The one that started it all. Kate’s breathtaking debut single, Wuthering Heights, was released 45 years ago today on January 20th 1978! Music writer Sam Liddicott has put together a new podcast episode to celebrate. You can hear Seán talking about Wuthering Heights [Seán is at 1:02:15 but this special also includes DJ Mark Radcliffe, performer Sarah-Louise Young and the music writer Tom Doyle] Thanks, Sam!
Here is what Kate herself had to say about the song in a 1979 Kate Bush Fan Club newsletter:
Well, I wrote it in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn’t link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it. I was really pleased, because it was the first song I had written for a while, as I’d been busy rehearsing with the KT Band.
I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn’t relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.
It’s funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she didn’t know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct. A similar thing happened with ‘Wuthering Heights’: I put lines in the song that I found in the book when I read it later.
I’ve never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it’s supposed to be.
One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from the song, though I’ve heard that the Bronte Society think it’s a disgrace. A lot of people have read the book because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about it for me. I didn’t know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song helped them. I’m really happy about that.
There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song. When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song. Also, when I was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him. When I came back I had this urge to switch on the TV – it was about one in the morning – because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on. I tuned in to a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, playing channel roulette, until I found it. I came in at the moment Cathy was dying, so that’s all I saw of the film. It was an amazing coincidence.
If you’re planning to go see the new Tom Hanks film, A Man Called Otto, listen out for Kate’s song This Woman’s Work which is used to score a big emotional set-piece in the film. Directed by Marc Foster, here is the film synopsis: “When a lively young family moves in next door, grumpy widower Otto Anderson meets his match in a quick-witted, pregnant woman named Marisol, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world upside down.” We are hearing that fans who have seen the film have been particularly moved by the sequence featuring Kate’s classic song.
New 2022 CD single available exclusively from Rhino Records here
As 2022 draws to a close, various charts and sites have been looking back at the big selling singles and tracks this year and we are reminded once again of the breathtaking success of what is now Kate’s biggest ever global hit single – Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Just to remind ourselves, Kate had the biggest song in the world on the official global charts for three weeks this summer, and so, so much more No.1 success around the world which also included her triumphant 3-week return to the top of the UK singles charts and her biggest ever hit in the USA. The Ringer has recently described it as the most important song of the year and “the song that dominated the zeitgeist more than any other in 2022” calling it “a genuine sensation that people inside the industry and out couldn’t stop talking about.” Google year end search results have Kate as one of the most searched terms in music for 2022. On the music search app, Shazam, Running Up That Hill was the 12th most searched for song of 2022 globally.
Kate has placed at No.18 on the Billboard Global 200 for the year, meaning she had one of the biggest selling singles in the whole world this year. She also places at No.23 in the US Billboard Hot 100for all of 2022. Kate could well also place in the Top 10 of 2022 on the UK Official chart when those figures are released. On the world’s largest streaming music service, Spotify, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) was the 10th most-played song for the whole year AND the No.1 “throwback” song globally (defined by Spotify as songs originally released over 20 years ago). Kate’s song saw a 8,700% increase in Spotify streams this year, and currently has been streamed over 820 million times. In the UK it was the 4th most streamed track of 2022 on Spotify, and the 8th most streamed song on Spotify USA. The music video has been viewed over 150 MILLION times on Youtube.
On the video streaming platform, Tiktok, where Kate has a huge following among younger site users, Running Up That Hill was in the Top 10 most popular songs in both the US and the UK for all of 2022. And look out for a (groan worthy) joke about Kate in Christmas crackers if this Top Ten of topical 2022 jokes is to be believed!
To hear the full story of Kate’s incredible year, the charts, the No.1s, the world records, the media reaction, the excitement, Kate’s own reactions and much more, don’t miss our podcast episode on The Summer of Kate here!!
