CELEBRATE KATE BUSH’S BIRTHDAY WITH PAMELA STEPHENSON - That HEAVY Satire!

"Do you like my latest hits...'cause you like my latex tits?" 

"Oh, England, my LEOTARD..."

Yes, all you Bush Babies, your beloved Kate was born July 30th, 1958, and I’m giving you a day’s HEADS UP to plan a party…all alone in your basement surrounded by Kate posters. 

Some blogger for whom English is a second language, and who has no imagination or morals, might use the day to give away an ENTIRE KATE BUSH DISCOGRAPHY. This, along with a huffy demand for a nice comment for his hard work. As in, "Here I am with nothing better to do in Holland, Sweden, Turkey, Croatia, or some other third-rate armpit country that isn't hip, and all I ask is that you appreciate how much I love MUSIC. ANY music. ANYTHING that will make me seem cool. Ooh ooh, I have a BLOG! I am in the music business!" 

But I digress. I was knocked out when Kate Bush suddenly emerged, fully formed, with not only some very exciting songs, but a new and pretty erotic way of putting them across...via mime and, yes, wearing a leotard.

I certainly remember when Kate was among the first to create evocative rock videos; two pieces were actually imported and broadcast on “Saturday Night Live.” WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW…UNBELIEVABLE!
    
Let’s take a look back at one of them: “Wuthering Heights.” It had people actually gasping, “There was a book based on this video?” Yeah, some chick named Bronte. I forget which one

Notice that this AUTHORIZED video has gotten over 19 MILLION HITS?

That means that Kate Bush has gotten paid some money by The Great God Google. Imagine THAT. One reason for posting a video here is that money actually goes to the artist. As long as the artist uploads and doesn't leave it to some asshole who writes "no copyright infringement intended, I just like this," so it's uploaded defying the point of copyright protection. Hoo ha.

I'd heard high-pitched pop voices before (Marsha Malamet is on this blog).  But Kate's lyrics were in progrock form, and she kept getting more and more evocative with her British delights in fantasy, ghosts, romance and things spiritual or simply peculiar. She would soon become political as well. 

Most would agree that the "hot" Kate Bush (all some people cared about) was best heard and observed on her first two or three albums and those early videos. I was going to record stores (remember them?) and buying import singles and albums. Here's Kate going banshee, but still being sexy with it:

I know, what's sexy about a woman actually called "Babooshka?" Nothing, unless it's Kate. For most, "babooshka" recalls the kind of schmatta old immigrant women from armpit countries in Europe used to wear while trudging around smelling of herring. 

It was at this time that Kate Bush became so successful she was worth a parody. After all, once the initial shock of seeing a curvy mime in action wore off, you had to think, "This IS a bit silly, even for progressive rock." Enter the fabulous Pam Stephenson, star of cult horror-comedy films, wife of Billy Connolly, and now a therapist. She was a woman who was not only sexy, but funny. She was not just the Carol Cleveland type that male comics could leer at for humor. She was talented and got chances to prove it. Like THIS amazingly on-target and pungent satire of our beloved Kate, including high kicks and hilarious face-making:

I think it edges Weird Al's Lady Gaga parody "Perform this Way" for best funny rock video of all time. You're getting the version with the Pete Brewis lyrics. 

Copyright is a bit different around the world. In America you can write parody lyrics and get paid for them, and there's no hassle (as long as the writer of the music is also paid). Nobody tells you NO YOU CAN'T. But in 1980 in the UK, Pete Brewis (who created some hilarious faux-Broadway musical songs for "The Tall Guy" movie) got a stern warning. NO, you can NOT lift the music from "Heavy People" or a phrase from "Violin" or "England My Lionheart" and get paid for adding tongue-in-cheek lyrics. 

As I see on my copy of "Not the Nine O'Clock News" (BBC Records REB 421), "England My Leotard" is SOLELY credited (meaning the money goes SOLELY to the person credited) as KATE BUSH. There's an added notation that the song is owned by Kate Bush Music Ltd, in association with EMI MUSIC Ltd. And then, as a throwaway, in parenthesis: (Lyrical pastiche Peter Brewis). Pastiche? UNPAID pastiche? Some people, leaving comments on various bootleg versions of the original video, marvel at what a good sport Kate Bush was, writing her own parody lyrics. But, no, she didn't. 

Pete Brewis: 

"There were copyright problems. When Kate Bush's publishers EMI got wind of the song being put out on an album I was summoned to a meeting with their lawyers who said I'd ripped off Them Heavy People. I said, 'The tune's different, the harmony's different, the bass line's different and the words are different. It's a different song'. They said, 'But your song wouldn't have been written if Them Heavy People hadn't existed'. Yep - true enough. 'And that makes it a breach of copyright', they said. So there you are: in this country you can't send up any song that's still in copyright. Not The Nine O'Clock News was extremely popular at the time, so the album stood to sell squillions. They agreed to let the song go on the album as long as they (and Kate Bush) got my share of the money. And they insisted on that wording: 'by Kate Bush. Lyrical pastiche by Peter Brewis'. Sounds really Edwardian doesn't it? Lyrical pastiche. 'And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, for your amusement I should like to perform a lyrical pastiche'.

Was Kate Bush in on the recording of this? NO. Did she like the parody? Pete Brewis:

"I heard, soon after the show was first broadcast, that she was a bit angry about it. Then a year or so later I asked a friend of mine who'd been working with her if she'd ever mentioned the song. 'Yeah - we were talking about it. She thought it was funny'."

In the category of WTF, it is duly noted that Pam probably recorded the lyrics while listening, karaoke-style to the finished song. In one she sings "my carrot quiches" while another has her sing "my cauliflower quiches."Let's turn to Pete Brewis again for the answer: 

"I wrote it, made a demo tape of me singing it to give to Pamela Stevenson for her to learn it, booked four or five musicians, a couple of backing singers and a studio. The bass-player was having an off-day and I got a bit impatient, but we got the backing track recorded in a couple of hours. The musicians went home. Pamela Stevenson arrived and listened to the backing track a couple of times before we started recording it. On the first take she sang the first line, 'I was into yin and yang and hatha yoga' and said, 'can I hear that back?' I said, 'You've only done one line!'

So bit by little tiny bit we got it recorded. She said she thought the line 'my carrot quiches were better than the bought ones' would be better if it was 'cauliflower quiches'. Never defensive about my finely-honed, expertly-crafted lyrics I agreed to change it. (Well - I argued with her for half an hour about it THEN I agreed). For the rest of the session, whenever we got to that line, the engineer and I would sing, 'My cauliflower quiches were better than the carrot ones'.

Just how the "carrot quiches" version got leaked and popular, who knows.

Those unfamiliar with British slang might be mystified by "I was thicker than two short ones." She wasn't referring to stalks of cauliflower or two carrots. Just recall Jethro Tull's 'Thick as a Brick," and you'll know that this is a reference to stupidity.

In the book "Under the Ivy, The Life and Music of Kate Bush," it's "cauliflower" that's quoted, and the preferred vegetable. On the web, "carrot" is quoted here on the blog in an earlier posting about the song, and preferred at the Kate Bush gaffa forum: Carrot Quiches reference in a lyric posting 

There have been a variety of Kate Bush parodies since Pamela Stephenson, but with her high kicks and her flashing eyes, and her sexy swivels, Pam not only gets laughs, she gets applause for being an excellent singer and dancer. Why she walked away from her comedy career, she should have her head examined, but being a therapist, she's too busy helping others. And one thing most therapists will tell a patient is to...have a sense of humor. Laugh and you'll live longer. Long live Pam, Kate, and Mr. Pastiche, Pete Brewis.