Thursday 25 November 2010

It's Just Great

I like lists more than I like people (well not all the time), so any excuse really but the challenge to compile the best 2-disc Kate Bush tracklisting was set on another blog, The Middle Eight, and here would be my own moments of pleasure as hurriedly assembled as possible (so excuse the notes):

Disc One:
01. Wuthering Heights
02. Running Up That Hill / A Deal With God (5 minute science-fiction orgasm)
03. Babooshka (the trigger-happy wailing of a wife's revenge plot - these days that's what we have fake gaydar profiles for)
04. Wow (Kate's beaming voice flashes like headlights)
05. Moments of Pleasure (cold air piano ballad)
06. The Sensual World
07. The man With The Child In His Eyes
08. Hounds of Love (the one song I never tire of blasting in my car - I actually want people to look)
09. Sat In Your Lap
10. Cloudbusting (gallant momentum)
11. Pi (could strum me to death - the soundtrack to autism?)
12. The Kick Inside
13. Be Kind To My Mistakes
14. Love & Anger
15. Get Out of My House

Disk Two:
01. A Woman's Work (many hours of teenage despair were absorbed into this song, and my pillow, back in 1999 - now it's just beautiful where it once felt like utter agony)
02. Suspended In gaffa ('I don't know why I'm crying,' oh Kate, neither do I half the time)
03. Delius (the unsung highlight from the flickering brilliance within Never Say Never)
04. An Architect's Dream (sumptous and arresting, it gives your insides a good rinse)
05. Don't Give Up
06. Army Dreamers (a Mother's hopelessness never loses its extreme pathos, and the chirpiness juxtoposed with, well, just everything else - a genuine connection to this woman is felt, 'mummy's hero' just kills you)
07. The Morning Fog (so sweet, morning vapours ooze, drip and treacle)
08. Reaching Out
09. Oh To Be In Love (the single that never was, her spiralling romantic chorus that sounds like it actually faints)
10. There Goes A Tenner
11. Deeper Understanding
12. Nocturn (the best thing she has ever done?)
13. The Big Sky
14. Rocket's Tail
15. The Dreaming (violent and unmistakable)

What I tried to fit into the 15-track blueprint but couldn't:

The Fog (well I just love this, but it doesn't really fit in the format of a compilation)
Never Be Mine (rather like Between A Man And A Woman, this is an example where Kate sings as a woman, but it goes out further than that)
Them Heavy People
And Dream of Sheep
All We Ever Look For
All The Love
Hello Earth
Big Stripey Lie
Eat The Music

3 comments:

Diva Incarnate said...

I left off Rocket Man!!!

xolondon said...

LOVE THIS! and correcting some stuff on mine now...

Diva Incarnate said...

Well thanks for giving me the idea to do it - sometimes you just need reminding of certain songs and artists.

I have to add that it was your blogging that made me buy the Florence album.