Kate Bush - "The Kick Inside"

How does one do it exactly? To solve the Kate Bush mystery, which is by no means an easy task, it takes crucial mental focus. Listen, I am going to try my very utmost to successfully review Kate's debut album, but I am making no promises that this experiment will payoff. You have then a woman of roughly only twenty, and one who was in some vague way actually discovered by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour; at least in terms of getting label interest. Once discovered, Kate was still only about sixteen years of age and in fact got a detailed music and dance education for roughly two years prior to releasing her debut. Needless to say, this intensity and focus is unheard of in the rather non-musical music that has been released by Pop divas in more recent years. The hard work paid off very nicely, and what sticks out more so than anything else on Kate's debut, even more so than her instantly signature vocal stylings would be her uniquely intelligent emotional viewpoint as a lyricist.

Of course, if you would like more generalized details about Kate's fantastical musical journey, then I will gladly refer you to an earlier blog entry of mine that covers this area, at least in essence. Back to "The Kick Inside," what we have here is an uncensored and entirely open female interpretation of the world around her, but of course, Kate isn't just any woman and her unique insights are bound to increase your intellect by a good twenty points or more. The album opener "Moving" almost seems to refer to sexual awakening mingled with heartbreak, of course, all is very subtle both musically and lyrically, as Kate leaves us with a series of puzzling metaphors to sift through. A few songs later we hear the charming and enchanting "Strange Phenomena," which again, seems to elude to something sexual, but this time the lyrics more so relate to self-realization in terms of reaching that place of adulthood by way of sexual maturity in the physical sense.

And of course, upon the 1978 release, Kate was still roughly a child in a great many respects and there are a few songs that cater to her own brand of precociousness, if that is the right way to refer to it as. One song in particular is simply given the moniker of "Kite," and indeed, the following cut and dry lyrics sway an entirely different direction compared with the two more so introspective songs already mentioned:

Come up and be a kite, and fly a diamond night.

Of course, these lyrics pertain to the song's chorus, as Kate is somewhat more peculiar with the lyrical content that relates to the verse portions of the song, but still, the mood is different and displays her in more of an imaginatively youthful frame of mind. Also, live footage from the time period gives Kate a whole stage to work with and the more up tempo jaunts like "Kite" display her frantic and dramatic dancing abilities with great aplomb.

The most lyrically complex song on the record is "Them Heavy People," and this is the sort of song someone like Freud would have had a field day with. Goodness, where to start? As mentioned already, this record eludes to two Kate Bush personae: The curious girl and the knowing woman. On "Them Heavy People," these two characters meet and have a blast. The lyrics pertain rather clearly to the act of sexual intercourse and the mental changes that this can cause in an individual, and especially if sensual pleasures are a new experience. The lyrics truly tell the tale:

Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.

They arrived at an inconvenient time.
I was hiding in a room in my mind.
They made me look at myself. I saw it well.
I'd shut the people out of my life.

So now I take the opportunities:
Wonderful teachers ready to teach me.
I must work on my mind. For now I realise:
Everyone of us has a heaven inside.

Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Them heavy people help me.
Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.

They open doorways that I thought were shut for good.
They read me Gurdjieff and Jesu.
They build up my body, break me emotionally.
It's nearly killing me, but what a lovely feeling!

I love the whirling of the dervishes.
I love the beauty of rare innocence.
You don't need no crystal ball,
Don't fall for a magic wand.
We humans got it all, we perform the miracles.

Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Them heavy people help me.
Them heavy people hit me in a soft spot.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball, rolling the ball to me.
Rolling the ball, rolling the ball...

Firstly, we have the curious young woman who finally gets her taste of sexual pleasure, and then, by the end of the song she is an old pro in terms of owning her sexuality with an unquestionable confidence. It is quite telling that she was able to get away with so much from a lyrical perspective, especially considering the fact that a lot of her early fans were children. I am nearly for certain as well that an early talk show appearance took her to France, which was actually part of a greater children's television program, and on this show she decided to do a solo piano number about a passionate love affair between two men, needless to say, the language barrier may have very well saved her, and this was no doubt a rather bold and curious move on her part as well. What so often works for Kate then is her ability to capture her audience. She's mysterious, she's beautiful, and no matter what she says or does, she is always far too appealing to deny. One must simply marvel at her talents.

The song "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" is actually quite telling as well, on this cut Kate makes crystal clear that she basically sees most men as little boys, but this is far from some angry feminist manifesto in which being this way for a grown man in terms of personality, is somehow pathetic. For Kate, this very supposed innocence that potentially exists in quite a few men, at least from her perspective, is one of the primary things that attracts her to the opposite sex. Of course, Kate is on par with the best of them, and even if she may not be stylistically to some listeners taste, she is one artist that cannot be denied. Excluding the big hit "Wuthering Heights" that introduced the world of Pop to this phenomenal talent, I feel that I have highlighted this record to the best of my ability. Finally, while Kate's discography clearly indicates she made better albums than "The Kick Inside," one is left to wonder if she ever made another record that was equally as charming.

Kate plays the humor quite broad on the highly choreographed visual delight of "Them Heavy People."