This Woman’s Work
Across the decades, there have been many contenders to the king of prog crown, from pioneers Robert Fripp and Keith Emerson, to contemporary luminaries Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson. But there’s only ever been one queen: Kate Bush. To call her a precocious talent seems guilty of gross understatement – Bush wrote The Man With The Child In His Eyes when she was just 13 years old. A cassette tape caught the ear of David Gilmour, who produced the 1975 demo that landed the youthful singer-songwriter her record deal with EMI.
Bush’s progressive spirit has infused everything she’s done. She’s built a huge and devoted following across the world despite only ever undertaking a single tour, in 1979. She embraced the possibilities of sampling, not to lift melodic passages or riffs from other people’s songs, but to create sounds in her music that no one had ever heard before. She freely blended human drummers with drum machines, ignoring any thought of the two being mutually exclusive, always focused on capturing the right feel and sound to serve the music.
Her third album, Never For Ever, was the first record by a British female solo artist to top the UK albums chart and she wrote it entirely herself. She might have been a pop smash, but that only seemed to impel Bush to become ever more adventurous, creating epic concept works in the seven-part The Ninth Wave on Hounds Of Love, and the nine-part A Sky Of Honey on Aerial.
She’s influenced generations of musicians and artists, a trend that seems set to gain momentum as new listeners have been introduced to her music through Stranger Things. To celebrate the undisputed, unchallenged queen of prog, we’ve asked 40 famous fans to pick their favourite tracks from her incredible catalogue. Is yours included? Read on!
“Kate Bush is such a consummate storyteller. Her songs draw you in and take you on an emotional journey. The vulnerability is just astonishing.”
Alice Lowe
WUTHERING HEIGHTS
The Kick Inside, 1978
Every year on the singer’s birthday, July 30, fans celebrate The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever by recreating Bush’s dance routine in the iconic red dress from the music video. The song topped the charts in six countries with its gothic grandeur and sweeping drama.
MIKAEL ÅKERFELDT, Opeth
“She’s one of those magical artists – there’s not a lot of them, not of that calibre. She’s top of the pile. Everybody knows it. She was running her own thing [when] nobody else did it. She carved out her own niche in the pop scene: Wuthering Heights, what a fucking genius song. How can you write a song like that? It’s in, what, 7/4? It’s a singalong pop song, and you don’t even notice the turn on the drums. Running Up That Hill is a beautiful fucking song, too. I get shivers just thinking about it. She’s untouchable.”
THE SAXOPHONE SONG
The Kick Inside, 1978
DAMIAN WILSON
“Her beautiful freedom within melody and the sensuality of her work simply captured me. The uplifting bursts still never cease to remind me of the excitement I felt when I first heard it. The song has clearly been written by a young, naïve mind. The whole album is a girl waking up to womanhood. It’s callow youth mixed with accomplished musicianship, and beautifully captured.
“Kate Bush’s career is an example of the record industry getting behind youthful creativity and encouraging a raw emerging talent to produce something truly exceptional.”
THE MAN WITH THE CHILD IN HIS EYES
The Kick Inside, 1978
STEVE HOGARTH, Marillion
“I’m all about the lyrics, of course, and whenever I hear this song, I think of my dear departed dad tucking me in when I
