{"id":170598,"date":"2025-05-26T11:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T11:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/26\/kate-bush-motherhood-over-music-inside-her-private-life\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T11:00:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T11:00:57","slug":"kate-bush-motherhood-over-music-inside-her-private-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/26\/kate-bush-motherhood-over-music-inside-her-private-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Kate Bush Motherhood Over Music: Inside Her Private Life"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It\u2019s more than a decade since Kate Bush<\/strong> last performed live \u2014 and yet the enigmatic star is still a cultural icon, with her music attracting a whole new audience over the past few years through huge TV shows like Stranger Things<\/em> and A Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>. This resurgence, alongside her obvious influence on cool, contemporary pop artists like Chappell Roan, Lady Gaga, Lorde<\/strong> and Florence And The Machine<\/strong>, means that she\u2019s just as relevant as ever \u2014\u00a0and yet still, we know little about her everyday life.<\/p>\n

Bush is now 66 and leads a quiet existence in the English countryside but, despite her low profile, she\u2019s by no means reclusive. In fact, while Bush mostly enjoys spending her days pottering around, creating and spending time with her family \u2014 husband Dan McIntosh<\/strong> and Gen Z musician son Albert<\/strong>, known as Bertie \u2014\u00a0she still pops up from time to time to talk about the topics that really matter to her.<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s music success kicked off in the late 1970s, with a string of hits in the years that followed, like \u201cThe Man With The Child In His Eyes\u201d (from her explosive debut album, 1978\u2019s Wuthering Heights), \u201cBabooshka\u201d (1980) and \u201cDon\u2019t Give Up\u201d (a 1986 duet with Peter Gabriel<\/strong>.) Bush was an enormous star \u2014 especially in her native U.K \u2014\u00a0and had a colossal influence on music, fashion and culture. And yet, while many of her 1980s pop contemporaries adored fame and everything that came with it \u2014 think Madonna, Whitney, George Michael<\/strong> \u2014she was all about the music, and less about the global fabulosity.<\/p>\n

These days her best-known song is probably \u201cRunning Up That Hill\u201d, after its 2022 appearance in Netflix\u2019s Stranger Things<\/em> sent it viral almost 40 years on from its original release. It knocked Harry Styles<\/strong> off the top of the British charts and reached number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, while its parent album, Hounds of Love, became Bush\u2019s first album to top the Billboard charts \u2014\u00a0 despite it first dropping in 1985!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole world\u2019s gone mad!\u201d Bush said, speaking to BBC Radio 4\u2019s Woman\u2019s Hour<\/em> about her sudden renaissance. \u201cIt\u2019s just extraordinary. It\u2019s such a great series, I thought that the track would get some attention. But I just never imagined that it would be anything like this. It\u2019s so exciting, it\u2019s quite shocking really, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bush\u2019s devoted fans would never find her success shocking \u2014\u00a0they adore her as much now as they did 40 years ago, with her slightly mysterious profile simply adding to her kooky charm. In fact, that supposed mystique actually masks what sounds like a very normal life. And she\u2019s so grateful to be in this position, especially considering she\u2019s taken several very long breaks between music releases. \u201cI have to say I find it totally astounding that my albums do as well as they do,\u201d she told The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> in 2011. \u201cIt\u2019s quite extraordinary and it\u2019s actually very touching for me for the albums to be received with such warmth.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1992, with her music career still soaring, Bush married McIntosh, a guitarist she had worked with, and Bertie came along a few years later, in 1998 \u2014\u00a0a fact she managed to keep completely private until her friend and collaborator Peter Gabriel<\/strong> let it slip in an interview years later.<\/p>\n

Despite her joy at starting a family, this period was tough for Bush in other ways \u2014\u00a0she lost her mother, as well as several close friends in the music industry, including Level 42 guitarist Alan Murphy<\/strong>, who died in 1989 (Bush later paid tribute to him on her 1993 song \u201cMoments of Pleasure\u201d.) Looking back, she realized she had been suffering from burnout. \u201cBasically the batteries were run out,\u201d she told Q<\/em> magazine in 2014. \u201cA part of me didn\u2019t want to work. I\u2019d got to the point where it was something I didn\u2019t feel good about. I spent a lot of time sleeping and I also used to enjoy watching bad TV, like really bad quiz programmes or sitcoms. I found them fascinating. There had been a period, a very big period, where I hadn\u2019t grieved properly. Then work became my way of coping.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Kate Bush in 2014<\/span> David M. Benett\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ultimately, it was becoming a mother that reignited the spark. \u201cPeople say magic doesn\u2019t exist, but I look at Bertie and know it does,\u201d she said in the same Q<\/em> interview. \u201cI\u2019m very proud of him and I get so much joy out of being with him. It\u2019s totally incomparable with anything else. What I found very difficult since having him is finding time to talk to people because he comes first. He doesn\u2019t care whether an album comes out \u2013 so that comes second. I don\u2019t want to miss a minute of him. It\u2019s so much fun, by far the best thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u201d It\u2019s a bold and moving claim by someone behind so many incredible pieces of music.<\/p>\n

