Tuesday 4 March 2014

Response to Kate Bush Q Magazine interview, 1993.

Kate Bush's music has always been around me. I grew up to it, falling asleep to the 'Hounds of Love' album and dreaming of finding my own Heathcliff to 'Wuthering Heights'. Browsing through an assortment of Kate related bits and bobs online, I stumbled upon a 1990s interview with Q magazine that I hadn't read before. In this interview, she criticizes her early work stating "There's a lot of anger in it. There's a lot of 'I'm an artist, right!". The interviewer mentions the "very stirring" song 'Oh England My Lionheart' to a crushing response of "It makes me just want to die." I can understand an artist's self critique, but the way she speaks about the music I love unsettles me.



My love for her music adopts such a fierce passion for the work, that I find myself barking at the very woman who created the music so important to me. Perhaps when I myself am at a point when I'm "older than I was" I shall too look back on the creations that I am proud of now and see them as scrabbling attempts at mature achievement. But perhaps, also, there will always be someone who'll still appreciate the work for it's young honesty. Not that I've created anything close to Kate Bush's stunning discography- the odd unfinished painting, articles, rambling lyrics in the backs of notepads- but if young Kate has taught me anything it is that life is beautiful and everyone is important. She sings about mothers and children, not (just) movie stars and politicians. Albums like The Red Shoes put me in the center of my own universe, watching fleeting memories and stories dance around my ears as she escorts me through other worlds, each character attaching themselves to me and relating themselves to my fantasies.

At the end of all this, there isn't much to conclude. I like Oh England and The Dreaming, and she doesn't. Or didn't in 1993. No matter- I don't like her new album! Love you really Kate, but don't be so hard on yourself. 

Long live Queen Kate!