Thanks to Louise for sharing this: BBC Radio 2 continue to feature tracks from Director’s Cut all this week. For the first full play of Kate’s exuberant new take on The Red Shoes, from the Alex Lester show this morning, skip to 2 hours 30 minutes at the BBC iPlayer here. The stunning new version of This Woman’s Work, played on the Ken Bruce show, can be heard at 1 hour 55 minutes at the BBC iPlayer here.
Barbara
Just heard the reworking of The Red Shoes – it’s more acoustic.
another swede
Well……the old one was a bit more dramatic and i prefer that one.I find the new one boring-she has improved The red shoes a bit though
Vibesinthesky
Whoop Whoop! This is absolutely fantastic, Kate’s voice has such a light, almost ethereal sound like it’s dancing on air, and you can just tell there’s a lot of fun gone on in the studio in the making of this; from what I’ve heard so far, it looks like this brave, curve ball of an album is really, really going to work!
Barbara
By amazing coincidence, last night the Dave channel ran the Have I Got News For You with Jo Brand hosting and Jon Richardson on Paul Merton’s side. Brand says of Richardson; ‘he loves his numbers, but I love pi(e)!’
Jari
Oh.. I am speechless… (wiping tears)…
I am over the top with the new “Red shoes” to start with. It’s more acoustic, more folky, prog and more experimental, at lest with her vocals! I love the sounds of the “evil Kate”. Love the vocal experimentation. It’s really fun! Fantastic!
Well some people have been fearing “this woman’s work” since they seem to have a very personal relationship with that particular song. I love the original so I was listening to it with great interest and well…. I am being honest now… I started to cry. Of sorrow and joy and well..everything. As much as I love the original I think this is even better. This is so heart crushingly fragile and beautiful. It feels like ascending to heaven in golden sparkling light! (sorry, I have been reading Robert Jordan…)
kurt birsch
Kate has done it again! (no pun intended) 🙂
The New Shoes really do kick arse! Almost kick Joni’s arse.
And Woman’s Work has once again stopped me in my tracks. It’s always been one of the most beautiful and emotional songs ever recorded, but this new version is simply breathtaking. It’s a song that could stop the world. Or at least make it go away.
Thank you Kate 🙂
Now where’s this album I’ve been waiting for. 🙂
cheers Kurt
Gio Willis
Comparisons…. well we are all tempted this way… Woman’s work has great vocals but in my opinion is inferior to the previous versions… The Red Shoes benefits from the new arrangements… but I am afraid that this album won’t be so successful. Part of Kate’s audience will welcome it but I am afraid the rest of the audience won’t understand it . kate has also been to reclusive in the years, she should tour and try to concentrate on the visual aspect of her work. I found the video of Deeper Understanding a bad way to promote her album, a difficult track and a very disturbing video…
Yet another swede
The new version of “The red shoes” to me stunning and a great complement to the old one ! Well done Kate!
But, I´m sorry to say, I prefer the old version of “This woman´s work” to the new one. The difference in chord changes in the chorus in the “D.C”version, takes away some of the breathtaking magic, present the old version for me.
My opinion that is.
karen
this woman’s work is just beautiful reminds me of lyra and the red shoes is utterly brilliant.
karen
This woman’s work is beautiful reminds me of lyra and red shoes is utterly brilliant.
Collin Kelley
I think the new version of This Woman’s Work is absolutely brilliant. What works so beautifully here is the silence, the way the song unfolds in a dreamy, stream of conscious way now. There is a huge amount of feeling and emotion here, but it’s a less urgent emotion than in the original. It reminds me of the out-of-body quality of The Ninth Wave – someone hovering between life and death. For me, this is another example of the live/experimental feel. The Red Shoes is better than the original — love the vocals at the end especially where gets that deep growl and the moaning sound in her voice. Spot on!
another swede
CHANGED my mind on TWW, its amazing, you just have to get into it a few times, its lika a new song.I guess i compared it to much with the old one at first.
As i have been able to work from home a few weeks, this is like christmas for me, being on the computer when i want to find and hear the latest.
Karen Newcombe
. Love Ken Bruce saying “she’s not stricken by ego” – you tell ”em Ken! New cut should be called The Dark Red Shoes – yummy!