In her 2011 interview with the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>, she talked more about her long breaks between projects \u2014 and while she\u2019s often accidentally assumed an image of a tortured artist, agonizing over her art for years, it\u2019s more that she sometimes just needs to focus on other stuff. \u201cIt was a very long gap between Red Shoes [1993] and Aerial [2005] but that was because there were lots of things happening in my life that were important,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to spend time not being in the studio. I moved a couple of times, became a mother, all things that were really important. I\u2019d spent such a long time making albums, I just wanted to not do it for a while.\u201d She added: \u201cI kind of adopted a philosophy a long time ago that I wanted my work to speak for me. I don\u2019t really think of myself as a personality or a celebrity. I\u2019m someone who creates something and it\u2019s that that I want to put out into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Kate Bush in 1979<\/span> David Redfern\/Redferns<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And this is why that \u201creclusive\u201d image isn\u2019t really accurate for Bush \u2014 she just likes to be normal.\u00a0 \u201cA lot of the time it doesn\u2019t bother me,\u201d she told Mojo<\/em> in 2005. \u201cI do think I go out of my way to be a very normal person and I just find it frustrating that people think that I\u2019m some kind of weirdo reclusive that never comes out into the world. Y\u2019know, I\u2019m a very strong person and I think that\u2019s why actually I find it really infuriating when I read, \u2018She had a nervous breakdown\u2019 or \u2018She\u2019s not very mentally stable, just a weak, frail little creature\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Actually, she\u2019s more likely to be found vacuuming than crying. \u201cI\u2019ve felt really privileged to be living such a normal life,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s so a part of who I am. It\u2019s so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don\u2019t know how dishwashers work. For me, that\u2019s frightening. I want to be in a position where I can function as a human being. Even more so now where you\u2019ve got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody\u2019s been in an ad on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2014, after 35 years away from the stage, Bush stunned the world by announcing a run of 22 live shows at London\u2019s Hammersmith Apollo, titled Before the Dawn. The tickets sold out in just 15 minutes. The show wasn\u2019t a greatest hits tour, but a bold theatrical production that incorporated narrative, dance, and film \u2014 and Bertie, then just 16 years old, was heavily involved, joining his mom on stage as a backing vocalist and helping design the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me the courage to push the button,\u201d she wrote in 2014 to promote the production. \u201cThank you, Bertie. It\u2019s been a fantastic adventure so far. And it\u2019s only just begun.\u201d She explained: \u201cIn order for him to be part of this, which was always part of the deal, he has had to work really hard in order to keep up his school commitments as well as his commitments to the show.\u201d Bertie himself added in the show programme notes: \u201cI feel so privileged to be able to work on this project, and have tried to earn my place. My mother is the most talented person I could ask to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Kate Bush in 1978<\/span> Neil Libbert;<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The performances were a rare re-emergence, and Bush made no further appearances after the run ended. She even asked the audience not to take photos or videos, encouraging them to be present in the moment. And she admitted afterwards that performing for her fans after such a long time away was pretty scary.\u00a0 \u201cYes, I was very nervous,\u201d she told The Independent<\/em> in 2016. \u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if I would be any good, that was my concern. I knew that I would enjoy putting the show together \u2013 in a lot of ways, I approached it as if I was making a really long video, because a lot of my visual work is quite theatrical, so this theatrical work would be quite filmic, it would be a natural progression. But I was very nervous about going onstage and performing. But the response was just beyond anything I could have wished for, every night, the audiences were so excited and so responsive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite how much she loved doing the shows, as soon as the run concluded, she returned quietly to her private life, instead of trying to profit further from her success. Ultimately, it\u2019s this integrity that makes Bush so fascinating and impressive. In an age of overexposure, she\u2019s casually elusive. Her life out of the spotlight has not been one of retreat, but one of intention \u2014 choosing creativity and family over fame and glitz.<\/p>\n

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\n Related: <\/span>Linda Ronstadt Through the Years: Her Life in Photos<\/span><\/a>
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\n\t\t\tLinda Ronstadt retired from performing more than a decade ago, but her voice will always be a cornerstone of pop music. Born in Tucson, Arizona, in 1946, Ronstadt began her professional singing career in the 1960s as a vocalist with The Stone Poneys. Ronstadt and her bandmates, Bobby Kimmel and Kenny Edwards, recorded three albums [\u2026]\t\t<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Occasionally Bush lets new people in \u2014\u00a0including Big Boi,<\/strong> a lifelong fan. The Outkast rapper revealed that he had dinner with Bush in 2017 after spending a week in England trying to track her down \u2014 and, in true fan boi style, he even got her to sign one of her albums for him, which he later shared via X<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fell in love with her songwriting and how her songs would tell stories,\u201d he told Complex<\/em> in 2020. \u201cIt was deep. From there she became one of my two favorite artists.\u201d He added that meeting her was \u201cthe coolest experience ever\u201d and said: \u201cWe talked mainly about our children\u2026 She wasn\u2019t really recording at the time because she wanted to focus on her kid. That\u2019s another thing that really brought us together \u2014 centering our family. We had a nice little dinner and we just sat there and chatted for like an hour or two.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few more years out of the spotlight, now there\u2019s a hint that Bush might make another little comeback. As ever, she only releases things into the world when they mean something to her \u2014\u00a0like the short film, Little Shrew<\/em>, that she wrote and directed in 2024 to raise money for War Child during Russia\u2019s war with Ukraine. Much to the excitement of her fanbase, old and new, she said it had inspired her to get back into the studio. \u201cI\u2019m very keen to start working on a new album when I\u2019ve got this finished,\u201d she said on BBC Radio Four<\/em> in 2024. \u201cI\u2019ve got lots of ideas and I\u2019m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space, it\u2019s been a long time. Particularly the last year I\u2019ve felt really ready to start doing something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

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