Kate Bush v Tori Amos

It was the mid 80s. I was in a hot car, staring out an open window with my hand riding the rippling air of teenage angst and drama. This journey always managed to send me into a state of mental dreariness, particular during the monotonous landscape miles, which felt like slow motion driving over a B-grade movie set. We regularly travelled this 60 minute journey which took us from a beautiful farm into the nearest decent sized town of 3,000 people. During these trips, if the radio managed to crackle into existence, the local station became my vocal pinnacle and I would mumble along to legendary Australian rock, anticipating the occasional mind bend upon hearing international music

This particular drive changed artist worshipping for the young angsty me. Through the heat apathy I heard an introductory piano tinkling, and then a voice that became instantly penetrating and infinitely memorable. I yelled at mum to turn it up, TURN IT UP. Taken by surprise she yelled back, STOP SCREECHING. Voices muted, mum turned the radio up and I heard the most mesmerising song I had ever heard in my young life. I was transfixed despite having no idea what this song and singer were trying to express. I couldn't stop staring at the radio and willing the song to become never ending thanks to the emotional highs and lows it was taking me on. But the song finished and mum started talking. SHUSH. I needed total focus and silence. This was back in the day when a radio station would share artist details immediately after a song finished re who had blown your auricles away. It was pivotal to my blooming mental health I hear the name of the artist and the song. Mum was disgusted at my tone of voice but complied with an eye roll and I sighed with relief. It was the first time I ever heard the name Kate Bush and Wuthering Heights.

For the next number of years, before I realised I could actually buy my own Kate Bush album, I would race to my replica ghetto blaster (actually an old radio/cassette player Dad bought convincing me it was a ghetto blaster; along the same conceptual idea of the BMX bikes he bought called CMXs). I would invariably fumble around making sure a blank tape was in and frantically press record. Unfortunately for my budding tape repertoire Wuthering Heights had actually been released in 1978 which was well before my tape recording abilities and well after the Australian weekly top 40 would have aired a 1978 song. I would catch snippets of the song on cassette, sometimes the middle and once the end much to my frustration.

This inability to capture the whole song sadly did not stop me from recording my own version. I found a tape and blithely recorded a few versions of a song I didn't remember in full, entirely satisfied I had nailed Kate's vocal soaring if not quite the lyrics. Unfortunately this ear splitting version had inadvertently been recorded on a work cassette of my Dad's which he (of course) managed to play out loud whilst driving a client around in his car. It took them a few painful nano-moments to realise the Ergonomics tape they were hoping to hear did not start with a shrill 'out of the slidy, windy doors'.We were all surprised at this aural turn of events, although Dad was polite enough to provide constructive feedback. It was 'interesting but maybe sing from your belly and not through your nose'? Ok Dad, you try singing Kate Bush without sounding adenoidal.

I have always mused on how many people turned to Emily Bronte's only published novel to understand the emotional quotient attached to Kate's haunting tune. But fast forwarding many years and many worn out genuine Kate Bush cassettes and CDs, I finally got introduced to Tori Amos.

This musical mental shift occurred when I was sitting in an acting class having been given a dualogue that lacked any emotional connection for myself. My skit partner tried some out of the box thinking and talked about her use of different musical artists to change her emotional resonance, mentioning someone she found highly triggering. Intrigued I asked to listen to this crooning guru and out came my first ever engagement with Tori Amos. But my reaction wasn't positive. I was taken aback and flustered she sounded so similar to my Kate, and with my acting buddy never having heard of Kate Bush, I became even more belligerent about Kate being the original Kate. I blustered on about her duplication of Kate's sounds and her replication of themes Kate had already done (I prided myself on complete loyalty to total strangers it seemed). She had played me a song called Winter and I immediately pointed out Kate had already done a haunting winter song about being trapped under a frozen pond with people skating above her called Under Ice. What gives Amos, WHAT GIVES. And then I did a bit more biased research and found more similarities. I was hurt for Kate that one of my favourite songs (outside of Wuthering of course) was; And Dream of Sheep and subsequently made a rather large leap that Tori's Sleeping with Butterflies was a poor imitation.

This was my pretentious acting phase so I do blame this distorted overreaction to an overinflated sense of artist appropriation.

Thankfully for me, I did more research, initially determined to keep an intense dislike of musical marauding against Tori, and then finally discovered her unique brilliance. Like Kate she is incredibly gifted musically, in particular with Piano. Kate taught herself at 11 years of age (and the violin), Tori at the age of 2 or 3 getting a scholarship at a seriously young age. Both were writing their own music very early and both had impressive demo tapes by 16 and 17 years of age. I was creatively tardy in my discovery of Tori as a beautiful, incredibly talented and haunting artist in her own right, about 10 years late again. In fact I prefer her Winter song to Kates Under Ice and this is one of my favourites; Silent All These Years

So there really is no Kate v Tori for me anymore, despite my severely uneducated initial reaction. I love them both dearly and when I need some emotional connection, some ethereal beauty and above all some proper old school female talent I turn to my otherworldly girls. And as a final note, I have broadened this musical elf crush to Agnes Obel, so if you have an appreciation for strong, independent writers who are incredibly gifted with voice and instruments, do look Agnes up.

I leave you with some melodious care taking via my third example of talented women across the decades; yet another brilliant sleep focused songs, Broken Sleep by Agnes. You're welcome...