Quote of the Day

No figure from the past 50 years of music encapsulates the allure of the reclusive genius more than Kate Bush, turning 60 today without a jot of her otherworldly mystique evaporating with age.

[Since the beginning of her career in 1978] Bush has set the blueprint for the autonomous artist creating masterworks entirely at their own pace and on their own terms. Kate Bush is the definitive example of a musician allowing work to flow through her life, not cram life into the spaces between her work.

. . . [Her debut single] ‘Wuthering Heights’ made her the first woman to reach Number One in the UK singles chart with a self-written song. [It] also placed Bush at the vanguard of a trickle of artistically emancipated, self-determining female solo artists that would grow to a flood with the arrivals of Madonna, Sinead O’Connor, PJ Harvey, Bjork and countless more. Bush’s brilliance was in never selling out that noble position, always maintaining the highest artistic standards and never giving in to the cash-register lure of lowest common denominator pop.

. . . It’s the way that Kate Bush is simultaneously carefree and in complete control of her life and legacy that makes her such an icon, an enigma worthy of the name.

– Mark Beaumont
Excerpted from "Celebrating Kate Bush at 60"
NME
July 30, 2018

I found a book on how to be invisible
Take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along a dotted line
You think inside out
And you're invisible

Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat

I found a book on how to be invisible
On the edge of the labyrinth
Under a veil you must never lift
Pages that you must never turn
In the labyrinth

You stand in front of a million doors
And each one holds a million more
Corridors that lead to the world
Of the invisible
Corridors that twist and turn
Corridors that blister and burn

Eye of Braille
Hem of anorak
Stem of wallflower
Hair of doormat

Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that an autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?
Is that the wind from the desert song?
Is that an autumn leaf falling?
Or is that you walking home?
Is that a storm in the swimming pool?

You take a pinch of keyhole
And fold yourself up
You cut along a dotted line
You think inside out
You jump round three times
You jump into the mirror
And you're invisible

– Kate Bush
"How to Be Invisible"
(from the 2005 album, Aerial)

Related Off-site Links:
Kate Bush at 60: An Exquisite Pop Genius Whose Influence Endures – Annie Zaleski (Salon, July 27, 2018).
Emily Bronte at 200: How Kate Bush Brought the Author's Gothic Romance Wuthering Heights to Life – Joe Sommerlad (Independent, July 30, 2018).


For more of Kate Bush at The Wild Reed, see:
• Celebrating the Unique and Influential Kate Bush

• "A Dark Timelessness and Stillness Surrounds Her Wild Abandonment"
• "Can You See the Lark Ascending?"
• Quote of the Day – August 17, 2014
• Wow!
• Scaling the Heights
• "Oh, Yeah!"
• Celebrating Bloomsday in St. Paul (and with Kate Bush)
• "Rosabelle, Believe . . ."
• Just in Time for Winter
• "Call Upon Those You Love"
• A Song of Summer
• "There's Light in Love, You See"

Image 1: A 2011 portrait of Kate by her brother John Carder Bush.
Image 2: Illustration by Mark Wagstaff (Mojo, October 2014).
Image 3: Kate with dancer and choreographer Stewart Avon-Arnold in 1993. (Photographer unknown)