Kate Bush Moving in a blue leotard in 1979.

Kate Bush by Gered Mankowitz in 1978

photos by Rob Verhorst, Jorgen Angel and Gijsbert Hanekroot

Kate Bush during a performance of 'Wuthering Heights' in 1978

Kate Bush (1978)

© Gered Mankowitz

covers for kate bush’s the kick inside

Kate Bush: an hyperfixation post

Kate Bush, 1978.

Kate Bush - “Wuthering Heights” (1978)

Written in 1977 when she was only 18 years old, “Wuthering Heights”—the lead single (at Bush’s insistence) from her debut lp, The Kick Inside—held onto the #1 position on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, making Kate Bush the first female artist to achieve a number-one single with an entirely self-penned song.

Kate Bush in her Red Shoes - The Line, the Cross and the Curve, 1993.

Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely On the other side from you I pine a lot, I find the lot Falls through without you

Kate Bush 1978

Kate Bush (1978)

© Gered Mankowitz

Wuthering Heights (1978)

"I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily... I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn't relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them."

vs.

Suspended In Gaffa (1982)

"Suspended in Gaffa is reasonably autobiographical, which most of my songs aren’t.  It’s about seeing something that you want–on any level–and not being able to get that thing unless you work hard and in the right way towards it. When I do that I become aware of so many obstacles, and then I want the thing without the work. And then when you achieve it you enter…a different level–everything will slightly change. It’s like going into a time warp which otherwise wouldn’t have existed."

Kate Bush quotes from the Kate Bush Encyclopedia