Peter at Peter’s Pondering helped me to decide to highlight Kate Bush today. Thanks Peter! I  wasn’t aware she had done several collaborations with Peter Gabriel. Today was the first time hearing this song. I’m quite taken with it and the music video.

Catherine “Kate” Bush CBE [Most Excellent Order of the British Empire] (born July 30, 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, and record producer. In 1978, aged 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single “Wuthering Heights”, becoming the first female artist to achieve a UK number one with a self-written song. She has since released 25 UK Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits “The Man with the Child in His Eyes”, “Babooshka”, “Running Up That Hill”, “Don’t Give Up” (a duet with Peter Gabriel), and “King of the Mountain”. All 10 of her studio albums reached the UK Top 10, including the UK number-one albums Never for Ever (1980), Hounds of Love (1985), and the compilation The Whole Story (1986). She was the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist to enter the album chart at number one.

The Kick Inside is Kate’s debut studio album, released on February 17, 1978. It peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. The production included efforts by several male progressive rock veterans, including Duncan Mackay, Ian Bairnson, David Paton, Andrew Powell, and Stuart Elliott of the Alan Parsons Project, and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.

Having written songs since the age of 11, Kate Bush recorded demos with the assistance of her brothers, who were also musicians. A friend of theirs, Ricky Hopper, brought some of these tapes to various record companies in 1972, when Bush was 13. The tapes were passed over, but Hopper played them for his friend David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Gilmour was immediately intrigued and went to meet with the Bush family and was impressed with Kate’s talent for songwriting. He financed some better quality demos and while Pink Floyd were recording their album Wish You Were Here at Abbey Road studios, Gilmour played the tapes for record company executives. EMI Records was impressed and agreed to sign her, offering her an advance of £3,000. Two of the demos recorded in June 1975 were included on her debut album three years later: “The Man with the Child in His Eyes” and “The Saxophone Song”.

“Wuthering Heights” was released as her debut single in November 1977 and re-released in January 1978. It stayed at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, and remains Bush’s most successful single. The song received widespread critical acclaim and continues to be highly regarded; in 2016 Pitchfork named it the fifth greatest song of the 1970s. Bush wrote the song aged 18, within a few hours late at night on March 5, 1977. She was inspired after seeing the 1967 BBC adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. She then read the book, and also discovered that she shared her birthday with author Emily Brontë.

Out on the wily, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you, too

Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I’m coming back, love
Cruel Heathcliff, my one dream
My only master

Too long I roam in the night
I’m coming back to his side, to put it right
I’m coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
You know it’s me, Cathy

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Let me in through your window

Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy
I’ve come home, I’m so cold
Songwriters: Kate Bush

Go here to see “Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! 60 unbelievable facts about Kate Bush“