How Kate Bush explored the bizarre life of Bess Houdini
In 1904, Harry Houdini escaped from handcuffs so robust they’d taken a locksmith five years to make. In 1915, he emerged from six feet under after being buried alive, a stunt that nearly killed him. In 1926, outside of the confines of a Chinese water torture cell or a straightjacket, he died. Houdini left behind a wife, Bess Houdini, who was always considered to be the secret to his escapades. Being accustomed to penning supernatural epics, the story appealed to Kate Bush, who seized on the tragedy in 1982 hit ‘Houdini’.
When Houdini spent over an hour struggling onstage to break free of handcuffs in 1904, Bess ran onstage to kiss him. Many audience members thought her kiss was the only plausible way he could have gotten a key. Houdini’s stunts were prolific, inviting the public to suspend their disbelief in the impossible, not quite convincing them of magic but more in the strength of his will. Bess was seemingly the quiet force behind sustaining it.
Many people found it strange that once Houdini died, Bess turned to seances to contact him. It was odd, given Houdini dedicated a great deal of his career to disproving the work of spiritualists. Maybe sensing Bess was still convinced, they settled on a code. If it was possible they could make contact after he died, she’d know it was real if the message was: “Rosabelle, believe”. This secret code was somehow exploited in a hoax, and after ten years of trying to contact Houdini in vain, Bess put out the candle she’d kept burning by his picture since he died.
“Ten years is long enough to wait for any man,” she said of her dwindling hopes, which is what Bush captured in her song ‘Houdini’. Appearing on The Dreaming, the song was written from Bess’ perspective, invoking the code she’d devised with her late husband: “‘Rosabel believe / Not even eternity / Can hold Houdini / Rosabel, believe!”
“It is such a beautiful and strange story that I thought I had very little to do, other than tell it like it was,” Bush said in a newsletter. “But in fact, it proved to be the most difficult lyric of all the songs and the most emotionally demanding. I was so aware of trying to do justice to the beauty of the subject, and trying to understand what it must have been like to have been in love with such an extraordinary man, and to have been loved by him.”
Backed by rousing strings and her trademark pained vocal, Bush’s retelling of their love story was a rousing testament to desperation. In one sense, of Houdini’s to escape, but more tragically, Bess’ need to cling to his memory, even in ways she knew he wouldn’t approve of.
The cover art for The Dreaming was a nod to their time together, a key held in her mouth. In the song, putting herself in Bess’ shoes, she sings, almost pleadingly: “With a kiss, I’ll pass the key”.
