“He was quite beautiful”: Kate Bush’s favourite David Bowie album
In many ways, Kate Bush’s career mirrored that of David Bowie. Both artists drew from passions in theatre and literature to create some of their most esteemed music, regarded a visual aspect as an integral element of their art and even shared the same dance mentor, Lindsay Kemp. Of course, in other ways, the two artists differed significantly, especially with regard to their routes to stardom.
While Bowie took several years to attune his musical style to fit popular trends in the late 1960s, Bush fell virtually from the nest to the stage. She began writing songs during her childhood and remarkably penned her first single and first UK number-one, ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the age of 18.
For her early career success, Bush had several prominent stars to thank, including David Gilmour, who endorsed her after receiving an early demo via Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of the Pink Floyd guitarist and the Bush family. As it transpires, Bush also has Bowie to thank for her early creative urges.
Speaking to Mojo in 2007, Bush remembered being in the “bath, submerged by bubbles” the first time she heard Bowie’s music. “‘There’s a starman waiting in the sky,'” she quoted. “I thought it was such an interesting song and that he had a really unusual voice. Soon, I was to hear that track everywhere, and Bowie’s music became a part of my life.”
She began to follow Bowie’s career attentively and remembered being especially transfixed by his “theatrical” stage presence on Top of the Pops. “My conclusion was that he was quite beautiful,” she said. “His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the sacred space reserved solely for my greatest love – Elton John.”
In 1973, Bush attended the iconic performance at the Hammersmith Odeon, during which Bowie retired his Ziggy Stardust character. “The atmosphere was just so charged that at the end, when he cried, we all cried with him,” Bush reflected. That night, Bowie announced that it was “the last show that we’ll ever do,” much to his bandmates’ surprise. Little did a sobbing Bush know then that the best was still yet to come.
Early in his career, especially on the eponymous debut album of 1967, Bowie sang with an English accent in a style not dissimilar to that employed by contemporary star Syd Barrett. Speaking to Melody Maker in 1993, Bush observed that her associative English singing voice may have been subconsciously guided by some of her favourite singers.
Bush picked out Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry as an example. “I’d not considered that as a factor before, but certainly, a lot of English singers do sing with an American accent,” she said. “I used to love that about Bryan Ferry, that he sang with such an obviously English voice when so few people did. I loved Roxy Music, really loved the first four albums. I loved David Bowie circa Young Americans, too.”
In his first four albums with Roxy Music, Ferry flitted between American and English accents in a similar way to his contemporary glam star Bowie. If one were to pick out a Bowie album in which the Starman employed an English accent, they might not jump straight to the overtly transatlantic Young Americans, but the 1975 soul-infused release was clearly a big hit with Bush. She also mentioned that album when listing her top ten favourite albums to date in a 1980 interview with Smash Hits Magazine.
By 1980, David Bowie had released his most influential albums. Following that year’s arrival, Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, Bowie became increasingly pop-inclined and entered into a self-confessed nadir in the late 1980s following Let’s Dance. Of course, Bush might today regard Let’s Dance or the poignant bookend Blackstar as superior to Young Americans, but it’s hard to equal the power of teenage nostalgia.
