illusionofjoy | OTR: Kate Bush

The Dreaming is easily my favourite of Kate Bush's full-length album. Granted, everything she has ever done is pretty much brilliant, but there is something appealing about the weirdness of The Dreaming…and I can't rightly explain what it is.

Released in 1982, two years after Never For Ever, The Dreaming was the first album that Bush produced entirely on her own. This is Kate Bush following her own muse completely and the complete forsaking of any outside influences in the studio is felt quite strongly. Her beautiful weirdness is given fully free reign here in way that it didn't quite have with her previous albums and which effectively foreshadowed the coming of Hounds of Love.

The Dreaming opens with the jarring "Sat In Your Lap," which alternates between three time signatures (assuming my rhythm counting is correct: 4/4, 5/4 and 7/4). The song yanks the listener around and while some have condemned it as a strange condemnation of individual intellect, I've always listened to it with the same interpretation as I've listened to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall Part 2" - it's hard to actually learn when someone is merely trying to beat facts into your head.

From there the album moves onto the strangely jaunty "There Goes a Tenner," the meanings behind which I've yet to parse. Obviously I need to read more. "Pull Out the Pin" continues the mood of "Tenner" within the first few measures only to twist it into to something ever so slightly unnerving.

"Suspended in Gaffa" puts things back in a happier note, or so it seems. "Gaffa," from what my reference materials tell me is an English colloquialism for "boss" or "old man." "I don't know why I'm crying," Bush sings, begging the questions: what kind of relationship is this and what is going on in it? Are these tears of joy? Pain? Both, perhaps?

"The Dreaming" is lyrically surreal, painting images of the Australian outback through the mind's eye of Salvatore Dalí. I also believe it to be one of the few entries in the world of popular music to make extensive use of a didgeridoo. Along with xylophones, didgeridoos deserve more prominence in the world of recorded music.

Completely ignoring the lyrics, "Night of the Swallow" coupled with "All The Love" tends to bring me mental images of lying in bed alone, looking over at the clock and seeing that it is 3:00AM or some other ungodly hour when you'd probably be better off asleep. What makes things worse is that you are thinking of an ex-lover who has found someone new to spend the night with…and you know with unabashed certainty that this person who once laid next to you is having the best sex of their life with this new love (even if only in your mind). And you feel awful and frustrated and helpless and stupid for it.

I wonder what Kate Bush actually meant when she wrote those two songs.

The cover art of The Dreaming directly relates to "Houdini." On the cover, Bush is shown with a small key in her mouth, ready to pass it - presumably via a kiss - to a man bound in chains standing in front of her. The phrase, "I'll kiss you so you can be free" comes to mind. Meditate on that.

Incidentally, Jill Sobule wrote and performed a song entitled "Houdini's Box" which touched on similar symbolism (in a more musically subtle manner). Love is both a prison and eventual watery grave for those who succumb while those who persist and contort are rewarded by breathing air again.

The crown jewel of The Dreaming is it's closing track, "Get Out of My House." As unhinged and downright frightening and angry as Kate Bush gets, "House" obviously influenced Tori Amos' early work - particularly the song "Precious Things." In any case, the song was inspired by Steven King's novel The Shining, which pretty much tells you all you need to know going in. Doors slam out the percussion while Bush screams, whispers and even brays like a donkey to wring out all the horror of this haunting. On paper it looks like it would sound ridiculous, but all the pieces fit together to sonically paint a deeply unsettling narrative. I could listen to this one song alone ad infinitum, so compelling it is.