“Christmas and open fires”: Kate Bush’s favourite Pink Floyd album
No one creates worlds and evokes wonder with their music quite like Kate Bush. Layering her smooth, soaring vocals over celestial art pop soundscapes, she landed on a sound that sits somewhere between theatricality and ethereality. Between hits like the bouncy ‘Running Up That Hill’ and the Emily Brontë-inspired ‘Wuthering Heights’, she endeared herself to millions, but she might never have done so without the early help of Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour.
Before Bush became the first woman to write a number one, before she stunned audiences with The Tour of Life, and before she became a certified art pop icon, she was a teenager making demos and hoping to attract the attention of a label. Though she failed to do the latter, she did win over the ears of someone even more impressive and influential: Gilmour.
Through a mutual friend, the Pink Floyd guitarist discovered her music and was immediately stunned. He set out to improve the quality of her demos and would even go on to co-produce her debut record, 1978’s The Kick Inside. Without his help, she might never have honed the distinctive sound we know and love today, or it might never have reached us.
It’s clear that Gilmour believed in Bush’s music from the moment he hit play on it, but his admiration for her talent is not one-sided. The ‘Babooshka’ singer once named Pink Floyd’s iconic The Wall as one of her favourite albums of all time, in a list to accompany the release of Never For Ever.
Released in 1979, just a year after Bush’s debut hit the airwaves, The Wall would prove to be one of Pink Floyd’s most well-known and well-loved studio releases. Despite the understated artwork that accompanied it, it was a record marked by ambitious creative vision, as theatrical and dramatic as any of Bush’s own ensuing output.
The Wall was a concept album of the grandest scale, following protagonist Pink through loneliness and loss. As he deals with more and more trauma, he sets out to build a wall around himself, giving the project its title. While most listeners would see it as a pioneering concept album, a storytelling masterpiece that tackles weighty themes, Bush compared it to far cosier abodes.
“It reminds me of last Christmas and open fires,” she commented, “and I wish I’d written it.” Considering her close connection to Gilmour, it makes sense that Bush forged a slightly more personal connection to The Wall, finding warmth and festivity amongst grand stories and soundscapes.
It’s also unsurprising that she wishes she could have written it, considering her own visionary artistry. Bush ventured into the world of concept albums herself with the second half of her beloved Hounds of Love, but her entire catalogue has an ambitious and theatrical literary quality to it, a desire to tell stories through song.
It makes sense that Gilmour and Bush had a mutual admiration for one another. Though Bush’s sound was far more ethereal and baroque than Pink Floyd’s prog, they had similar goals in their music-making. Each of them created worlds within recording studios, fully committed to their artistry. It was this ambition and scope that secured them both a permanent place in music history.
Revisit The Wall, Kate Bush’s favourite Pink Floyd album, below.
