Music // Wuthering Heights

The 20th of January 2023

Today it is officially 45 years ago that Kate Bush released her very first single; Wuthering Heights! It is in my personal opinion the best debut single of all time, and also my favorite song of all time. It's been my favorite song for such a long time that there isn't a part of my left that doesn't remember knowing this song. It's really just awfully important to me. Every single time I listen to it I am transported somewhere completely different. It's hard to believe that this is the first piece of her art that she presented to the world, and that she was only twenty years old when it was released! 

 

Personally I believe everything about this particular song, and all of the imagery that it conjures up is just perfection. I love the shrill vocals, the dramatic yet gentle instrumentals and the deep intensity in the lyrics. It sounds perfectly haunting, comforting, romantic and also desperate. I could listen to it forever and ever. The fact that the guitar solo slowly fades away to me essentially means that the song does literally, somewhere, goes on forever! 

There were two official music videos released for the song. Both are excellent and while the "Red Dress" version is the most important one for many other fans my personal favorite has to be the 'White Dress" version. There is something absolutely magical about that music video. 

The video just accompanies the song wonderfully, it's equally haunting. Her face is so expressive, her hair is so wild and unruly, the fluid movements that she makes, the choreography and the marvelous video effects really make it a wonderful video. It really had a very profound effect on me as a child, it really affected everything that I love in life. The aesthetics that I enjoy, the way I love dressing, the way I'd love to be able to move to music and many many more things.

In that first year she performed the song a few times on a variety of television shows, some of those versions are quite rare! And quite awful quality as well, hopefully they'll pop up in better shape in the future! She also performed it as the encore to her wildly successful Tour of Life shows. Imagine having the balls to perform such a vocally complicated song at the end of a nearly two hour very active show!

However my favorite performance is the following one;

This beautiful and dramatic performance was filmed in the Efteling amusement park, which is a place I visited a few times as a child. She was invited to perform a selection of songs to promote the opening of Het Spookslot (The Haunted Castle) in a move that can genuinely only be described as the best idea in music promotion history. 

She performed a couple of other songs as well in different areas of the park. She performed Moving, Them Heavy People, The Man With the Child in His Eyes, Strange Phenomena and The Kick Inside. All of which are absolutely a recommended watch as well! It's genuinely a really strong series of videos that really show how well her music marries to the beautiful fantasy of this park. 

However that performance of Wuthering Heights is the true pinnacle of the whole set. Frankly it's ready to go into a museum dedicated to music history. The set is perfect for the song and she performs it incredibly well. It's just a wonderful and very memorable performance of Kate.

To be honest I could go on forever. Kate her music in general is very important to me and very close to my heart. She's an artist unlike any other. Obviously she doesn't need any promotion at this point (Or in general, her music speaks for her) but I do hope to be able to convey some of my love for her music to other people as well. Her full discography is astounding, full of wonderful jewels and a lifetime of new sounds that you hadn't noticed on the last listen just waiting to be discovered! But for me it all begins and ends with this song.

Happy Birthday to Wuthering Heights!

- Kate performing in 1978, likely either at Toppop (NL) or Szene (DE) -