In this new Kate Bush Fan Podcast episode, Bush Telegraph duo (Darrell in the States and Paul in the UK) continue to discuss Kate’s fourth album The Dreaming, in their second installment celebrating the 40th anniversary of this iconic album. As school friends, they bought the album on the day of its release, and the next day met Kate at the album signing in London. We hear more snippets of their experiences in 1982, but the major part of this podcast is Darrell’s interview with Teri Reed, senior engineer at Odyssey Studios. Teri talks about his collaboration with Kate, as Odyssey was one of the studios she used for The Dreaming. We find out, not surprisingly, what a generous and warm colleague she was, as well as the extraordinary levels she went to, to get the right sound for a track. For example, why was Teri coaxed into a car park to find a specific sound she needed? All will be revealed. That, and a whole lot more. The final and third episode to follow will be an interview with Nick Launay, another collaborator with Kate. Enjoy!
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or Spotify or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
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Photo by Edward Quant – Del playing his “Egly” bass at the Belfast Empire, Nov 25th 2018
Today we wish our friend, Del Palmer, a very happy birthday as he celebrates his 70th! We hope you know how much you are loved and respected by all the fans, Del, and how thrilled we are for the success you shared in this year with Running Up That Hill taking over the world – you can be so proud of your work with Kate, truly astounding.
With love and hugs from, Seán, Krys, Peter and Dave xxx
In this detailed new episode of The Kate Bush Fan Podcast Seán packs an hour looking back over all the amazing landmark events of Summer 2022 when Kate’s song Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) was featured on Stranger Things and became her biggest ever global smash hit – all the summer chart news, the reaction from Kate, the media and the fans! A souvenir of an extraordinary few months.
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or Spotify or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
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Acclaimed author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman, has released his book, The Collectors, as a slim 80-page hardback edition illustrated by Tom Duxbury. It’s well known that Kate and Philip are friends and mutual admirers of each other’s work (Kate famously recorded the song Lyra for the film adaptation of Pullman’s The Golden Compass). Kate is mentioned in the dedication at the start of the book as having inspired it!
“Filled with the magic of Pullman’s assured pen, this glorious new tale set in the universe of His Dark Materials sees an art-collecting Oxford academic acquire two imposing paintings…on a dark winter’s night in 1970, Horley and Grinstead huddle for warmth in the Senior Common Room of a college in Oxford. Conversation turns to the two impressive works of art that Horley has recently added to his collection. What the two men don’t know is that these pieces are connected in mysterious and improbable ways; and they are about to be caught in the cross-fire of a story which has travelled time and worlds.“
We’ve been celebrating the 40th Anniversary of The Dreaming on our Facebook page with videos of the 5 singles from Kate’s incredible 1982 album. It was released on September 13th 1982. I wrote about it in the special new 40th Anniversary Issue of HomeGround Magazine (available free here). Also coming this month is a two-part Bush Telegraph podcast episode all about The Dreaming album with some very special guest interviewees. Here’s some of what I wrote:
“Earlier this year I was contacted by the editor of one of the UK’s major music magazines, asking to pick my brains about a Kate Bush cover article they were hoping to run. For a change, they were mulling over doing a cover feature on The Dreaming album, 2022 being the 40th anniversary of the album’s release (almost impossible to believe). As we have seen over the last decade, having Kate on the cover of a music monthly can shift a healthy amount of magazines but typically those feature articles will focus on Kate’s very early career, the live 1979 tour or the perennial favourite album – Hounds of Love.
I was emphatically enthusiastic about the cover idea and reeled off a list of reasons to the editor why Kate’s extraordinary, ground-breaking fourth studio album still deserved every bit as much attention from the music press as the beloved Hounds of Love – it was indeed time for them to recontextualise this darkly complex, astonishing record. It was the first album Kate produced entirely by herself and of course many of you reading this still regard it as her greatest masterpiece out of a triumvirate of her most acclaimed works that includes Hounds of Love and Aerial. The daring, complex experimentations within are not fumbling towards something more accomplished, they are often more startling than those on Hounds of Love itself. The complexity and inventiveness are insane. In the wider world, The Dreaming is normally mentioned as the album she had to make in order to go on to create her “true” masterpiece, Hounds of Love, but many fans feel it mightily holds up all by itself. This is the one that meant she had “broken free of pop stardom’s strait-jacket, to infiltrate the ranks of art-rock aristocrats” as The Quietus put it. It was Never For Ever that was surely the essential transitional work – The Dreaming was her arrival at an amazing new place in her career, a seismic shift.
