Madsenblog

Drop dead gorgeous isn’t she…and absolutely bonkers…She had scored a couple of big hits in the late 70ies/early 80ies, and could have done what pretty much every other recording artist do e.g. play the safe card, record some pop music, and earn big bucks. Instead she recorded an album that was anything but pop…The Dreaming…24 years old, writing both the music and the lyrics, producing the album herself…and of course…playing some of the instruments and doing all the vocals.

It’s not easy listening and not the most approachable album, but definitely one that will grow on you given time!

Probably useless knowledge, but it shows just how much effort Kate Bush puts into her records: One of the tracks on The Dreaming, “Leave it open”, there is a two-way message that is sung at the end of the song. When you play it forwards it sings “We let the weirdness in”. And when you play it backwards it sings “And they said they would not let me in”.
Here’s how she did it: “…she first composed the exact musical (melodic) line that she wanted people to hear when they simply played the record straight. Then she set that phrase to the words, “We let the weirdness in.” Next, she recorded that melodic line, and listened to the weird phonetic sounds that came out when the passage was played backwards. She then proceeded to imitate those sounds as precisely as possible, following not only the phonetics that the backwards playback produced, but also the new, inverted melody that resulted. Once she had learned this new passage perfectly, she then performed it as though it were a normal chorus; synched that version up with the master tape; and let it play backwards with the fade-out.” (Quote from Gaffaweb)

You don’t see artists like that in the charts very often these days…