Kate Bush had the music written when she noticed something odd. The final monologue of Molly Bloom from James Joyce's novel Ulysses seemed to fit perfectly against her melody, as if the character's breathless, tumbling sentences had been waiting for it. Bush, the English singer and songwriter, wanted that text for the title track of her sixth studio album, The Sensual World. The Joyce estate said no. Kate Bush released The Sensual World on October 16, 1989.
So Bush did what a writer does when a door is locked. She wrote her own words, echoing Molly Bloom's famous closing passage without copying it. The album came out on 16 October 1989 on EMI, with Bush producing it herself. 'The Sensual World' still carried the spirit of Joyce, and it also reached further back, to William Blake's poem 'Jerusalem', another text about bodies and the sacred tangled together.
Instruments and guest voices
The record was not a simple pop affair. Irish instruments — uilleann pipes, fiddle and whistle — gave the title track its rolling, earthy pulse. Three songs, 'Deeper Understanding', 'Never Be Mine' and 'Rocket's Tail', carried backing vocals from the Bulgarian ensemble Trio Bulgarka, whose close, bright harmonies cut against Bush's own voice. Mick Karn, the bassist known for his work with the band Japan, played fretless bass on 'Heads We're Dancing', an instrument with a slippery, vocal quality that suited the song's strange premise.
In Britain the album climbed to number 2, held from the top but hardly a failure. Robert Smith of The Cure named The Sensual World his favourite single of the year and the album his favourite album of the year in December 1989. Years later, the pop songwriter Charli XCX listed the record among the ones that define her. The album had found its people. The album's commercial life stretched well beyond its first weeks. In Britain it was certified platinum for shipments of more than 300,000 copies, while in the United States it went gold. The recording sessions themselves had been a long, careful process, running from September 1987 to July 1989 across three studios: Wickham Farm Home in Welling, Windmill Lane in Dublin, and Angel in Islington. The album runs for 42 minutes. In the United States, the RIAA certified it gold.
Alan Murphy's final recordings
There was a shadow over the release. Alan Murphy, the guitarist, died three days after The Sensual World came out. The record became his last studio work. It is a detail that sits quietly behind the album's lush, confident surfaces.
Bush cared about how the album ended. On vinyl, The Sensual World closes with 'This Woman's Work', a song originally written for the 1988 film She's Having a Baby and re-recorded for the album. On CD and cassette, a bonus track called 'Walk Straight Down the Middle' was added, but Bush inserted a long pause before it so listeners would understand the record was meant to finish with 'This Woman's Work'. The song's afterlife kept growing. In November 2005 it appeared in a British television series and then climbed to number 3 on the UK Singles Downloads Chart. It also featured in an NSPCC advertisement from 2005 to 2008 and in a 2007 Christmas special of Extras.
In May 2011, Bush returned to the title song on her album Director's Cut. The Joyce estate had finally granted permission. She recorded a new vocal using Molly Bloom's actual words and renamed the song 'Flower of the Mountain'. The version she had wanted from the start now existed, over two decades after she first noticed how well the text fit her music.