Paul Hardiman, Kate and Del Palmer at Advision Studio, recording The Dreaming in 1982 (via Del’s facebook page)
There’s so much fascinating drama and intensity around this particular record’s creation and reception. Kate was only about 22 when she wrote the songs and 24 when she released it, but she still had the guts to produce it herself – she was utterly driven to do that. Years after release we still get insights into the making of the record from some of those that were there – Graeme Thomson did a good job in his Under The Ivy biography getting new insights from studio types like Hugh Padgham, Nick Launay and Paul Hardiman. I imagine what it would be like to have been a fly on the wall during the concentrated experimentation of those sessions across expensive London studios like Townhouse, Abbey Road and Advision on Gosfield Street (hence the “Gosfield Goers” credit) as Kate figured out the new technology and sound possibilities at her disposal – the Fairlight, gated reverb drum patterns, the undeniable influence of Peter Gabriel’s studio work. Crafting layers of utterly new, and to some listeners, baffling soundscapes to press forward her post-Never For Ever ambitions. “I was using different instruments, and everything was changing; and I felt that really the best thing to do would be to make this album a real departure – make it completely different. And the only way to achieve this was to sever all the links I had had with the older stuff”
Original album teaser poster, salvaged from a hoarding in Lewisham in the Summer of ’82 and later restored and photographed by Krys!
“Game changer”. “Jarring”. “Cinematic”. “Pulsating”. “Obsessional”. “Thunderous”. “Sonic Assault”. Wading through the word salad that exists to try to describe The Dreaming album makes one thing clear – forty years later, this remains a record you can’t be apathetic about….
…the Uncut magazine cover feature that eventually surfaced in February this year was, refreshingly, not a re-hashed archive article – a considerable line-up of people involved in the creation of Kate’s dark masterpiece are interviewed by writer Peter Watts, including Preston Heyman, Paul Hardiman, Richard Burgess, Brian Bath, Roy Harper, Hugh Padgham, Dave Lawson, Howard Gray, Danny “Dan Dan the Sushi Man!” Dawson, and Teri Reed…
In 2014 on a BBC documentary Del did finally reveal the truth behind the mystery man on the cover of the record, the ‘Harry Houdini’ that Kate is passing the key to – yes, it was Del himself. A great rehearsal shot of Kate (with key on tongue) and Del in the same pose (Del donning a fetching knitted jumper) appears in the stunning book of photographs Kate: Inside the Rainbow by John Carder Bush. John described the final shot thus: “A slightly cloudy day outside in the kitchen garden at the back of our parents’ house. Apart from Kate looking very beautiful, the ivy behind her is wonderfully textured and full of hidden spaces and shadows amongst the glossy leaves themselves. Ivy may look wonderful, but it likes to slowly strangle any tree it lives on. It’s not poisonous, and in ancient times a poet’s crown was made of ivy.”
From “Kate: Inside the Rainbow” – John Carder Bush (Little Brown, 2015)
…it’s interesting to wonder how Kate feels about The Dreaming album now, from this perspective. In the intervening years she’s been asked far more frequently about Hounds of Love, and it’s obvious that her follow-up to The Dreaming is one she’s very pleased with. No song from The Dreaming was performed live on stage in 2014, although an understanding of how the show came to be structured mostly explains that omission. Guitarist David Rhodes let us know that yes, Kate did initially want to do Sat in Your Lap for Before the Dawn but then this got switched out for Top of the City and, sadly, her 1981 single never made the rehearsal stage – we can only imagine. In the 90’s she recalled looking back at that record “and it seems mad. I heard it about three years ago and couldn’t believe it. There’s a lot of anger in it. There’s a lot of ‘I’m an artist, right!’” With that in mind it’d be fascinating to know how Kate felt relatively recently, listening back to the sparkling new version of The Dreaming she worked on with James Guthrie for her 2018 Remastered project. It remains, a very special treat for our earholes – and in this 40th anniversary year in particular we just need to remember to “Play it Loud”
Filmmaker Mary McCartney has debuted her film about the legendary Abbey Road Studios, If These Walls Could Sing, at the Telluride film festival. The documentary includes interviews with members of Pink Floyd, Elton John, Kate, Ringo Starr and Mary’s father, Paul McCartney. From classical to pop, film scores to hip-hop, “If These Walls Could Sing” explores the breadth, diversity, and ingenuity of Abbey Road Studios. Intimate interviews with leading artists, producers and composers paired with vivid archive footage and session tapes give exclusive access to these famously private studios. From Elton John to Jacqueline Du Pre to Jimmy Page, from Kate Bush to Paul McCartney to Celeste, all found their musical language in Abbey Road Studios. Audiences will experience the creative magic that makes it a revered and sacred space that still produces many of the most recognised records today and makes Abbey Road the most famous and longest-running studio in the world.
