The song began with the soon-to-be familiar keyboard arpeggios. Then the first verse started, and I was captivated straight away, not only by the remarkably wide-ranged voice, but also by the chords. You see, for the past week, I had been trying to compose a new piece of music. I hadn't got very far. All I had managed to come up with so far was…
A / / / | F / / / | E / / / |
I had stumbled on the unusual chord change from A major to F major while noodling about on my guitar. Unusual, because (assuming the piece is in the key of A major), then an F major chord makes no sense, and bends the “rules” of conventional harmony. Not exactly a new idea, but strange enough to make it relatively unusual. The E major chord returns to normality, but then I was stuck on what to do next.
I tried out plenty of chords to follow the E major, obvious ones like D major, B minor and F# minor, as well as less obvious ones, but none of them hit the spot. Then came that fateful evening when I heard Wuthering Heights, which goes like this…
A / / / | F / / / | E / / / | C# /// |
C# major! How in the world did she come up with that? I would never have thought of that, as it’s so unrelated to the original key, and yet in context it sounds perfect. This wasn't any ordinary pop song, it bore no resemblance to the female-led pop of the day, such as Abba and Blondie. It was more like progressive rock, and yet here it was on a commercial radio programme, apparently on its way up the singles chart.
I carried on listening, taking in every note and chord. After repeating the four-chord progression a few times, the verse came to end on an Ab chord which coincided with the word “loved” (“I hated you, I loved you too”). Suddenly the C# chords made sense. Perhaps it would be more correct to refer to them as Db major chords, as that is the fourth chord in the key of Ab major. Or is Ab major the fifth chord in the key of Db major? Ambiguity you see, it makes the musical world go round. Thank goodness it does, otherwise we'd still be listening to nursery rhymes.
Then a pre-chorus began “Bad dreams in the night…”. Again, the chords were ambiguous, ending on a suspension, Fsus4 repeated over the words “Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights”. Normally Fsus4 would be followed by a chord which resolves the suspension, possibly F major or F minor, but instead, the chorus began with a Gb major chord! By now my head was spinning, and my embryonic, developing musical ear and powers of harmonic analysis were overwhelmed and I couldn't follow the chords any more. I sat back and listened to the glorious chorus, taking in the whole arrangement.
I found myself focusing on the drum pattern. I thought I had heard something strange, almost as if the drummer had missed out a beat on the snare drum. Then it happened again. I started counting the beats, and then it hit me! Like most pop and rock songs, Wuthering Heights is in 4/4 time. Unlike other songs, there are four individual bars of 2/4 time mixed in with the more conventional bars (“I've come home”, and “let me in-a your window”).
After the chorus, another verse, returning to the ambiguous chords starting on A major. Then a repeat of the pre-chorus, but with different words. Naturally, a repeat chorus came next. Then, a bridge “Ooh! Let me have it…” seemed to change into yet another key, the relative minor, all the time building tension, until the sustained word “Cathy”, which lasted so long the band had the time to state two chords underneath it, first Gb major, then Bb minor.
The tension was now almost unbearable, but thankfully after a powerful tom-tom fill the chorus returned, first once, then twice, and as the final chorus began to end I became aware of a sustained lead guitar note which was gradually being faded up until it became the centre of attention. A beautiful guitar solo was unfolding, a sound almost as lovely as the singer’s voice. It was high-pitched and melodic, improvising its way around the chorus chord progression, including beautifully bent notes. I became aware that the song was fading, and then the DJ made his announcement, and I noted the singer’s name: Kate Bush.
I resolved to find out more about this person, which was not so easy to do in those days, long before the Internet. Luckily there were weekly music papers. I don't remember which one it was, NME, or possibly Sounds, maybe even Melody Maker. What I discovered hit me like a ton of bricks. Apparently Kate Bush had written the song herself, and she was only a year older than me: nineteen. Nineteen!
This was clearly a musician of genius, and as far above my own capabilities as could be imagined. I was, indeed, not worthy. Obviously I abandoned my partly written composition, as Kate Bush had instantly made it redundant.
I bought the single, then the album “The Kick Inside” it came from, and every song was wonderful, filled with that extraordinary voice, and more unusual textures and chord changes. Then the second album “Lionheart” came out, and didn't chart as high as the first, but I adored it and still do.
So now it was 1979, and Kate went on tour. Like several of my friends, I wanted to go and see her, probably at the Hammersmith Odeon, but I had a problem. I had just joined a band, and we were working 4 nights a week. As a new boy, I couldn't go to the bandleader and say “sorry, I can't play next Saturday as I’m going to see Kate Bush”. Good gigs were (then as now) hard to come by. I said to myself “not to worry, I'll catch her follow-up tour next year”. Little was I to know…
One day, I received an interesting tip. Some members of Kate Bush’s live touring band had formed a jazz-rock fusion band called the Stapleton All-Stars, and were playing in certain London pubs. Naturally, I went to the next available gig, at the Cricketers, not far from the Oval in South London, and a pub that I was later to play at myself. Sure enough, there was Stuart Elliot on drums, late of Cockney Rebel, as well as a phenomenal young guitarist called Alan Murphy who blew me away with his playing. He remains the best guitarist I've seen to this day, and together with many of my guitarist friends I miss him, as he was to die of an AIDS-related illness some years later.
At the back of the pub, watching the band was a by-now familiar face: Kate Bush herself! Oh my, how beautiful she was, and tiny (hardly more than five feet tall)! I almost fainted on the spot. One of my flat-mates cheekily called out to her “all right Kate!”, but I didn't dare say anything. After all, I was not worthy! Yet there I was, breathing the same air as a goddess-like genius in an ordinary South London pub.
When the third album “Never For Ever” came out, Alan Murphy was all over it. His high points were the lightning-fast solo on the track “Violin”, and the powerful riffs towards the end of the single “Breathing”, still one of my favourite songs of all time.
I continued to follow Kate’s career. I was delighted when she began to produce her own recordings, and I enjoyed the experimental textures of the fourth album “The Dreaming”. When “Hounds of Love” came out after a long gap, I recognised it as a masterpiece, something no-one else had ever come close to. To her melodic, harmonic and lyrical talents, Kate had added a mastery of the recording studio, and the latest cutting edge electronic equipment.
How do you follow a work of perfection like “Hounds Of Love”? You can't, no matter how hard you try. Even so, Kate’s subsequent albums have all been worthwhile to listen to, even though as a middle-aged mother, she is now very far away from the teenager who wrote “The Man With The Child In His Eyes”. I too am now on the far side of 50, but like Kate I'm still a musician, and there are plenty of notes left in me yet. One thing I've discovered is that musicians, real musicians that is, get better as they get older. The fury of my teenage guitar-playing has long-since gone, but it's been replaced by something far more valuable: taste.
By the way, that pub band The Stapleton All-Stars had a bass player called Felix Krish, like all the members of that band (as well as its later incarnation SFX) a world-class, supremely talented musician. I am happy to report that in recent years I have been lucky enough to play several gigs with Felix, one of the musical heroes of my younger days. Here's a sample of his work, together with the late, lamented Alan Murphy.
In a few weeks, I will be putting right the mistake I made way back in 1979. I'm finally going to see Kate Bush perform live. I don't care if they call the place the Eventim Apollo, to me it will always be Hammersmith Odeon!
