Singer, songwriter, producer and dancer, Kate Bush is a woman of many talents, and remains wholly unparalleled as one of the finest and most boundary-pushing British artists in music history.
In recent years, she found a renewed popularity among younger generations following the inclusion of her 1985 mega hit Running Up That Hill in Netflix's smash horror/sci-fi series Stranger Things in 2022. Songs such as Babooshka, Wuthering Heights, and Army Dreamers also amassed a whole new audience of listeners thanks to Gen Z fans on TikTok adopting the tracks to accompany countless videos.
Though they're undoubtedly some of the best examples of Kate's brilliant and marvellously eccentric songwriting, these songs are only the tip of the iceberg; her catalog is widely diverse, and home to so much more magic. As we step out from under the overshadowing height of her greatest hits, we celebrate ten of her best deep-cuts, and enter a world full of snowman romances, ghostly magicians and childhood fantasy.
Under The Ivy (1985)
In 1985, Under The Ivy was released as the B-side to Bush’s beloved anthem Running Up That Hill. Though she would perform it on television a year later for Channel 4’s cult music programme The Tube - originally hosted by Jools Holland and Paula Yates, the latter bestowing a heartfelt introduction for the rendition - the release would remain overshadowed by the career-defining popularity of its reverse side, despite being one of Bush’s prettiest songs. A bare-boned, piano-led ballad, Under The Ivy is a gorgeous daydream that ponders the innocence of forgotten childhood romances through the scenario of two lovers meeting secretly in a rose garden, hidden by the foliage.
Houdini (The Dreaming, 1982)
While the song’s backstory might be staged on its cover - a recreation of the moment Harry Houdini was supposedly passed a key via his wife through a kiss during one of his many daring escape acts - Bush’s penultimate track on her 1982 album The Dreaming is undoubtedly one of her more obscure offerings.
Following the magician’s death in 1926, his widow Bess tried to contact him through mediumship - a practice Houdini spent much of his life trying to expose as fraudulent and exploitative. Believing she had been cruelly deceived by a psychic who correctly guessed the code word Houdini had suggested to his wife to use as proof of communication between worlds, her pain can be heard through Bush’s mournful, manic bellows, showcasing her vocals at their most unconventional. Prior to this emotional outpouring, the song sparkles with a beautiful, chiming melody, capturing Bess’ momentary belief in a world perhaps harbouring real magic, rather than purely make-believe tricks.
Misty (50 Words For Snow, 2011)
Bush’s 2011 frost-themed album 50 Words For Snow features two of her lengthiest songs: Lake Tahoe and Misty, both weighing in at over 10 minutes. As if recorded within the wind-chilled expanse of a snowy landscape, the tracks are spacious, bleak, and perfectly encapsulate the cold yet quiet beauty of a long winter. Backed by slack, wandering jazz, Bush softly hums through Misty in her rarely utilised lower register, musing over the process of carefully building a snowman before making love to him, leading to his eventual death the next morning (he melts, surprise!). Distinctively Bush, Misty is both charming and somewhat unnerving, as she describes the creature as having "ice-cream lips" and a “crooked mouth” that “is full of dead leaves".
The Song Of Solomon (The Red Shoes, 1993)
Though it might feature the uncharacteristically heavy-handed lyrics ‘Don’t want your bullshit / Just want your sexuality’, The Song Of Solomon is enchantingly erotic, its gentle pitter-patter of drums lightly dancing around a candle-lit melody and Bush’s impassioned declarations on the chorus, transforming the pert few lines into something deeply sensual and addictive. Though the 2011 Director’s Cut version is a worthy, marginally more tender listen, it lacks the same tantric spirit of the original, as featured on her seventh studio album, 1993’s The Red Shoes.
Heads We’re Dancing (The Sensual World, 1989)
Inspired by her friend’s horror of having spent a night unknowingly flirting with Robert Oppenheimer - aka the man instrumental in the creation of the atomic bomb - Bush wrote possibly the most controversial song of her career. Fascinated with the idea of being bewitched by mysterious - albeit dangerous - men, Bush focused her sights on the most abhorrent figure of them all, Adolf Hitler. Though later understanding that the track might be considered offensive, the singer was adamant in squashing any idea of romance. Instead, Heads We’re Dancing follows a woman who spends a night dancing with an alluring figure before developing vengeful hindsight on discovering his true identity (the Führer). “To have been so close to the man…”, Bush imagines during a Radio 1 interview. “She could have tried to kill him…”
The Morning Fog (Hounds Of Love, 1985)
Closing Hounds Of Love, the song acts as an intentional finale, putting to bed the heavy atmosphere produced from the chart-topping album’s previous songs that explore life, death, hardship and heartbreak. The record’s second side, subtitled as The Ninth Wave, takes the listener on a cinematic seven-song journey, detailing the imagined story of a woman lost at sea at night. The Morning Fog motions the protagonist’s rescue, before she’s rebirthed into a new life, one defined by her gratitude and love for the people around her. The song itself shimmers with a sunshine-filled, reassuring melody befitting of its title; a step into a new dawn, comforted by the clarity it brings.
The Big Sky (Meteorological Mix - 1986)
Carefree, earthy and full of childlike wonder, on The Big Sky, Bush attempts to view the world with the eyes of her former childhood self. Though the original is superbly playful, one of the song’s remixes - known as the Meteorological Mix and only featured on the single’s 12 inch release - is effectively as buoyant as a child frolicking through the wild. Revisiting The Dreaming’s Aboriginal influence, the track begins with her brother Paddy on the didgeridoo, before tribal, pounding drums and a filthy slap bass line spins into something truly gleeful - and even a little bit disorientating.
James And The Cold Gun (The Kick Inside, 1978)
Probably considered Bush’s most conventional and radio-friendly creation in terms of traditional structure, James And The Cold Gun is a highly underrated, glam rock-leaning head-rocker, featured on her very first album, The Kick Inside. Originally planned as her debut single by EMI (until the singer traded in Wuthering Heights), the track is compellingly joyous, shaped by jaunty piano plonking, Queen-esque guitar posturing, a rip-rolling riff in the post-chorus and plenty of oh-so-fun ‘woo-hoos’ from Kate. Though the lyrics warn of a western hero dying alone, the melody fizzes with irresistible delight, making it hard to separate from the repeat button.
In Search Of Peter Pan (Lionheart, 1978)
Childhood is often a theme within Kate’s writing, though in In Search Of Peter Pan, it's navigated in a way that's more personal than nostalgic - she was still a teenager at the time it was written. Heartbreakingly vulnerable lyrics about conflict between children and parents take centre stage, while delicate, twinkling piano keys caress each word, slowly flowering into a whimsical melody that feels belonging to the world of fairytale. Comparable to birdsong or some kind of forest sprite, Kate’s voice here is particularly ethereal, matching the song's sense of youthful innocence, before closing on lines from Disney’s Pinocchio. A truly magical release.
Egypt (Never For Ever, 1980)
In Egypt, Kate grapples with Western colonialism and an over-romanticised depiction of the title’s namesake, as she muses over pyramids, sphinxes, red sand and other tropes affiliated with the region. Self-described as 'an attempted audial animation of the romantic and realistic visions of a country’, Kate attempts to dismantle Egypt's glamorised sense of mystery through a vast soundscape, littered with disembodied screams, hypnotic synth and a beautifully strange, unsettling melody. It also features possibly her most brilliantly audacious lyric, ‘My pussy queen knows all my secrets’.
