The song Kate Bush wrote inspired by Pink Floyd
Legends often discover legends. Dr Dre began working with Eminem after hearing a tape of him performing at a rap battle, Joan Baez was instrumental in giving Bob Dylan his start through recording and live opportunities, and a teenage Kate Bush was discovered by legendary Pink Floyd guitarist and vocalist David Gilmour.
At the pinnacle of his artistry, fresh off the back of the release of The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973 and in the middle of creating Wish You Were Here, Gilmour took some time out of his busy schedule to listen to a demo given to him by a friend. The demo comprised over 50 tracks recorded by a young Bush. Impressed by her strange vocals, Gilmour went to meet with her, paid for her to record a new demo, and ended up landing Bush a contract with EMI.
Bush, who was just 16 at the time, had never heard the progressive rock band’s music. In 1985 she recalled, “I was not really aware of much contemporary rock music at that age. I had heard of them, but hadn’t actually heard their music. It wasn’t until later that I got to hear stuff like Dark Side of the Moon. And I just thought that was superb – I mean they really did do some pretty profound stuff.”
Just a few years after Gilmour kick-started her career, Bush went on to write a song inspired by his “pretty profound stuff”. In 1978, she released ‘Wow’, the second single ahead of her sophomore record, Lionheart. Over glittering instrumentation, Bush’s ethereal vocals sing of the difficulties of stardom – her lyrics are at once excessively complimentary and demanding. She takes on the voice of audiences and studios, declaring, “Ooh yeah, you’re amazing! We think you are really cool, we’d give you a part, my love, but you’d have to play the fool”.
Bush shared the meaning of the song with the KBC fan club magazine just a year after its release, acknowledging that it was about the music business but not limited to her sphere. She explained that it was about “Not just rock music but show business in general”.
Though her inspiration came from her experience of the industry, it was actually Pink Floyd’s influence that provoked her to write the track: “It was sparked off when I sat down to try to write a Pink Floyd song – something spacey,” she said. The instrumentals are certainly spacey, with soaring instrumentals that swell around her repetition of the titular word.
Despite denouncing the music industry, ‘Wow’ went on to earn Bush a place in the UK’s top 20 and remains one of her greatest tracks. Spacey and sparkling, it combines her growing dissatisfaction with show business with the influence of the man who granted her entry into it.
Revisit ‘Wow’, the song Kate Bush wrote inspired by Pink Floyd, below.
