(Source: Far Out / IMDB)
Even the most established and experienced artists sometimes struggle to complete their work. The Beach Boys used 90 hours of tape to produce their 1966 hit “Good Vibrations.” “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” took 42 hours to record, despite being one of the most hated songs in the Beatles’ catalog. Whether due to physical limitations or creative blocks, artists often struggle to fully realize their initial artistic vision for a song, and Kate Bush is no exception.
After attracting the attention and admiration of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour with a demo tape, Bush began to carve out a place for herself as one of pop’s most innovative artists. Her debut single, “Wuthering Heights,” made her the first woman to have a number one hit in the UK with a self-penned song, winning over audiences with her wavering vocals and literary lyricism.
From then on, she was a pioneer of art-pop with swirling synth soundscapes. She was a true visionary, dreaming up strange ideas for music videos and live performances and somehow executing them seamlessly. But even Bush sometimes had trouble getting her creative juices flowing. When it came to writing “The Big Sky,” the final single from her legendary 1985 album, Dogs of LoveBush once admitted that she had difficulty completing the song.
As usual, Bush had a clear idea of the piece, but she could not quite put it into practice. “‘Big Sky’ was very difficult to write,” she once told Richard Skinner on Radio1“I knew what I wanted to achieve in the end, but I just couldn’t do it! We had three different versions and in the end it just turned out what it turned out to be, thank God.”
After playing around with the song and bringing in collaborators such as Killing Joke’s Martin Glover on bass and her brother Paddy on didgeridoo, Bush was finally able to bring “The Big Sky” closer to her vision for the song. The final recording of the piece featured prominent drums and a punchy bass, the latter of which Del Palmer said was crucial to the song’s interpretation.
“He plays this particular style that is just perfect for this kind of piece,” said Palmer musicianpraised Glover’s contribution to the piece: “It was all about having the right person for the right thing on the right piece. To each his own.” With Glover they had undoubtedly found the right bassist, whose playing really brought the piece to life.
The pounding instrumentation only served to underscore Bush’s characteristically airy vocals and her lyrics, in which she looks up to the sky and finds lands and figures in the clouds. “We’re looking up to the big sky, darling,” she sings, “Do you want my answer? What was the question? I looked up to the big sky.” Her vision for the melody is easy to see, for an instrumental piece that rolls like the clouds she describes.
After three attempts at the song and the ingenious recruitment of Glover on bass, Bush had finally achieved the vision she had set for “The Big Sky.” The track didn’t quite achieve the same success or longevity as some of the other singles from Dogs of Lovelike “Running Up That Hill (A Deal From God)”, but it fit the feel of the record seamlessly and was further proof of Bush’s ability to overcome a creative block and execute her artistic vision.
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