Director Mary McCartney
Variety writes: “Kate Bush makes a rare modern appearance in the documentary, albeit audio-only. “It’s amazing having Kate in there because she produced her third album there, directed her video in there… I kind of made contact with her. I know she doesn’t do interviews, but I know she feels real affection for Abbey Road, so over time she kindly agreed to do an audio piece that she wrote and sent to me. Just having her voice talking about the space is pretty special as well.” In the Variety review of the film, they note that “resurgent star Kate Bush talks about the studio’s historic reluctance to repaint, lest even the slightest alteration affect the sound…”
If These Walls Could Sing will be streaming on Disney+ at a date to be announced
The latest edition of PROG Magazine in the UK, out Friday September 9th, has a Kate Bush cover, a feature on her 40 greatest songs and includes 4 Kate Bush postcards and a double-sided Kate poster which features that great Never For Ever cover image they released in 2020. It will be available to mail order from Friday at this site. The magazine writes:
“Kate Bush graces the cover of the new issue of Prog as we present her 40 greatest songs, as chosen by her prog peers from King Crimson, Marillion, Opeth, Porcupine Tree, Eivør, The Anchoress, Jane Weaver and more… We also explore the strange phenomena of Kate’s current resurgence thanks to Stranger Things….”
PROG magazine double-sided Kate Bush poster and postcards with the issue
Lovers of physical formats (and Kate collectors) rejoice! As Kate remains in the US Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 this week at No.5, with incredible radio airplay in the USA still, her US record label, Rhino, is releasing a two-track CD single version of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) on September 2nd!As with the original 7″ vinyl release, the single also includes Kate’s stunning, fan favourite song, Under The Ivy. It is almost three months since her 1985 hit was first heard on the Netflix TV show, Stranger Things, but the song shows no signs of losing its grip on the US public’s affections – it has been a phenomenon all summer. The direct order link from the Rhino Records site is here – this is a US release so shipping will be calculated based on being shipped from the USA. This is the first time the single has been issued on the CD format. So far there’s been no official comment from Kate on her website about this release.
From the shop description: “The first single from Kate Bush’s fifth studio album Hounds of Love, “Running Up That Hill” was originally released to critical acclaim in August of 1985. Available once again, this CD single stays true to the original, featuring period correct artwork and b-side “Under the Ivy.”
CD Tracklisting:
1.RUNNING UP THAT HILL (A DEAL WITH GOD) 2.UNDER THE IVY
One of the highlights of the new 180-page special 40th Anniversary Issue of HomeGround – The Kate Bush Magazine is a beautifully evocative and thought-provoking piece by HomeGround’s own Krys Fitzgerald-Morris which explores not just her own fan memories of decades immersed in Kate’s music but also how Kate’s legacy might be cherished and maintained for future generations… “the pleasure of walking through memories.” I think any Kate Bush fan reading this would find themselves moved, but also a little proud, excited and perhaps a little wistful too – I experienced a whole mix of emotions reading this. Entitled “Through Leaves”, Krys firstly writes about the excitement of the early days of HomeGround Magazine; visiting Kate’s wonderful parents, Robert and Hannah, at East Wickham Farm, organising fan events and conventions (all those fans in The Big Sky video shoot!) and actually starring as an extra in the video for Experiment IV along with Peter and Dave from HomeGround. She shares many personal memories, all so treasured.
