Songs To Break Your Heart To - The Red Shoes by Kate Bush

"When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' --that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

John Keats - Ode On A Grecian Urn (1819)

Four long years after the James Joyce inspired The Sensual World - but a mere blink of an eye comapred with the 12 that would follow before Aerial - Kate Bush took the themes of the 1948 Powell and Pressburger movie The Red Shoes as both inspiration for and vehicle with which to produce some of her most personal and emotionally harrowing music. Based upon Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale of the same name, the film is a story of love, loss and betrayal, feelings which are evoked and expressed in stark detail as Bush deals with the the twin traumas of her mothers death and the break up of her long term relationship with collaborator Del Palmer.

In the year of its release, 1993, the accepted definition of emotional honesty was that demostrated by the 'I Hate Myself And I want To Die' school - many of its students could have learned a huge amount from The Red Shoes about how to express real pain without the assumption that nihilism, real or metaphorical, was the purest way to achieve catharsis.

For an artist stereotypically defined as arty, literary, illusive, the lyrics were now as often direct, open, clear, driven by feelings too strong to be hidden behind imagery and illusion:

"But now we see that life is sad / And so is love" - And So Is Love

"Don't want your bullshit / Just want your sexuality Don't want excuses / Write me your poetry in motion Write it just for me / and sign it with a kiss" - The Song Of Solomon

"Life has torn a great big hole through me" - Lily

"just being alive / it can really hurt" - Moments of Pleasure

Moments of Pleasure is perhaps the key song thematically, a beautiful litany about the temporality of life, meditating on the pain and yet redeeming power of memory - recalling "some moments that I've had/ some moments of pleasure", before going on to evoke scenes of people and things that went before, bringing the central theme into full focus:

"Just being alive / It can really hurt And these moments given / Are a gift from time Just let us try / To give these moments back To those we love /To those who will survive"

This is all underscored by that elegant, pristine piano you come to expect, and a string arrangement so utterly beautiful it will make you shiver inside, not least when it rises to its full majesty towards the final passage of the song, after the memory of her mother's favourite saying ("every old sock meets an old shoe") and into further snatched memories of friends now departed.

And So Is Love shouldn't work in theory, all Fairlighted drum patterns and 80's Clapton guitar furnishings, but the vocals and the simple power of the words carry you over that, the song's main tenet being that of weary acceptance -

"We used to say 'Ah Hell, we're young' But now we see that life is sad And so is love".

There is a clear depiction of the moment when you realise that a failing relationship, however hard you might be trying, has actually failed -

"And whatever happens What really matters? It's all we've got Isn't that enough?....

Just for the sake of love You set me free I set you free".

The record is not without its literary side- this is Kate Bush after all - with The Song Of Solomon quoting directly from The Bible:

"comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. "

taken from Chapter 2, Verse 5-6 of The Song of Solomon, an Old Testament book consisting of a cycle of poems about erotic love. Here the song is "the song of everyone / who walks the path / of the solitary heart", it is a plea for an expression of physicality over abstract notions of love, which can be used as much to hide behind as they can be to impart emotion. Upon receipt of this, the song's protagonist then feels empowered to reciprocate with a love comparable to the "rose of Sharon", another reference from the Biblical Song, to allude to a love as perfect as that of Jesus'. It is an outstanding conceit, daring and audacious, yet is executed with grace and precision.

Lily takes this device a step further, opening with a woman speaking the words from the Gayatri Mantra from the Rig Veda, suggesting a search for more spiritual and emotional surity - in religion and art the lily symbolizes purity, and is the flower of the Resurrection- and basing the song on a passionate dialogue where 'Lily' exhorts a bold approach -

"'Child, you must protect yourself You can protect yourself I'll show you how with fire'."

Sustenance is then taken from the presence of the four archangels-

"Gabriel before me Raphael behind me Michael to my right Uriel on my left side In the circle of fire"

further implying purity, rebirth, protection and healing respectively. Musically this is all housed upon shards and swathes of treated guitars and effects, all slightly disoriented and generally wonky. Constellation of the Heart, with its slightly Chic-y guitars chopping away also continues the motif of ultimate redemption and positivity - there has to be the highs and the lows as "without the pain there'd be no learning / without the hurting we'd never change". There is a determination to not be destroyed by the pain however hard it might be to endure, outlined in the call and response of

" 'I want a full report'. That's it. 'What do you mean, "That's it?" '. That's all you get, You'd better do something 'bout it. 'What am I supposed to do about it?'. We don't know, but you can't run away from it - Maybe you'd better face it".

And facing it is what a lot of this album is all about, even on Rubberband Girl, the typically idiosyncratic first single - as the title demands, a bouncy, bouding piece of pop funk - where Kate charges herself to find flexibility, the ability change, to roll with the punches - "if I could learn to give like a rubberband / I'd be back on my feet".

It's a philosophy you need to keep in mind as a listener when you come to deal with the closing track, as the record's ultimate triumph, You're The One, is possibly the most soul bearing, heart rending catalogue of the aftermath of a break up you could find. It details the desolation, the minutiae such a situation forces you to deal with, beginning with that awful moment of "It's alright I'll come round when you're not in / and I'll pick up all my things", and continuing to wrestle with that growing sense of rift, of what is lost -

"It's just everything I do / We did together And there's a little piece of you / In whatever I've got everything I need / I've got petrol in the car I've got some money with me / There's just one problem

You're the only one I want ".

The music is a wonderful carrying of the torch of A Whiter Shade of Pale - carried as the song is by Gary Brooker's classic swelling Hammond - and in the lyrical nod in the pay off "we've tied ourselves in knots / turned cartwheels cross the floor" followed by a scream of "Just Forget It , Alright!". However the anger is masking embers that continue to burn, leading to the plaintive semi-whispers of "sugar?....honey?" throughout the guitar and Hammond laced coda. It is a staggering piece of catharsis - it might not sound like it but its a soul tune, a blues, in terms of its emotional honesty. It will break your heart.

The Red Shoes does strike its share of bum notes - Eat The Music,with its cod reggae, goes nowhere flogging its fruity metaphors, and says little ; Why Should I Love You? should be perfect, being a collaboration with Prince and featuring the glorious vocals of the Trio Bulgarka, but isn't the sum of its parts. It has a great melody fighting to get out, but Lenny Henry on guest vocals?!?! The title track and Top Of The City are also too lightweight when set against the rest of the piece.

Thus, whilst this is not Kate Bush's best record overall, the high points reach such mountainous levels, featuring such overwhelming beauty and devastating emotional candour, it is a record that touches you like very few can. It deals with all sides of truth and beauty, steadfast in the belief that down that path redemption lies, and thus exposes at its heart the purest motive.