OTR: Kate Bush - Never For Ever

[illusionofjoy]

As I've yet to purchase either The Kick Inside or Lionheart, the Kate Bush segment of the "Off the Rack" series begins with her third album: Never for Ever. A superstar in England, Kate Bush's fortunes don't seem nearly as rich in the United States. It was only because of the college radio station that I got to initially explore any of her music in depth, prompted by curiosity over hearing a five-second clip of "Wuthering Heights" on one of VH1's many random "best of" programs. The only times I've ever heard Bush's music elsewhere is when "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" had been played - it could be a small club or a commercial radio station, that seems to be the only song anyone will touch.

And that is a bloody shame.

Kate Bush is one of the most talented songwriters and performers of our time. Her albums are like novels put to music - an apt comparison, given how much of her inspiration comes from literary works (for example, the aforementioned "Wuthering Heights"). Still, to take the experience of reading a page and make a listener feel as if that it what is happening during a song cycle is truly amazing. How many musicians can do that? How many artists of any type can transcend their chosen medium?

Kate Bush was initially introduced to the business of music via Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, who recorded her early demos and was instrumental in getting her signed to EMI. It is obvious that Bush took some of that Floydian influence with her, as the sequencing of her albums is smooth and logical - like an album should be! The songs are like large puzzle pieces, one intersecting into another to make an even more fascinating whole out of curious splashes of colour. Down to a more basic technical nitpicking, Bush uses sound effects (again, much like Pink Floyd) to augment the music on her albums. This is obvious with the screams and shattering glass in "Babooshka" and the footsteps with doors opening upon different crowd noises (vortexes to other words, perhaps) in "All We Ever Look For."

The majority of Never For Ever is a collection of twisted fairy tales. Anyone thinking that fairy tales were sweet little bedtime stories has never been exposed to the originals (where the big bad wolf laid in bed dressed as grandma, telling Red Riding Hood to disrobe fully and climb in with him). The album spawned three singles, one of which is the opening track and the other two closing the set. It is perhaps telling that two of these three singles break from the general theme of the overall album - "Army Dreamers" seems more of a straightforward short story where nothing supernatural intervenes and "Breathing" is a sobering look at what happens to a society after The Bomb is dropped and there's nothing outside but fallout.

In fact, "Breathing," in my opinion, ranks among the greatest closing tracks of all time. I always love when an album closes with a big emotional impact and leaves me wanting it to not ever end. "Breathing" is one of those songs. Dismal and beautiful, it undulates between a beat that seems almost tripping over itself during the verses like a lost soul searching for nonexistent hope in the ruin of the world. The chorus then opens up to a more steady 4/4 beat as we foolish mortals cling to hope in the face of utter despair. The bridge is a single wall of white noise, through which one can hear a faint voice detailing the consequences of dropping an atomic bomb. The coda explodes with backup singers wailing, "what are we going to do? We are all going to die" as Bush sings, "give me something to breath!" Heavy stuff - and one of the best songs ever written and recorded.