24 October 2022

RUNNING UP THAT HILL: 50 VISIONS OF KATE BUSH is a brand new, multi-faceted biography of this famously elusive figure, viewing her life and work from fresh and illuminating angles. It’s written by respected British music journalist and author Tom Doyle.

Louder Than War writes: “Ever since a teenage Kate Bush arrived chanting Heathcliff’s in 78, stretching the key of C sharp like an oscillating wave, there’s been a sense of the otherworldly about her. As much a ground zero moment for pop as the Pistols were for the denim brigade, Wuthering Heights, a chart hit not in 4/4 time, sang about an eighteenth-century troubadour should have been an anomaly not a blueprint for a career that has now stretched out over nearly five decades and shows no sign of ending.

That veil of secrecy and strangeness is such that Kate Bush is one of the few artists you can actually look forward to books being written about. This latest release 50 Visions of Kate Bush by Tom Doyle might well be the punchiest one yet, beginning with her childhood in Welling Kent, where Bush would sit at a Mustel pump organ for hours working out chord structures and setting in motion the foundations for her future career in Dadaist pop.

Doyle, a respected music journalist does an excellent job of getting behind his subject. He’s even granted a rare interview with Bush, which acts as a preface to the book. It’s the closest we get to see the singer with her guard down, upbeat but slightly paranoid about the release of her Aerial album. With the record industry changing for the worse and with outside pressures seeping in, Bush is keen to dispel the layers of myths built up around her. “I just find it frustrating that people think I’m some sort of weirdo recluse that never comes out into the world,” she says.”

The book is out this Friday, 28 October. You can order it here via Amazon.

The single’s artwork – 1985