. It's about embracing the world of the senses, embracing yourself, embracing sex, embracing love, embracing the future, embracing all possibility, and it goes all the way back to me, to "Wuthering Heights" — this is somebody who is not afraid of books. This is somebody who is not afraid of reading, somebody who's not afraid of writers, and who's not afraid of translating, being an intermediary, being a door, between the world of books and the world of rock.
- Neil Gaiman

Kate Bush makes a record, and you don't hear from her. And you play the stuff she has made, and one day you are surprised, and she brings out something else, and she's been quietly working away on it, for however long she wanted to work on it, and I love that. I love the willingness to be quiet, until its time to speak — which is something that she does over and over.
- Neil Gaiman

Its funny no one ever applies the term "progressive rock" to Kate Bush, but to me its prog. It's the same think I love about the best prog, it's like, the really sort of brash stuff, people showing technical ability, I have no interest in, but the experimental dreamy stuff, that sort of came from many places at once, I set her stuff next to, well next to Janis, is the obvious comparison...
- Guy Garvey

I had a listen, I was intrigued ... by this strange voice, and I went to her house, met her parents down in Kent, and she played me, it must have been forty or fifty songs, on tape, and I thought, I should try to do something. ... We were making — Pink Floyd was making the Wish You Were Here album, and I think we had the record company people down at Abbey Road, in number 3, and I said to them "Do you want to hear something I've got? And they said "sure", so we found another room, and I played it to them, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", and they said "Yep, thank you – we'll have it."
- David Gilmour, on first hearing 15 year old Kate's demo tapes, and meeting with her.

It is absolutely beautiful, isn't it? And its a sort of over two years before any of the other recordings she did. That is her singing at the age of 16, and having written those extraordinary lyrics — about whatever they're about.
- David Gilmour, listening to The Man with the Child in His Eyes

This is a whole universe I can dive into — and for me, it was very avant-garde, and expressive and kind of from a complete different planet to everything else that you see from the eighties ... it's like she was definitely out their on her own. ... She seems to have an endless kind of ability to put herself in and with empathize with different characters and viewpoints.
- Natasha Khan

I really thank Kate, because these touchstones like "This Woman's Work", that kind of song, it's celebrating everything that's so wonderful about being a woman, and being nurturing, and intuitive and emotional, and gentle and sensual, and just like really intimate. People don't put their hearts on the line in that vulnerable way very much, and me, as an artist myself, it's helped me to not be frightened, to show all, as much of my vulnerability as a woman as possible, and in that be powerful.
- Natasha Khan

They're not "normal" songs. None of her songs have been "normal." She's just who she is, she's unique. She's — a mystery. She's the most beautiful mystery. ... Let me tell you a story: when I had my civil partnership, nine years ago, in 2005, and Kate — we invited Kate, we didn't think she'd come but she came, she came with her husband Danny, and there were a lot of very famous people in that room, there were like 600 people — and all anybody wanted to meet was Kate Bush. I mean, musician, anybody, they couldn't believe Kate Bush was there. She's kind of an enigma.
- Elton John

"Wuthering Heights" was not your normal type song — but that's why it was so brilliant. It was something out the norm. When something like that comes along, they don't come along that often. When does the next Kate Bush come along, after Kate Bush? There hasn't been one.
- Elton John

That record she did with Peter Gabriel saved my life. That record helped me get sober. So she played a big part in my actual downfall and kind of "rebirth'" as it were. That record helped me so much. I never told her that, but it did.
- Elton John, on her duet with Peter Gabriel on the song "Don’t Give Up", on his album So

When I first heard it, I thought that's extremely challenging, the vocal — it was almost hysterical, and it was so up there, the register, but it was absolutely fascinating. And I know at the time a lot of my friends couldn't bear it, they thought it was just "too much" — but that's exactly what drew me in.
- John Lydon, on "Wuthering Heights"

My favorite album by her is The Dreaming, and I think she produced that one herself. That got a lot of criticism — but I loved it. It was overloaded with textures, and tones and all manner of things. It's a record that I still can play to this day, and still hear new things.
- John Lydon

I was teaching at the Dance Centre in Covent Garden. Kate turned up, dressed very properly in her ballet tights and things, and her hair straight back, looking very, very professional indeed, a very, very serious student. But as timid as hell, and of course she took a place at the back of the class, you know, I had to coax her forward. I mean she was extremely shy, extremely timid, and of course the first thing I had to do was, you know, bring her out of herself, give her courage. I have to say that once Kate actually started dancing, she was a wild thing, she was wild. … One day, some months after knowing her, I got back to my home … and there was this LP pushed under the door, The Kick Inside — and there, dedicated to me was this beautiful song "Moving" — I didn't know she had any aspirations of being a singer. She never talked about herself.
- Lindsay Kemp

I knew from day one, I knew ... there was no way this girl was not going to make it. She was going to be a huge success. There was no way, because she was so driven for it. And her enthusiasm for it all was infectious.
- Del Palmer

The working relationship was never a problem, you know. We always worked together reasonably well, you know, we always argue, and we always have and always will. I've always argued with Kate, and she's always argued with me, but I guess that's just the way it is, you know, so I feel I'm emotionally involved with it all, to a great extent, you know, much more so than most people would imagine. Not only did we have a personal relationship, and I work with her — I really love her music, I really do... to the point, where I virtually work with nobody else — because nobody else comes close.
- Del Palmer, on the break up of his personal relationship with Kate, and his continued work with her musically.

I only like extreme talent. It's the only thing I can listen to. Where does Kate Bush come from? You can't hear her influences. It's like Billie Holiday, when I first heard Billie Holiday, I'd never heard anything like that in my life — the same with Kate Bush. I can't figure out musically, artistically, who her mother and father is.
- Tricky

External links

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has an article about:

Kate Bush

Commons

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Kate Bush

Reviews of Aerial:

Review: Kate Bush's Aerial (BBC)
"Admit it, guys, she's a genius" - The Observer (30 October 2005)
Kate Bush Returns with 'Aerial' (NPR audio review)
Kate Bush: The sequel", The Independent (2 September 2005)