CLASSIC

HOUNDS OF LOVE

IN 1985, THE RUMOURS WERE RIFE: KATE BUSH HAD GONE BONKERS, GONE TO EARTH, OR SIMPLY QUIT THE MUSIC BUSINESS. IN FACT, SHE WAS HOLED UP IN HER NEW, STATE-OF-THE-ART HOME STUDIO, CAREFULLY ASSEMBLING HER MASTERPIECE…

MARK LINDORES

It’s hard to imagine that there was a time in the mid-80s when Kate Bush was perceived to be languishing in the pop wasteland, but in July 1985 the NME ran an article asking where Bush had disappeared to. It had been three years since The Dreaming, and there were rumours that she’d gone mad, developed an addiction to junk food, or retired from the music industry. In fact, in September of that year, she unleashed what would become her defining opus, Hounds Of Love, on the world.

During a sojourn to Dublin, Bush penned some of the lyrics and began to realise a concept for the record – weather patterns and water. She separated the album into two halves: ‘Hounds Of Love’ and ‘The Ninth Wave’, a suite of seven songs that would take up all of Side 2 and document the ebbing consciousness of a drowning woman in terrifying detail.