Kate Bush – The Kick Inside (UK release)
Release date: 17 February 1978
Label: EMI
Catalogue No: EMC 3223
The debut studio album from Kate Bush was a strange phenomenon. She was only 19 years of age when the album was released. Most of the songs were written by her when she was only 13. The production team that guided her includes rock music’s luminaries like Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Stuart Elliot of The Alan Parsons Project.
I only discovered this beautiful, waif-like, singer of sensational sultry songs in 1981 by accident. Well, it was not really accidental but was sort of planned a couple of days before.
In 1981 I was messing about in TAR College and met a bunch of seniors who called themselves TARCIAN BLUES. Now, the main preoccupation with members of this group are girls, music, clothes, playing carrom and looking cool behind the canteen building.
There was a house party planned and all the guys were plenty excited. The house was a terrace unit in Taman Bunga Raya where the main campus was situated. Les Lee, one of the TARCIAN BLUES founder, offered me a joint.
Blaming everything now on my relative youth, I overdid the toking and was lying flat out on the carpet before the party can get going. The room was spinning very slowly and everybody was speaking in tongues.
Then, it happened…
Les Lee put a tape on and I heard the sound of whales having sex or giving birth or something…
Actually, it was the first song from The Kick Inside album called ‘Moving’ and I can still remember how the room stopped and a wonderfully weird voice came out of the walls…
To be honest, Kate Bush’s voice was not to everyone’s liking. Some detest her for the high shrills while others think she was overdoing her performance art thingy.
Nevertheless, The Kick Inside was a landmark album. It has sold many million units worldwide with certifications in many countries. There was so much on offer – the singing, the musicianship, the songwriting and the big hair. Oh, and her videos were quite sexy too…
Japanese Release
Release date: 20 May 1978
Label: EMI
Catalogue No: EMS-81042
After that trippy party, I was in love with Kate and worn out Les Lee’s tape (I was too cheapskate to buy my own). Later on, I went from cassette tape to vinyl record to compact disc to digital download and back to vinyl record again, for Kate.
Friends do ask from time to time what was the reason for this Kate obsession. I can only look at them and tell them about the different levels of emotion that kind of wash over you when listening to her. It is similar to watching a TVB series and feeling all the drama but without having to watch all the episodes.
Kate has an incredible way of touching you with the way she manipulates the melody and words. Just have a listen to these tracks and you’ll understand. There’s the incredible and mesmerizing ‘The Man with The Child In His Eyes’, the haunting ‘Wuthering Heights’, the effervescent ‘Them Heavy People’ and the lovely and sultry ‘L’amour Looks Something Like You’; these songs stay with you throughout your adult life.
There’s also one scene I have in my head that is on repeat mode; it’s the one where I was the hero Heathcliff and was trying to reach out and rescue my lovely Katey, who’s about to fall down the rocky cliff into the sea below on a windswept and rainy night. Jeng jeng jeng…
To be continued…