h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What would you say is the best Kate Bush track?

I really love the fragility of 'The Man with the Child in his Eyes'. A lot of people have interpreted the song as being about child abuse, but Kate has often refuted that. It sounds to me like the 16-year-old Kate was actually singing about her feelings as a precocious and creative child and looking up to the men who were shaping her career. But that's just how I see it.

Have to admit, I first heard the song when Hue and Cry sang it on Radio 1 on Philip Schofield's sunday show. It was sang in the third person - 'You hear him...' rather than 'I hear him...'. I think it was subsequently released as a Hue and Cry B-side.

I think I have it on a Hue and Cry album somewhere

I'm most familiar with the first 2 albums, "The Kick Inside" and "Lionheart", so here's a few favourites: "L'Amour Looks Something Like You", "Moving", "Wow". Yes the third has been almost satirised by alternative comedians into self-parody, but still the massive production (massive in terms of space as opposed to 80s overkill) and precocious originality is undeniable in 2004.

My favourite track, without a shadow of a doubt, is 'This Woman's Work' from The Sensual World. I liked it so much that I taught myself to play it on the piano (this was before I ever took piano lessons, and I had to cheat and play it in a different key, because Kate likes the black notes).

It's one of the few songs that can make me cry.

"L'Amour Looks Something Like You", "The man with the child in his eyes" - or, some days, "James and the cold gun".

The latter especially for the fabolous rhythm in the piano playing...

'The Man With the Child in his Eyes' is indeed superb but the winner for me has to be oft-overlooked festive classic 'December Will Be Magic Again.'

I always loved Kate, especially because she used to put messages in the run-off to her vinyl. (I remember the one to the B-Side of 'Sat in Your Lap' was 'Thanks Donovan.') I'll get me coat...

It's not easy to pick a 'best track'; it depends what mood I'm in. Today, I'm inclined to 'Get out of my house' - played very loud indeed. In a more gentle mood, I might go for 'The Red Shoes'. (Which reminds me - the video is quite odd - Kate and Miranda Richardson struggling in a roomful of fruit. Or maybe I was hallucinating.) 'Rocket's Tail' needs a mention too, as does 'Sat in your Lap'.

I can't pick a best album either, but I usually put on 'Lionheart' or 'The Dreaming' for preference. The second side of 'Hounds of Love' is rather special. I once put this on, sprawled on the couch, and was lulled to the edge of sleep... and then a voice said 'Wake up!' I was alone in the house, and panicked for a couple of moments. Oh dear.

Ivan.

Somehow I forgot 'Suspended in Gaffa'. I once waltzed to this song, with a friend, in the main hall of the Adelaide railway station. Most passers-by pretended not to see us. Can't think why...

I’m so glad this Entry was suggested: it’s got me listening to the records again and realising what a massive talent Kate was and, hopefully, still is. There’s so much richness and diversity in the body of work she created: such an amazing combination of the adventurous and the accessible, the erotic and the exotic, the powerful and the playful, the personal and the political.

It’s a really tough choice, but if pushed to name one favourite track I think I’d have to pick her second biggest UK hit, and the song that first got her into the American singles chart: ‘Running Up That Hill’. I can’t think of a song that better exemplifies Kate’s ability to reconcile apparent opposites. It’s one of her most viscerally exciting pieces, with its galloping drums and impassioned vocal, but it’s also melancholy and reflective. It’s a tender love song about isolation: about the painful fact that however close you get to someone, you can never *really* feel what they feel and experience the world just as they do. It acknowledges that we’re all alone, but it’s also intensely romantic in the way that it conveys the desperate desire for closeness and communion. It’s moving and magnificent.