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'The Sensual World', which made Number 12 in September 1989, was Kate's biggest British hit single since 'Running Up That Hill' in 1985.
So... shall I pretend that taking a week to get round to this post is a tribute to Kate Bush's notoriously slow work rate? If so, it'd be an ill-timed one, since she's just released her second album of 2011, albeit that only one of them had new material. That said, there was an eleven-year gap between The Red Shoes and Aerial, which is roughly the same length of time that divides this from 'Wuthering Heights'. Of course, this sporadic release schedule is one reason she features relatively rarely in the Now! series - just the two solo singles - but even when she does she feels as out of place as an act of her commercial stature might reasonably seem. For all its chart success, 'The Sensual World' isn't really a pop song, and was utterly baffling to my 11-year-old ears; not difficult to listen to as an aggressive rock or hip-hop track might be, just hard to understand; especially since I didn't really know what the word "sensual" meant, although I was pretty sure it was something rude. I didn't know (and wouldn't have understood anyway) that the song was originally based on a speech from James Joyce's Ulysses, although Bush was unable to get permission at the time - she did manage to clear it for the re-recording earlier this year. I didn't know it was derived from a Macedonian folk tune either, but then I didn't know there was such a place as Macedonia, let alone two of them.
Actually reading Ulysses was somewhat more research than I thought necessary for this blog post, though, so I'm just going to look on this as a record. Interestingly, whilst the word "sensual" obviously implies sexuality, and that's certainly implied by the lyric and the breathy vocals, I think Bush is also using the word in a more general sense, as she talks about her character "stepping out from the page" and embracing reality in all its physical and emotional impact. It's obviously possible to read this as somehow autobiographical from somebody whose first hit was adapted from a book, but whether there's any truth in that we're never to know. Either way, it's a heady mix with the twisty melody and those haunting pipes. And yet, it's not the sort of thing that would realistically ever have been a hit single were it not from a legendary act, and it doesn't wholly seem to make sense without some broader context. It's admirable but doesn't stand alone in the same way as her next single, 'This Woman's Work'.
Also appearing on: Now 6, 8 (with Peter Gabriel)
Available on: The Sensual World
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