Its 50 hours before Christmas, and in south Devon at the snowbound picture-postcard Victorian country home of sweetheart and radical traditionalist Channel Four Television Presenter Kirsty Allsopp, oops sorry, I meant of course to say Mythical Musician Songwriter Kate Bush - not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, and the hand-knitted stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St Nicholas would soon be there, when suddenly there was a loud crash, Kate’s young son Albert came rushing into the drawing room disturbing his mum who was sat dozing by the glowing fireside after crafting her macramé tea-cosies.
“Lovely Bertie!” “For heavens sake have a care child!” exclaimed the shaken Kate as her Kindle sat in her lap almost fell to the floor.
“Mum”, replied Albert, “I need to talk to you about your music, you can’t be serious”, “minimal jazz songs about snowflakes?” “It’s bad enough singing about laundry and having had people think you’d been coco in the loco for years”.
“Why, whatever’s the matter”, said Kate with one hand clutching her Apple iOS smartphone as she checked for messages while talking to Albert, “pull up a stool my Lovely Bertie and we’ll toast some muffins in front of the fire and later you can help me finish making my Christmas crackers, they’re home-made from recycled Newspaper Sunday Supplements which I’ve decorated with prints using half a potato, oh, and there’s also the candles to make from old lumps of soap”.
“Mum”, said Albert, “stop already with the eco-speak, I need you to listen, my credibility’s at stake here”, “I don’t want to sing like a girl on your record”, “and also”, said Albert looking quite serious, “please stop calling me ‘Lovely Bertie’ in front of my mates, I’m almost thirteen now”.
Gently holding her son by the shoulder’s Kate said softly, “Bertie, your mum must always follow her muse, always”, “but before I get back to that epic task lets settle down for the evening as Uncle Stephen’s on the British Broadcasting Service later with QI”, “and remember, De-cember will be ma-ha-ma-gic again when I get out our knackered VHS cassette of The Snowman”.
“Oh god Mum”, replied Albert in resignation, “its only you likes QI, besides, you’re always sewing things when its on”, “if we must watch Uncle Stephen pontificating then why can’t we get out the Blackadder Goes Forth boxset where he acts funny as General Melchett”, “and Mum, you’re the Raymond Briggs fan, and always making me watch Harry Potter films that I hate”, “why can’t we get MTV instead, all my mates are gonna watch Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg’s old-time Christmas Bitch-Seige with the Pussycat Dolls in yuletide bling”.
Kate raised her eyebrows and looked sternly at Albert as he continued to speak his mind, “people aren’t going to like having Uncle Stephen tweeting his endless rodomontades on your record and him getting all metaflowbustious and grandspandantical”, and, continued Albert, “please, please, don’t embarrass me at school by letting Uncle Elton loose on the sherry again, you know he comes over all musical theatreland then gets completely off his Gnomeo’s and starts Julieting with you”.
“But, but”, exclaimed Kate in reply, “Uncle Stephen is simply mellifluous, and Uncle Elton sure played a mean pinball when I was a girl”.
“There’s only one way you ever understand anything mum”, said Albert, “and that’s through the tedious medium of 1970’s avant-garde art-rock performance”. Pulling his best ‘Marshall Mathers mime-face’ Albert pretended to be Eminem and started rapping, “Yo!” “Ho, ho”, “Mommy got 50 words for snow”, “well I got 50 Cent for I told her so”, “May I have your attention please”, “they’re gonna come for me and I’m-a have to grow-a go-tee”. “Oh England, Slash my union jack Leotard”, “Peter Pans posse mugs the kids in Kensington Park”, “so will Them Heavy People please stand up, please stand up”.
“That’s it”, said Kate furiously, “I’ve had enough of your cheek, if this is the onset of puberty then you need to get up to your room now, and if you don’t behave then your Uncles Elton and Furnish will be told that a certain naughty little boy doesn’t deserve a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas”, “Winter can be a cruel season Bertie, very cruel indeed”.
Albert sloped off upstairs switching his facial impression’s from Mathers to Melchett, and started muttering away, “Baaah! Baaah!” “Darling, Darling”, “I don’t care if he’s been rogering the Duke of York with a prize-winning leek, he shot my pigeon”, “A skyfull of honey”, “Baaah!”
