your joy is my low

If you'll excuse me for a moment I need to take some time out to gush about a certain musician, lol. If you look at my last.fm profile, you'll see my top artist is Akira Yamaoka (the man behind the Silent Hill soundtracks). And while I love him and his music to death, it's the second artist on my most listened to list that I am here gushing about.



Her name is Kate Bush. My mom has loved her for a very long time and when I was little and heard my mom listening to her I was instantly intrigued - that voice. Tori Amos, Florence + the Machine and Bat for Lashes are just three of the artists who have been compared to and inspired by her -- others inspired and influenced by her? Bjork, Bloc Party, Lady Gaga, OutKast, Muse, Goldfrapp & Coldplay -- to name a few (besides the aforementioned Tori Amos, Florence Welch and Natasha Kahn).

I've listened to her for years now and my life would be complete if I could see her in concert (oh my god i would turn into a blubbering, crying mess SO HARD). She's only been on one tour and that was before I was born. When I was little I used to dance around to her music in the living room in my LITTLE PINK DANCE CLOTHES standing in front of PROPPED UP WHERE'S WALDO BOOKS (usually the Vampire castle scene - it was mysterious looking, you see, and that fit with the Kate Bush motif in my mind - i have no idea). I can occasionally be found NOW with my headphones on wandering around singing and dancing to some Kate Bush song - I would squee in excitement if I could sing to one of her songs on Rock Band or something (NOT THAT MY VOICE COULD MATCH HERS AT ALL HOLY CRAP). I just... I can't express my love for this woman and her music well enough.

AMEN: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/8380775/Why-we-should-all-love-Kate-Bush.html

Here, let me tell you what only six of her songs are about and other fun random things.

1.) A woman who is approached by a man one night at a party who flipped a coin and basically said if it was heads then they were dancing together. She was charmed by this man and thought he looked familiar but didn't find out who he was until the next morning when she saw the paper. The man was Hitler. (Heads We're Dancing)

2.) A view of psychologist Wilhelm Reich's arrest and imprisonment through the eyes of his young son, Peter. Wilhelm Reich is the inventor of the cloudbuster -- a machine that could make clouds and rain. The video always makes me tear up, especially when the government is taking Dad/Wilhelm (Donald Sutherland) away in the "big black car"... (Cloudbusting)

3.) Audio warfare. It tells of a secret military installation where plans are being put into motion to find a sound so horrific it could kill people. The video used to give me nightmares -- and LOL TINY YOUNG HUGH LAURIE (HOUSE ZOMG - SEE IF YOU CAN SPOT HIM) is in it! Seriously, the song itself scares the shit out of me. I love it. The maniacal cackling -- the violins, my god the violins in this song are so downright absolutely haunting. (Experiment IV)

4.) This song has been covered numerous times (Placebo, Tori Amos, Little Boots, Faith and the Muse [I heard FatM play this cover at Dragon*Con and seriously almost peed my pants of excitement], Within Temptation & The Williams Blakes, among others) and is about a man and a woman in a relationship swapping roles to see how the other works and thinks -- making a deal with God to get a deeper understanding of the other sex. I read an article on the album this was originally on (Hounds of Love, which is -- pardon me -- fucking brilliant) and how she spent hours and hours trying to get the perfect sounds and the perfect melodies and noises and everything for this song. She's a perfectionist and it's shows. (Running Up That Hill)

5.) "You've made a wake of our honeymoon..." -- This song is about a movie, it is amazing. Here:

"...a driven, almost impenetrable woman who is hell-bent on exacting revenge upon five men who have wronged her. On the day of her wedding, someone shot and killed the groom, her life-long love, and she, after considering suicide herself, sets out to even the score. She methodically enters the lives, albeit briefly, of each man she holds responsible, planning his demise to some degree, yet taking into consideration the surroundings and the devices at hand when carrying out the killings. She then checks them off as though they were items on a grocery list before moving on to the next one..."

Amazing. XD

And I am always giddy at the background vocals: "Nevermind, she got the guy!" (The Wedding List)

6.) This one is about a woman who is pregnant after a nasty bout of atomic warfare. The mother very much aware of what is going on and frightened by nuclear fallout and how it will affect her baby, which implies that the song is set either during a nuclear war scare or a post-apocalyptic birth. The last two and a half minutes of this song are are so damn powerful and unsettling. Every single time this song comes on random I have to stop what I'm doing and listen to it. I can't help it. I get chills when she's practically begging at the end for something to breathe. CHILLS, DAMMIT. (Breathing)

(Aaaaaaand everytime I hear it, my mind screams FALLOUT 3 FANMIX.)

