It is that uncertainty and constant anxiety which makes The Ninth Wave so compelling. Being stuck on the water and not knowing what is below is at the top. She has remarked how she and her friends debated what the scariest thing is you could imagine. One feels that this is Bush’s most rewarding and favourite creative project. This is a song on Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave. Bush, in 2014, filmed a video for And Dream of Sheep. Whilst one of Bush’s more stressful experiences with water came when she was filming a video for her 2014 residency, Before the Dawn, that takes me to an album ( Hounds of Love) where her curiosity with water is at its most striking. Think about her debut album, The Kick Inside (1978), and we open with the sound of whale song (on the track, Moving). The video for Army Dreamers sees Bush and her cast in the water, in danger – Breathing’s video also is partly set in the water. Never for Ever’s Breathing is about a foetus that is living in the womb as nuclear apocalypse beckons. Some of Bush’s songs discuss birth and motherhood – or the creation of new life. Bartolozzi is the heroine who is washing the muddy floor and watching clothing tango in the washing machine. If some artists use water images rather simply or obviously, Bush can take us from the wide expanse of the ocean to a washing machine. Bartolozzi (“ I took my mop and bucket/And I cleaned and I cleaned”)., Rather than it being grand and sweeping, it is more mundane yet no less extraordinary and arresting. I especially love the domestic setting of Mrs. On the album’s first disc, A Sea of Honey, water is represented and employed in different ways. 2005’S Aerial has a second disc, A Sky of Honey, where we get the cycle of a day. For Bush, I think it relates to her wider interest in the natural world. It is not uncommon for songwriters to write about water - either literally or as a metaphor. In several of her albums, one can hear songs that relate to water or mention them. IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for The Ninth Wave ( Hounds of Love, 1985)/ PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bushīut I have been casting my mind back to interviews where Kate Bush discussed her fascination with water.

Aerial soundwaves