Dave, Kate, Krys and Peter (and a half-hidden Del!) at the 1990 Kate Bush Club/HomeGround Convention
Krys writes: “Growing older brings things up sharp and close, like what happens to these special things of ours once we’re no longer here. For me it is these treasured cards and letters from Kate, and cards from her parents. Not only these but the letters, cards and manuscripts of prose and poetry from John (Carder Bush). These things have to be preserved for the future.”
To illustrate just how important this will become for Kate’s legacy and to future generations, Krys recounts her own deep dive over the years into the life and work of Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962), the English novelist, poet and journalist who is remembered for the celebrated garden at Sissinghurst created with her husband, Sir Harold Nicolson. Noting that many of Vita’s letters and manuscripts are housed in archives in the UK and USA, Krys describes a very memorable visit she made to Sissinghurst where she was given special access to Vita’s Writing Room (preserved as she left it after her death in 1962) – filled with treasures and mementos from the writer’s life and work. And so, inspired by this, Krys takes the reader on a visit to her imagined Kate Bush Museum, housed at East Wickham Farm, one hundred years from now in 2122. It’s quite something to read. Like I said, a whole mix of emotions for any fan!
Read Krys’s article, and many many others (including contributions from Paddy Bush and John Carder Bush) by getting your FREE download copy of the epic, new 134-page issue of HomeGround Magazine here!
Well, of course we’ve been calling this the “Summer of Kate” here at www.katebushnews.com (for obvious reasons) but Down Under it’s nothing short of a glorious Winter of Kate as she today racks up an EIGHTH non-consecutive week at No.1 on the Australian ARIA singles chart! Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) has also been a huge success in neighbouring New Zealand where she hasn’t left the Top 4 for the last 9 weeks and even enjoyed a fortnight at No.1 in June!Let’s take a quick look at how the single is doing everywhere now, over two months since Stranger Things sent Kate’s masterpiece song into the stratosphere…
[Note: Don’t miss news of a HomeGround/KateBushNews.com fan event in London in September – all details below!]
OFFICIAL CHARTS: USA: The chart situation in the world’s largest music market remains fascinating – this week Kate retains her highest ever singles chart position in America for the second week running on the Billboard Hot 100 at No.3! Kate’s song has now become not just a streaming/download phenomenon but also one of US radio’s biggest hits of the summer of 2022. As Billboard explains: “The ‘Stranger Things’ viral bump is finally starting to recede for Kate Bush’s resurrected hit, but radio is picking up the slack. Radio programmers continue to successfully test “Hill” in callout research, in which they play snippets of the song to listeners along with other potential playlist staples. Also, it’s unusually strong on several top radio formats, rising from No.5 to No.3 this week on the Alternative Airplay chart and from No.10 to No.8 on the Pop Airplay chart.” As one industry spokesperson told Billboard: “…the audience isn’t tired of this thing.” Kate is currently at No.4 on the Billboard Global 200 having topped that weekly chart of charts on three previous occasions. Billboard have all kinds of charts including Hot Songwriter and Producer charts, you can download the latest set of these here. Kate has enjoyed 4 weeks at No.1 on the Hot 100 Songwriters chart, and an astounding 9 weeks at No.1 on the Rock Songwriters chart and 8 weeks at No.1 on the Alternative Songwriters chart. Kate is also No.2 on several Billboard Producer charts also, having spent up to 5 weeks at No.1 on those.
OFFICIAL CHARTS:Ireland: Kate has today moved down to No.2 after an astounding SEVEN weeks at No.1 in her maternal homeland! Simply staggering Irish chart success. UK: Kate stays in the UK Top 10 for a TENTH week, remaining at No.9 in today’s new countdown – we remind ourselves that Wuthering Heights had a shorter stint, 7 weeks, in the Top 10 in Kate’s home country. Kate has enjoyed three weeks at No.1 in June with her second ever UK singles chart topper and anyone paying attention to her official site knows how she feels about that! Also, very significantly, Kate received an early birthday present on July 29th from the UK record industry when the BPI certified Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) DOUBLE Platinum, with sales of the single in excess of 1.2 million copies! Wow.