Because I think everyone should have a little Kate Bush in their lives, here are ten songs (from her library of roughly a couple hundred perhaps) for you. It was really effing hard to pick only ten. D:

01.) Running Up That Hill (from Hounds of Love - 1985)
02.) Pull Out the Pin (from The Dreaming - 1982)
03.) Breathing (from Never for Ever - 1980)
04.) Experiment IV (from The Whole Story - 1986)
05.) The Big Sky (from Hounds of Love - 1985)
06.) The Song of Solomon (from The Red Shoes - 1993)
07.) The Wedding List (from Never for Ever - 1980)
08.) Heads Were Dancing (from The Sensual World - 1989)
09.) Cloudbusting (from Hounds of Love - 1985)
10.) Walk Straight Down the Middle (from The Sensual World - 1989)

LISTEN TO THE TEN SONGS OF MAGIC.

Her voice makes me mellltttttttttttttttttttt. GIRLCRUSH. I'm not kidding, I love this woman so damn much. <3

P.S. You know that song "This Woman's Work" that 80% of the population calls THAT MAXWELL SONG!!11 That's a Kate Bush song. When people call it THAT MAXWELL SONG, it almost makes me as angry as when people are like OMG THAT DONNIE DARKO SONG FOR THE MOVIE BY GARY JULES. When it should be THAT TEARS FOR FEARS SONG THAT WAS COVERED FOR DONNIE DARKO. lol i take my 80's music for serious. Especially Kate Bush and Tears for Fears. <333

P.S.S. I've used her songs on 9 of my fanmixes. Awww yes.

P.S.S.S. I just watched that shit-ass Rebecca Black video then went back and looked at this post. Somehow, if it was even possible, Kate Bush got 1,000 times cooler to me (WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THE DAYS OF THE WEEK "WE WE WE SO EXCITED"... REALLY?).

I HAD TO DO IT. I CAN'T GUSH OVER THIS CHEESY SHOW ENOUGH.

CHEESY AND AWESOME. KUNG FU GRIP. Crush is the hottest chick though, so she got the most room. She is so effing gorgeous. I WOULD HIT THAT.

I feel a whole set of Gladiator icons coming on. D: But mostly with Zen and Crush and Wolf ...ot3?!

( ALSO. I COULDN'T RESIST THIS WHOLE TEAM AMERICA THING. )

COMING AGAIN TO SAVE THE-- (if you can finish this line I will give you a COOKIE!)~



(p.s. ZEN IS SO PRETTY. AND I NEVER MENTIONED SKYTRACK WAS AMAZING TONIGHT.)

I WOULD LIKE TO BUY DEE BURGER HAVE KATE BUSH'S BABIES, PLZ. I know I've felt that way for years and years, but I just have to profess my love for her once more. Cause dude. I remember watching the VHS tape of her Live at Hammersmith Odeon - 1979 concert over and over and over again when I was little -- and dancing around to it. And singing. And flailing. And looooooove. XD

I was bored on youtube looking and stuff and I forgot how effing awesome the lyrics to The Wedding List are (I watched a performance of it). I believe it was based off a movie (leave it to her to write a song about THIS CRAZY MOVIE D:) but it's basically about a couple getting married and the groom gets shot, then the bride goes looney, finds the shooter -- kills him and kills herself. And it's insane, like she's not trying to be serious and emo about it she's batshit crazy in the song and I LOVE IT. SHE'S PINNING HIM ON THE WEDDING LIST BY SHOOTING HIM.

( She's a widow all in red. )


This is also coming from the woman who wrote a song about dancing with a man, and finding out the next morning that it was Hitler.

( They say that the Devil is a charming man. )

She is also awesome enough to dress like a boy and have Donald Sutherland (OMG JACK BAUER'S PAPPY) in her video for Cloudbusting. It always makes me teary cause they take him away. :(

And she also had Hugh Laurie (OMG HOUSE IT'S NOT LUPUS) in her Experiment IV video for like FIVE SECONDS. He's the little lab assistant -- although, he gets a good screaming shot before he gets killed -- and a good shot twitching in the hallway afterwards. This video used to scare the everloving crap out of me when I was little -- like the 80's effects on the Kate that comes out of the box and then WHAT SHE TURNS INTO. NIGHTMARES. It doesn't help that the song is CREEPY IN ITSELF. AND THEN EVERYONE JUST DIES. D:

(THEN SHE GETS AWAY AT THE END AND TELLS ME TO SHHH -- SHE'S COMING TO KILL ME. ;-;)

She is so 80's most of the time (gee, I wonder why XD) and her voice is insane and whenever I listen to her I just get all, "Hurrrrrrr!!11 :D" Also, she is so gorgeous no matter what decade the damn pictures are from.

BABIES PLZ. D: