The Kate Bush Story: Running Up That Hill

"Moments Of Pleasure" by Kate Bush

For those people who don't know who Kate Bush is

and completely forgotten who she may have been,

she is the waif-like singer and songwriter who had

an enormous hit with her first eerie single, Wuthering Heights.

She was an original, a rarity in the pop world,

where so many performers look and sound much the same.

Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a tree? No, no, no, it's a Bush.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kate Bush.

"Wow" by Kate Bush

Kate Bush. Kate Bush.

Just like fire, you know? It's all just, like, coming out of her mouth.

"Army Dreamer" by Kate Bush

She has made her performances into something of an art form,

mingling dance and mime and all kinds of theatre.

"Sat In Your Lap"

I mean, 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.

There were moments of, like, hairbrush in the mirror,

like, Running Up That Hill and dancing round the lounge.

The music speaks for itself,

but liking her makes you feel a bit clever.

Hours I've been in my room by myself, through good times

and bad times, and listened to her on headphones

and her taking me away from my stress.

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 with her husband Danny,

and there were a lot of very famous people in that room.

There was, 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.

I don't think she's ever particularly wanted to play

the game, has she?

But I think 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?

You can hear one

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 all the roads that she's gone down.

"Wuthering Heights"

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 go and do a gig,

and Wuthering Heights came on the radio, and I was like, "Huh?"

"What's this?!", and I kept waiting for the melody to repeat,

because at that time,

pop music was very much, you know, Radio One was repeating melodies

very quickly, and this melody meandered on in this high

pitched voice, warbling and dropping, but I was absolutely spellbound.

When I first heard it, I thought it was extremely challenging.

The vocal was almost hysterical, and so up there, the register.

But it was absolutely fascinating.

I know at the time a lot of my friends couldn't bear it.

They just thought it was too much, but that's exactly what drew me in.

Look! I can see Wuthering Heights!

Well, I saw a series on the television about ten years ago

and it was on very late at night, and I caught literally the last

five minutes of the series, where she was at the window trying to get in.

Who are you?

I'm Catherine Linton.

Oh!

I've come home.

And it just really struck me. It was so strong. And I read the book.

You read the book later?

Yeah, I read the book before I wrote the song,

because I needed to get the mood properly.

I'd never heard anything like it before. It was like banshee music.

This absolute otherworldly voice, singing about a book.

As a bookish kid, I was always fascinated by anything,

any music that seems to be inspired by books.

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 modulations,

I'm talking, like, "OK, now we're in the key of Q." You know,

it's like, "What?!", but it's so brilliant, it's so memorable.

I always karaoke that song if I drink enough.

Wuthering Heights was not your normal type song.

But that's why it was so brilliant.

It was great to hear something out of the norm.

When things like that come along, they don't come along very often.

I mean, when does the next Kate Bush come along after Kate Bush?

There hasn't been one.

"Aerial Tal" by Kate Bush

Now, let's get back to the beginnings. You're 19 now. 20.20?

Yeah, just. And you're from Kent. Yeah. Is Kate Bush your own name?

Yes, it is. Now, you're father's a doctor. Yes. Is it a musical family?

My brothers are very musical.

They were really responsible for turning me

on to it in the first place.

They were always playing music when I was a kid.

Her brothers were a big part of it.

They were very much, in her early days, her formative years,

particularly people like Paddy.

I mean, he was having all these musical ideas coming in,

he had all these strange musical things that he was into,

lots of strange musical instruments and various forms of music,

and he would run those past her and lots of it would stick.

What do you call it?

It's called a strumento di porco, that's it's real name.

You're Kate's brother, aren't you? Yeah, afraid so.

Is it a sort of a family business, really? Well, yes and no.

I mean, Kate and I have been making music together for years and years.

On different levels, but there's always been music in our family.

When I was young, it was really the music that my brothers played,

and I'd picked out the stuff that I liked and listened to it with them.

What kind of music did they play?

They were into King Crimson at that time,

and Pink Floyd and Blind Faith, Fleetwood Mac, that sort of thing.

When you went to visit the family house, East Wickham,

it sort of reminded me of my parents' house in some ways.

It was a comfortable, middle class doctor's house with a nice garden.

Yet, out of that had grown this strange creature that was

doing wonderful things.

When did you start writing songs? I must have been 11 or 12.

When did the music men come to hear about you, and how?

That was quite a gradual process.

When I was about 14, there was a friend of my brother's called

Ricky Hopper, who was in the business

and he knew a lot of people,

and he acted as a friend to try

and get the tapes across to people,

and after some trying,

there was no response,

and he knew Dave Gilmour from the

Pink Floyd, and Dave came along

to hear me, because at that time, he

was scouting for struggling artists.

I had a listen. I was intrigued by this strange voice.

I went to her house, met her parents down in Kent,

and she played me, God, it must have been 40 or 50 songs...

on tape, and I thought I should try and do something.

SONG CONTINUES THROUGH SMARTPHONE

Dave Gilmour put up the money for me to make a proper demo with

arrangements and selected songs and we took it to the company.

We were making, Pink Floyd, that is,

were making the Wish You Were Here album, and I think we had

the record company people down at Abbey Road in number three.

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, "Yeah, thank you, we'll have it!"

The Man With The Child In His Eyes is still one of those things

that right from the get-go, has its own life

because it's just a great song

and she has, you know, for all the time that she or I or anyone spent

decorating and creating moods,

it's actually the key element of what you're saying, the melody

and the chords and the rhythm

that still speak louder than all the stuff around on a great song.

It is absolutely beautiful, isn't it?

And it's 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.

The thing is with me, I only like extreme talent,

that's the only thing I can listen to, and I like originators.

Where does Kate Bush come from? You can't hear her influences,

you know, 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.

"Hang On To Yourself" by David Bowie

Somebody told me that she was at a '73 gig at Ziggy Stardust.