This is a song of colour (27th of November 2011)
How many geniuses do you know? But, not those "someone told me about them" geniuses, but people who you, personally
recognized as geniuses i.e. as people who did (or do) something extremely well, something about which we all can be
proud as a specie?
I don't know whether I could count to more than about twelve. And if you thought that the geniuses I personally
recognized are all scientists, you are terribly wrong. Among those twelve there would be perhaps two scientists.
Let's go further. Are there those who are still alive among the geniuses you recognized? Of my twelve only one
is alive. Kate Bush.
It is completely obvious to me that many will stop treating me seriously here, simply because they do not know
the work of Kate Bush or they know her only superficially, only as a beautiful face and sexy appearance from the
end of seventies and beginning of eighties. At the mention of her name most people think immediately about
pop music and put her in categories which she cannot fit in at all, simply because she is too good and because her
work evades any sort of trivial classification. But she appeared during the time of stiff haircuts and easy notes,
on Top of the Pops charts, pretty well and successfully fitted in the musical pop business. That is where
the confusion comes from and that is why her appearance is even more interesting.
I don't know when I heard Kate Bush for the first time. It was perhaps when I was a kid, a first year school
kid who was touched by the music along the way, as it would appear on the radio or television, more or less
unconsciously. When I started going to school, nineteen year old Kate just released her first album The
Kick Inside. In fact it is almost impossible that the child ears of mine didn't hear Wuthering Heights. And
who once hears it, he will remember it, even if he is a slobbery first year school kid with allergy to pollen and dust.
I seriously listened to her for the first time in year 1991 thanks to my colleague Ilija Zovko who appreciated her
very much. I recall Wuthering Heights, Wow, Babooshka, ... and I recall being deeply touched
by it. I felt this music, but it just couldn't fit in what I, as a rebellious student of the most important discipline
in the world, listened to. And that was, with the exception of Pink Floyd, mostly cranked up high -
"soft" and feminine Kate Bush could not fit in the unifying theory of my music so I forgot about her in
time, as every theoretician forgets about the details that do not fit completely. Of course, my unifying theory
of music was wrong - Kate Bush is impossible to forget once you hear her and it was clear that she will
sooner or later reappear.
She reappeared in year 2006 when my wife bought her album Aerial. It happened
just on my birthday, so exactly five years ago. The album was made in year 2005, it is a double album, but one
should listen to the "B side" CD, A Sky of Honey. A Sky of Honey is a master piece, the reason for which
its author deserves the title of genius and the reason I returned to listening to her music, only to conclude that
Kate Bush made many master pieces and that there is much material that unmistakably identifies her as a genius. Sometimes
I envy her for that, as much as I am thankful for the excellent music which smoothed and enriched my life.
A Sky of Honey is forty two minutes of music that should be listened to in continuity, from the beginning to the
end. It is a journey from waking up to the midnight orgasm after which we can calmly go to sleep and die.
And stopped still, it was just so beautiful,
it was just so beautiful, it was just so beautiful
It is a journey from birth to conscious ecstasy, with the colors of sky, see, honey, stars, sand, with the sound of rain and thunder and chatty blackbirds. With love and art which celebrate the path we walk. This is a journey in which we ask ourselves whether we are really experiencing it or we are dreaming. Could be in a dream, it is possible that this is not "reality", but who cares?
Our clothes are on the beach
These prints of our feet
Lead right up to the sea
No one, no one is here
No one, no one is here
We stand in the Atlantic
And we become panoramic
A Sky of Honey is the album that I would recommend to blind people. It is a synaesthesial album which will, to someone who never saw the honey setting of sun into the sea which merges with the sky, perhaps best describe that feeling. In this album, blackbirds sing the song of Summer. It is a song of colour:
That blackbirds sing at dusk
This is a song of colour
Where sand sing in crimson, red and rust
And when I got soaked by the sea and sky of honey completely, I realized that I must seek further, that I must return to
her earlier music. And what treasures awaited for me there!
The music of Kate Bush is extremely varied, she experiments, seeks more and more, does not stand in one place. Sometimes
she makes mistakes. Kate Bush was the worst when she tried to fit in the trend or when she listened too much to what
others were doing. Those who have the gift must trust it and not compromise no matter how much it may cost. They
should not allow for ephemeralities to lead them off track. It didn't happen too often to her, but there is also a music of
hers which I don't like. I will not speak about it here.
How are works which do not have a time tag, which cannot be positioned in time created? How did Vivaldi create Gloria?
How did Kate Bush create Wuthering Heights? Those things happen when the genial person accepts hers/his genius and
lets herself to it without holding back. Nineteen year old Kate knew this completely instinctively and she stubbornly
insisted on it, thirty year old Kate was less certain because she had much more experience, and fifty year old Kate
managed to consciously accept what she instinctively guessed as a nineteen year old.
Why is Kate Bush a genius? Of course I cannot explain it in this text. I can only recommend to you that you listen
to her music. On a superficial level, you will note that Kate Bush creates theater and spectacle out of music, that she
combines harmonies in most unusual ways, maximizing the effect with her extraordinary voice and, sometimes brutally honest,
sometimes dreamy lyrics. On a somewhat deeper level, you will note that it all starts to mean something to you, and if
you manage to reach this level, the way further is straightforward.
If I was just starting to discover Kate Bush, here is how I would begin:
Younger persons will surely like the earlier albums more so it is perhaps better for them to start with e.g. The Kick Inside.
Kate Bush is treated almost as a goddess by her fans. The reason for that is partly her impressive appearance in her younger age which is almost certainly a burden to Kate of the present: How does one stay so young and beautiful, so alive and creative? This is of course impossible, but the true meaning of what Kate Bush does has nothing to do with her physical appearance. She managed to preserve the polished and blinding essence of femininity in her works. Mmmmmmm, yes!
I can't wait to hear her new album 50 Words for Snow which got out just five days ago. My wife bought it for me for my birthday. I am only 39.
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Last updated on 27th of November 2011.