BOOK REVIEW: RUNNING UP THAT HILL – 50 Visions of Kate Bush by Tom Doyle

Shane | 27 July 2023 | Reply

BOOK REVIEW: RUNNING UP THAT HILL – 50 Visions of Kate Bush by Tom Doyle
Allen & Unwin
November 2022
Paperback, rrp AUD$32.99

Tom Doyle hangs a lot of his framework here on a couple of interviews he conducted with notoriously private songstress Kate Bush, and rightly so, given that she has granted so few private audiences over the years.

Doyle breaks his book down into fifty chapters – fifty ‘visions’ he calls them – of the former Cathy Bush, each one designed to shed some light on an aspect of her intriguingly quirky personality, including her mid-2022 career spike after Running Up That Hill was featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things. These chapters are wildly diverse. Some detail her writing and album making process in depth; others tell where to find a ‘KT’ symbol on most of her album covers; or quote the founders of The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, a celebratory mob who wear red dresses and cavort to the song annually; another shares reviews of Wuthering Heights.

Along the way he quotes admirers and collaborators such as photographer brother John Carder Bush, Jon Lydon, Dave Gilmour and Youth, each one sharing a little of their own experience with Bush, shedding a little more light and colour on her professional life.

It’s no easy task – Bush was never unguarded, especially where her personal life was concerned. The very epitome of an artist wanting to let their work do the talking, Doyle’s 2005 cover story for Mojo magazine to support new album Aerial was a coup, Bush having been a virtual recluse for twelve years by that stage.

The book is certainly far from an expose. There simply isn’t much dirt to dig on Ms Bush – or if there is, she has buried the skeletons deep. One gets the impression that Doyle – an unabashed fan – wouldn’t want to challenge her too much anyway. His glowing appreciation of his subject, alongside that of the others quoted throughout, give the book a bit of a fanboy vibe.

To be fair, though, I can’t recall hearing anybody who hasn’t had a complimentary word for her work – even the likes of acerbic punk icon Lydon publicly fawns over Kate Bush – so perhaps this niceness really IS the whole story of this unique artist.