Graham Coxon on the “genius” of Kate Bush
The 1990s saw Blur and Oasis battle it out to be crowned the kings of Britpop, with a chart race peaking in 1995 when the former released ‘Country House’ and the latter shared ‘Roll With It’ on the same day.
Blur won the media-fuelled race, cementing their status as one of the decade’s most noteworthy bands. Still, Oasis remained incredibly successful, and both groups have released five more albums since their 1995 releases, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and The Great Escape. Whether you’re team Oasis or team Blur, it is hard to deny the impacts both bands have had on indie rock. Representing a north/south divide, the debate around who was better still remains a fiery topic.
Much of Blur’s excellence comes from Graham Coxon’s innovative and creative guitar-playing skills, with the general consensus being that he is a far superior player to Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. Infusing every track with a distinctive set of riffs and rhythms, Coxon has consistently demonstrated both impressive technical skill and inventiveness. His idiosyncratic style perhaps comes from his eclectic taste, weaving unexpected influences into his sound, ranging from the psychedelic, prog stylings of Gong to the artful theatricality of Kate Bush.
He described her debut album, The Kick Inside, as getting “rock and roll in the way that Andrew Lloyd Webber sort of got rock and roll”. He also noted the innate Englishness of it, explaining that it “is almost devoid of the influence of rhythm and blues, and blues and all of the rest of it. It comes from almost a 1930s modernism – like a Hampstead avant-garde, rather than Muddy Waters.”
Calling ‘Wuthering Heights’ a “genius” song, Coxon praised the “beautiful” guitar solo that appears near the end of the track, as well as adding, “There’s something wonderful about her voice, the twisting chord progression, the weird time signature in the chorus, the way the string section swells in the second verse.”
‘Wuthering Heights’ was the first song entirely penned by a woman to reach number one and became a huge success. Released in 1978, Bush had written the track when she was 18, subsequently spawning a classic hit that Coxon was blown away by.
He also revealed that he prefers to listen to Bush’s music in private. For Coxon, listening to her is a very personal experience, explaining, “I got that input that I wasn’t getting from human beings from music and from singers and their lyrics. And I expressed how I was feeling in my sketchbooks and through drawings. It was that… transaction. I would feel like I felt, and then there would be a song that was almost appropriate for that.”
Additionally, the guitarist admitted to sometimes being “embarrassed about how dramatic the music is,” revealing that he finds it “awkward” to play Bush around others because “There’s nothing worse than playing someone a song that you really like, and they’re like, ‘Pffft. I hate this.’”