50 Words For Snow.
Unusually for me with a new album I managed to play all of Kate’s 50 Words For Snow from start to finish one evening while sitting and relaxing, its the sort of work that requires attention and a peaceful state of being, and its certainly the kind of thing to perhaps experience on a long train journey looking out of the window at snow-covered fields as its getting dark. My immediate impression was that tracks one through to four flowed together really well, particularly Snowflake and Lake Tahoe which felt like one piece. I think these two tracks are probably the most beautiful works on the album. Beforehand I’d expected the singing of Kate’s son on Snowflake to annoy me, and there are some moments of choirboy singing such as: “my fab-u-lous da-hances”, and a high-pitched assent at one point that should have grated on me, but, I enjoyed hearing young Bertie speaking in his choked kind of manner: “I can see horses… wading through snowdrifts”, these parts magnified the haunting atmosphere of the music and endeared me to him. Snowflake is a really lovely piece and perfectly sets the mood for the atmospherically charged and reflective album that 50 Words’ strives to be.
I love the slow jazzy piano and subdued percussion that Kate has fully immersed herself in, its a place of alternatively drifting freely and sometimes holding on as she takes the listener wandering with her. Its a good style for Kate, she’s contentedly away now from the howling vocals and striding pop style of decades ago, fortunately though while on this gentle path she’s still exploring, there's a confident sense to it, she’s growing old gracefully and remaining (mostly) good at getting her stories across while the whimsicalness, or surrealism of her imagination (take your pick) continues to buoy up her tales or alternatively threatens to capsize them, Misty is an interesting song, though I wonder about the logic of her deliberate schoolgirl double entendre.
The first four tracks of the album had me really captivated, but I decided to go and do something around the house while the duet with Elton John came on, I returned in time for the Stephen Fry exchange, and then the album ended on a quiet and almost unnoticeable song. I was really excited the next morning – and this is no exaggeration - about listening again to Snowflake, Lake Tahoe, Misty, and Wild Man, together these excellent tracks are the album for me, and they leave me wanting more, but then we get ‘Snowed In At Wheeler Street’.
Initially I thought my problem with this one would be the presence of Elton John, sure, he’s not exactly hip or relevant to current music is he, but probably like some of us on here - (and I assume Kate’s interest in Elton stems from the same historical nostalgia) - as a child I loved Rocket Man, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, and Pinball Wizard, heck, I even went to my school fancy dress party dressed up as Elton from Tommy! And not forgetting of course, Elton does whip up a great Disney soundtrack, but, although his voice on his duet with Kate is strange and his fake accent even more abysmal I think the bigger problem with this song is that it just doesn't work.
Snowed In’ has shades of mystery to its music reminiscent of the Ariel album (various elements of Kate's 2005 album have continued into this release) but its lacking the depth of emotion or regret that the story cries out for, and this is the fault of both singers, Kate is as unconvincing as Elton as they engage in their weak theatrics, clearly the time-travelling lovers being unable to connect are worn out, (not sha**ed out as they sought to be!), we're left with this dreary sub-Andrew Lloyd Webber nonsense, and Elton says it all as he sings: "Oh no, not again". After the restrained tension of the earlier songs there was expectation that we might be heading towards a snowy avalanche of revelation from the music or Kate’s performance, but we instead arrive at the title track 50 Words’, which is another confirmation that its all gone floppy, and the overall lack of ‘oomph’ during this last third of the album becomes it’s undoing, or worse still, Snowed In’ and 50 Words’ have Kate bordering on parody.
Stephen Fry delivers his words in a lazy fashion and his part is quite dull, I’m surprised at those five-star reviews for the album where Journo’s are falling over themselves about clever Fry’s intellectual ad-lib’s, personally I didn’t find them indelible, perhaps if Kate had sung them I would have, although her ‘c’mon man’ lyric is quite catchy (annoyingly so), and there’s a Peter Gabriel-esque sound going on, but ultimately it’s a silly song. Joking aside, Elton’s absurd singing and Stephen Fry’s talking could easily be made more memorable for the wrong reasons than they already are if done in Comedian Vic Reeves style - doing his Shooting Stars TV show Club-Singer sketch, the one where he sounds like he’s stuffed his mouth full of cotton wool and is trying to impersonate Rolf Harris, (Kate, why didn’t you think of this!)
The track Among Angels closes the album, its an uneventful song that feels more like just a bridge to someplace, maybe it should have been placed earlier, its not a satisfactory denouement and it really leaves me with a sense that the album is unfinished, unless of course that is Kate’s intention…
Also, what’s with all the greyness and lifelessness in what must be some of the worst album art she’s ever had?
