When Kate Bush praised David Bowie as "the right amount of weird" in touching rare tribute

10 January 2024, 16:37

Talent forever recognises talent.

And there were no greater talents when it came to the weird and wonderful side of popular music than Kate Bush and David Bowie.

Both trailblazing their own unique trajectories in music, Bush and Bowie daringly embraced inspirations far outside the norm, in turn transforming pop music in their stride.

When Ziggy Stardust landed on Planet Earth, nobody had seen anything like it on television, an otherworldly character who brought intergalactic ambition to glam rock.

By the time Bowie had moved on to various other guises and music genres, in came Kate Bush, in all her ethereal and glorious theatricality to storm the charts herself.

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With her pioneering art-pop classic 'Wuthering Heights', Kate became the first ever female to achieve a number one single with a self-penned song, a feat that was miraculously only recently replicated.

Over the years Kate became more reclusive, working at her own meandering pace to make her albums, seldom venturing into the limelight, and barely making any contact with the outside world.

There have been a few exceptions however, one of which was when she paid tribute to David Bowie by penning a rare and touching tribute.

In a written tribute for Mojo magazine in 2007, Kate praised Bowie for being "the right amount of weird" as well as being "intelligent" and "very sexy".

"I was sitting in my bath, submerged in bubbles, listening to Radio Luxembourg when I heard David Bowie for the first time," she wrote.

"'There’s a starman waiting in the sky…'. I thought it was such an interesting song and that he had a really unusual voice."

"Soon I was to hear that track everywhere, and Bowie’s music became a part of my life."

"Was it Bo-Wie, Bowie or B'wee? Everything about him was intriguing. When I saw him on Top Of The Pops he was almost insect-like, his clothing was theatrical and bizarre; was that a dress?"

"No one was sure, but my conclusion was that he was quite beautiful," the 'Running Up That Hill' icon continued.

"His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the scared space reserved solely for my greatest love - Elton John".

"A fantastic songwriter with a voice to match, Bowie had everything. He was just the right amount of weird, obviously intelligent and, of course, very sexy."

"Ziggy played guitar. And I was there to see his last show as Ziggy Stardust with The Spiders From Mars. The atmosphere was just so charged that at the end, when he cried, we all cried with him."

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After admiring Bowie from afar - as he was similarly doing with Kate no doubt, she finally got the opportunity to meet him, and wrote that she was instantly starstruck.

"Working at Abbey Road studios some years later, I popped in to see a friend on another session....I was stopped in my tracks."

"Standing elegantly poised behind the console was David Bowie. He was lit from above and smoking a cigarette. He said, 'Hello Kate.'"

"I froze on the spot and said, 'Er...Hello,' and then left the room, caught my breath outside the door and didn't dare to go back in again."

"We've met many times since then and I don’t have to leave the room any more....or do I?"