Kate Bush The Kick Inside Cd

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Oswalda Shutte

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Aug 3, 2024, 5:22:26 PM8/3/24

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Kate arrived at the studio with her father and a car full of bits of wood and painted paper from which he constructed the kite as it appears in the photograph. I rigged the rather fragile kite on the black painted wall of my studio with ropes and a metal bar which was strong enough for her to hang from.

Gosh reading your account of discovering Kate was identical to mine, its really was exactly the same. Thank you Kate for guiding us through such a challenging time. Kudos to you for such a wonderful post. ??

Send all your comments, questions or suggestions: se...@katebushnews.com (Note: This is an unofficial website and messages to Kate cannot be passed on to her). Enormous thanks to Mike Wade for being an incredibly patient and fair administrator on our forum! Huge thanks to Brian Cloughley for his enthusiasm and wonderful site artwork! Special thanks to everyone who emails the site and to Homeground magazine (for inspiration and information and for being wonderful people!) and to Wally Breese for showing how it can be done. Editorial assistance from The Duck. Thanks! Site launched: 25/1/98

I think since the Lizzie Wan story was cut out of this, it's possible to interpret it both in terms of that song, but also in terms of the myth of Artemis and Apollo; of two very close siblings. The 'Kick Inside' can be taken literally, as pregnancy, or as a metaphor for something about to be born that will 'make me leave you behind'; i.e. Kate's incredible creative drive.

Kate was and is incredibly close to her brother Paddy, who was her lifelong collaborator. This song can express the feeling that her artistic career (which was just about to take flight) will take her from him. I'm sure she must have thought of him when writing this.

A note on the origin of this song: "Lizzie Wan" (alternately "Lucy Wan") is an 18th-century English/Irish folk ballad, best known as The Ballad of Lizzie Wan, which recounts the tragedy of Lizzie Wan, who falls in love with her brother and then kills herself while carrying his child. Kate's original lyrics in the demo version of The Kick Inside included the line "Welling eyes from identifying with Lizzie Wan's story" making it clear that her own story refers to a modern pair of siblings who face a similar crisis. In the finished version as heard on the album, the explicit reference to the early folksong was removed, making the song's inspiration harder to identify. But her intent remains, as indicated by this excerpt from the original:

The themes of this song are quite controversial but i've always loved that Kate isn't scared to experiment with sensitive subjects. I do wonder where she gets the inspiration for songs like these though! It's about a woman who's having a sexual relationship with her brother and finds herself pregnant with his baby...i told you it was controversial! It's like a suicide note aimed at her brother in the form of a song. She plans to kill herself because of all the shame she's brought upon herself and her family.

this is definately about brother/sister incest, the resultiing pregnancy, and her decision to commit suicide rather than bring shame on her brother.....i read in one of her bios that this lyric is based on an old folk song/tale.....kate reads a lot and was introduced to a great deal of poetry and lore by her oldest brother, poet/photographer, John Carder Bush!

I don't think "the kick inside" means that there's actually a baby kicking inside her. And I don't think that the song is about her having sexual relations with her brother.I think trhe kicking inside symbolises an urge to go out and explore the world, and that's why she has to leave him behind. When she says "your sister I was born" she doesn't mean they're blood relatives, but brother and sister in other ways.

"Oh, do you know you have the face of a genius?..."Apollo was the great Olympian god of prophecy, music, song, poetry, archery, etc. He is considered the ideal of manly beauty. To be 'Apollonian' is to be serenely high-minded, noble and bright, etc.