‘Moving’: the song Kate Bush wrote for her eye-opening mentor
When Kate Bush reached the first peak of her professional career in 1978, she was just 19 years old. Her debut single of that year was ‘Wuthering Heights’, a pop song unlike anything the world had encountered before. The groundbreaking single was an instant hit as it reached the top spot on the UK charts making Bush the first female artist to do so with a self-written song.
Even more remarkable is the fact that Bush wrote her debut single aged 18 with over 100 songs in her locker to choose from. Bush had been prolifically songwriting since the age of 11, and in her mid-teens, she recorded a demo tape, which made its way to Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour through a mutual family friend, Ricky Hopper. Impressed, Gilmour managed to get her signed to EMI, financing and producing her early, more professional demo tapes.
Despite the encouraging signing, Bush was put on retainer for two years by Bob Mercer, managing director of EMI’s group-repertoire division. Mercer greatly admired Bush’s material but felt that if her debut album flopped, it would be demoralising, and if successful, Bush was too young, at 16, to handle the pressures of fame.
Fortunately, EMI gave Bush a sizable advance, which she used to enrol in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, a former teacher of David Bowie. She also took classes in mime training with Adam Darius.
Amid her choreography training, Bush focussed on her school work and managed to rack up nearly 200 song demos, some of which began circulating as bootlegs. From March to August 1977, she fronted the KT Bush Band on a tour of London pubs. Among the backing group was bassist Del Palmer, with whom Bush would later enter a relationship of around 15 years. In August 1977, Bush finally began recording her debut album, The Kick Inside.
Following ‘Wuthering Heights’, which arrived in January 1978, Bush released ‘Moving’ as the second of five singles from The Kick Inside and the final to arrive before the album’s launch on February 17th. Peculiarly, the single was only released by EMI Music Japan and came with ‘Wuthering Heights’ on its B-side.
The characteristically pretty and emotive ‘Moving’ was written as an ode to Bush’s dance teacher, Lindsay Kemp. “He needed a song written to him,” Bush once said in an interview. “He opened up my eyes to the meanings of movement. He makes you feel so good. If you’ve got two left feet, it’s ‘you dance like an angel darling.’ He fills people up, you’re an empty glass and glug, glug, glug, he’s filled you with champagne.”
At the beginning of ‘Moving’, one can hear an enchanting whalesong sampled from Songs of the Humpback Whale, an LP created by Dr. Roger S. Payne. Hear the immersive track below.