Canada: Kate is at No.5 this week in the Canadian chart, down from No.3. She previously peaked at a Canadian chart career high of No.2 a few weeks ago. Germany: Kate remains at No.11 on the German singles chart this week. Kate reached a peak on the German chart at No.4 for three weeks in June. France: Kate is at No.15 in France, having peaked at No.3 for two weeks in June. Italy: Kate has spent 8 weeks inside the official Italian Top 40 peaking at No.18 in June. The Netherlands: Kate is at No.20 in the Dutch charts this week, having peaked at No.3 in June. Kate spent 6 weeks in the Dutch Top 10. Sweden: Kate has had a very impressive run in the official Swedish singles charts where she is currently at No.6. Kate peaked at No.1 in the chart in June and has remained in the Top 7 ever since! Norway: Kate is at No.20 on the official Norwegian chart this week and hasn’t left the Top 20 since she entered the chart at No.4 in June. Finland: Kate has now stayed 8 weeks in the official Finnish Singles Top 20, peaking at number 6 in early June. Denmark: Kate is at No.13 on the Danish singles chart and has spent 4 weeks in the Top 10 there, peaking at No.6. Austria: Kate is currently at No.8 in the Austrian chart and hasn’t left the Top 10 since June, peaking at No.3.
iTunes: Kate is today at an incredible No.2 on the Worldwide iTunes chart, having topped this chart three times previously. She is No.2 in Australia, No.2 in Canada, No. 5 in the USA, No.7 in Chile, No.7 in New Zealand, No.9 in France, No.12 in Norway and No.12 in the UK.
Spotify: Kate is at No.4 worldwide on Spotify right now having topped the weekly global chart three times. She is No.1 in Australia and the UK (Kate has been No.1 in the UK on Spotify for the last 8 weeks!), No.2 in Ireland, No.3 in Canada and also the USA, and No.4 in Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and No.5 in Switzerland. Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) has been streamed almost 400 million times since the song featured on Stranger Things at the end of May, bringing the total on the platform to an incredible 540 million+ streams in total. And finally…
BIG NEWS – Fan event!!! From our own Dave Cross: “Hey kids, I’m thrilled to announce this special event at The Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, England. HomeGround and KateBushNews.com present; A Deal with God – a celebration of Kate Bush, to raise money for Cabaret vs Cancer on Wednesday 7th September, doors at 7pm.
A gorgeous line up of amazing performers including Jonathan Paul Hellyer, Ginny Lemon, Sadie Sinner, The Songbird Sooz Kempner, Rose Garden with Phil Lawrence, A Fat Child and hosted by Michael Twaits with Pippa Dee Jorge, Veronica Maldonado and Simon Le Vans. Tickets are on sale now.“
From 7pm GMT time this evening, BBC2 television in the UK will be dedicating an entire evening of its schedule to her music and story, to celebrate Kate’s birthday today and indeed her incredible international chart success in Summer 2022!
Starting at 7pm, a programme celebrates Kate’s debut year, 1978, with many Top of the Pops performances from that year, including Wuthering Heights. Other great content includes the previously seen Kate at the BBC, full of wonderful performances 1978-1994, then the great 2014 documentary, The Kate Bush Story, her 1979 BBC TV special and Queens of Song at the BBC!
Happy birthday, Kate! At the start of this month your fans sent us in photos to celebrate your 3rd week at the top of the charts in the UK, but you can add many millions more beaming faces to those above now, who will all be wishing you a wonderful day today…and thanking you. In the year that you had the biggest (record-breaking!) global hit single of your career, the world watched on as you expressed your astonishment and happiness in the most humble and grateful terms imaginable. There is no-one in music like you. No-one. You richly deserve the planet re-discovering your incredible work in such huge numbers, and we hope that continues to delight you….it’ll be a better world for it. Have a great day with your loved ones, Kate! With love, Seán, Krys, Peter and Dave x
