Let’s give 1986 another go then

The year I became a teenager, I was watching Countdown one night when the clip for ‘Babooshka’ filled the screen.

I was transfixed by Kate Bush with that sword strapped to her thigh and her metal bikini. I wanted to be her or at least look half as fierce and stunning.

While I’ve never worn a sword strapped to my thigh and I only briefly wore my first bikini during my divorce diet phase, my love for Kate Bush has always burned brightly.

It dazzles me that she wrote ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’ when she was 13. 13!

I find it equally incredible that she was only 18 when she wrote ‘Wuthering Heights’.

I still blubber whenever I watch the Kevin Bacon movie ‘She’s Having a Baby’ and Kate’s ‘Woman’s Work’ starts to play.

Her voice and her songs are both truly remarkable.

Much as I adore her music, I’m slightly stunned that she is currently number one on Spotify for ‘Running up that hill’. The song was originally released in 1985, but its timeless beauty has captivated the world again thanks to a TV show called ‘Stranger Things’ that I need to check out on Netflix when I get a spare moment.

The people who run Kate’s social media seem pretty blown away too.

As do the rest of the world.

Bloody good song though.

Anyways, I was still feeling pretty ordinary on Saturday night, so I trailed wanly up to DD’s to curl up on his sofa and lay my head on his chest as he played Kate Bush YouTube videos for me.

We started off with a few live versions of ‘Running Up That Hill’, then ‘Man With The Child In His Eye’, then we went searching for live versions of ‘Don’t Give Up’ with Peter Gabriel, which segued into a few other Peter Gabriel songs, then we saw that Harry Styles had done a version of ‘Sledgehammer’ for the Howard Stern Show, so we took a look at that and I was transfixed.

I knew about Harry Styles as a vague concept, but I’d never seen him actually sing anything. He was very good.

I recalled everyone talking about his duet with Shania Twain a few months ago, singing ‘I feel like a Woman’ at Coachella. So DD tracked that down for me and my mouth dropped open.

We both agreed that Harry was the real deal, although there was probably more drool on my chin than DD’s.

He certainly knows how to rock a sequinned jumpsuit and a duet with an older woman.

What a gloriously unique creature he is!

As we dug around, we discovered Harry has done duets with everyone from Stevie Nicks to Lizzo, but sadly not Kate. Although she was poised over the weekend to knock his song ‘As It Was’ from No.1 on the UK charts.

Our couch viewing session finished up with Harry singing “Watermelon Sugar”, which is apparently about something a bit naughty.

On Sunday morning I sat in a coffee shop with my walking companion Alice, because I was still too crook for exercise, and ‘Running Up That Hill’ played on the radio, followed immediately by ‘Watermelon Sugar’.

I took it as a sign that I needed to blog about this musical circle of life.

And here we are.

Happy Monday.