Alan
My sister heard “This Woman’s Work” before me and text me to say “What has Kate Bush done to This Woman’s Work? Makes me want to slit my wrists. Ruined I think.” After that I was dreading hearing it, but this was better than I expected. I don’t dislike it. I’ve only heard it the once, so it needs to sink in a bit more, but I prefer this to Moments of Pleasure.
The Red Shoes seems more alive than the original, this track has definitely benefitted from a more straightforward makeover and in time I think I could end up preferring it to the 1993 version. I’m impressed with what I’ve heard of Lily so far too, and I do think tracks from The Red Shoes – particularly the up-tempo ones – are coming off best from the re-workings. Kate’s lower voice doesn’t seem in evidence much on The Red Shoes; if it’s in a lower key it’s barely noticeable.
My sister represents the wider audience though – she knows Kate through me and got to know This Woman’s Work more from all its uses on TV over the last few years and then downloaded it. Her negative reaction to this new version means that perhaps Kate won’t please the masses with it. The original may remain far more popular I think. Kate was brave to tackle it, and full marks to her. It’s become one of her most famous tracks up there with the big ones.
I was disappointed after Moments of Pleasure yesterday – these two tracks today have definitely recovered my excitement for the album.
giulio
🙂 🙂 🙂
‘The Red Shoes’: finally this song sounds profound, full of madness, sincere, REAL. Kate sings beautifully and the reverb is so fine 🙂 . The new drum is a pleasure. All the coldness and artificiality that the original version seemed to convey to me has finally gone away. Love it 🙂
‘This Woman’s Work’: this is a thoroughly different song. It has the power to take me from ”here” to ”there”, maybe to another planet or another dimension…. It moves me. Floating on clouds. Something in the middle between ‘Lyra’ and Bjork’s ‘Vespertine’ album to me, and I mean it as a compliment…. Brilliantly done 🙂
Either you take it or you leave it : I’ll take it 🙂
Andrew
Beautiful……brave…..and making me feel warm inside again
vincent
Wow! What can I say that hasnt been said already? Kate is an absolute GENIUS and that new version of the Red Shoes has just taken my love of the song to a new dimension been walking around with such a huge grin on my face all evening after a crap day at work & feel I’m floating on air since I heard it. It definitely adds so much more warmtyh & feeling to compliment the original version & is just to die for. Its really happening to ya…..again!!!!! 🙂
Jaakko
Wow, it’s like traveling to new universes with old friends. Love the punchy Red Shoes, adore the brittle This Woman’s Work.
zan
I really wasn’t sure about any of the songs I had heard so far. But suddenly I realise it was because I’ve been looking at it the worng way. I was expecting an epic improvement, more more more. I now do not think this is what the album is about, instead, to be, it sounds as though the songs have been put away in an attic, and they’ve been fading away, until it’s just the ESSENCE of the song, the true song, the strongest elements are left. Kates voice has endured, but softened, even faded on the wind like the other elements, leaving the purity to shine through. No dramatic bangs, no extreme emotions, just purity left. Like the mellowing of wine left to it’s own devices in a cellar. Fantastic.
Graham Deller
I had to change my tracksuit pants twice for these songs now we have nerdaliceous stereo on the laptop,you can hear how fantastic The Directors Cut will be,they are so beautiful.
Im almost totally incontinent with anticipation.
Jeroen
Don’t know if you’ve heard this yet…
If you listen to the Ken Bruce show of today you can listen to a new – superb – version of ‘and so is love’ (at 1.56 or so)!
Keith
On first listen, I found TWW hypnotizing. I just sat listening, and my mind went to another world. For me, it’s not even the same song as the original. It’s like the woman’s work is being undertaken in some kind of lulling, bobbing, musical sphere that periodically explodes then regathers itself. It’s TWW on ether.
When I finished listening, I had a hard time coming back, coming up from being put under. She’s certainly taken the song somewhere else, and I’m so grateful for that. She’s reclaimed it: It’s Kate’s song, and she does what she wants with it, which is, for me, breathtaking.
Dacey
That’s great to hear that The Red Shoes is coming up again.May be there is something different in this show.