Memory is unreliable. I’m trying
to remember the first time I heard
The Dreaming by Kate Bush.
It comes out in 1982. I’m eighteen.
But I have a sense it was years later
when I was 21 or 22 years old,
after years of only a vague notion
about who she was, a foggy
understanding that she had written
a somewhat famous song years
ago inspired by Wuthering Heights,
and then, as a budding digital media
enthusiast, I ordered that 1982
album on CD as part of a
subscription to the BMG record
club. I think that’s true, because
there were no CD’s in 1982 and
I know there was no Kate Bush
in my record collection. What got
my attention? I’m not sure, but I bet
dollars to donuts it was the duet
with Peter Gabriel on the So album.
Who is this Kate Bush person,
I must have asked, and then taken
a chance by adding her CD to the
number of discs purchased for a single
$ by starting a subscription. I think that’s
how it went down. That’s how, initially,
I built a CD collection so fast: join
a record club, quit, join again, quit,
join a different one, quit, join again.
The Dreaming absolutely blew my
young adult mind. I’d never heard anything
like it. Immediately, I loved her. She
is the yang to David Bowie’s yin. She
is another artist for whom I am a completist.
I have the entire catalog on CD, and two
of her albums, the most recent ones,
on vinyl, her last studio album,
50 Words for Snow, and the last new
thing she released, the massive four LP
live set from 2016, Before the Dawn.
Coming up on her records in the
alphabet now, I feel the anticipation
of meeting up again with an old friend.
“The world is so loud. Keep falling.
I’ll find you.” she sings in “Snowflake,”
the opening track of 50 Words for Snow.
This entire album is like a winter dreamscape.
Mostly piano and voice, with occasional
and understated full-band performances,
but minimal, as if everyone is trying
to be kind of invisible underneath
Kate’s otherworldly vocals, and some
super effective and exciting guest
artist contributions, Elton John,
Stephen Fry, Steve Gadd, most
notably. No tune on this album
is shorter than 6 minutes, and two
clock in at double digits. “Misty” gives
new meaning to childhood snow play,
as the character builds a snow man
so vigorously that her hands bleed,
and then later, her creation joins her
in bed for a loving, chilly embrace.
A kind of nightmare that nevertheless
feels profound, beautiful, and somehow
comforting, as the snow man lover
melts in her bed and in her hands.
“What kind of spirit is this?”
When he’s gone in the morning,
she ventures out on to the ledge
to look for him. It listens to me
like a deadly serious, kind of spooky,
heartbreakingly sad holiday album,
but not without Kate’s subtle whimsy,
as the penultimate song on the album,
the title track, lyrically, is literally
a listing of 50 different words for snow
spoken by the inimitable voice of Stephen Fry.
The Before the Dawn live album from 2016
is an absolute masterpiece. It was filmed,
apparently, but there are no plans for its
release. To have been there must have been
something like a religious experience;
this four album set is the closest thing.
This performance draws mostly from two
albums, The Hounds of Love and its sister
album Aerial. Given that those albums
were two decades apart, together in this
show they form a kind of unified whole,
a holy union. It is an emotionally powerful
album with phenomenal performances,
and Kate’s voice sounds as strong as it has
ever been. During part of the show, as I understand
it, during the song sequence “The Ninth Wave,”
in the song “And Dream of Sheep,”
Kate’s performance is live, but pre-filmed
and synced to the stage performance,
and she is submerged in a gigantic tank
of water, faithfully playing the character
she had written, stranded on the open sea,
trying to stay afloat, and singing.
If one needed a metaphor to match
our current state of being, in 2016, sure,
but especially in 2025,
in these United States, and globally as
well, one need look no further.
We are stranded on the open sea,
trying to stay afloat, singing.
Notes on the vinyl editions: 50 Words for Snow, Fish People Records, 2011, double black vinyl. Before The Dawn, Fish People Records, 2016, four record set, black vinyl. I think next time I listen to either of these albums I will reach for the CD versions. There’s nothing more frustrating than listening the nuanced, often quiet music of Kate Bush through pops and other noise artifacts, even a couple of skips, especially on the live album. Maybe I need to invest in a record cleaner.
If you’re just joining me, I am attempting to listen to every record in my collection and writing a response in the form of a poem-like-thing for each artist. Thanks for reading.
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michael jarmer 