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Rating: If there's a seven-year itch in marriages, perhaps it's not a coincidence that the number seven might bring bad luck to artists as well. "The Red Shoes", indeed, is the seventh album by Kate Bush, someone who had thoroughly spoiled us with her previous works. But in this case, the results don't live up to the ethereal British singer. Not that "Rubberband Girl", the opening track, disappoints expectations: on the contrary, it's a perfect opening song, rhythmic and captivating, difficult to shake off once it gets into your bloodstream. The rest of the album, however, doesn't entice. Red shoes, yes, but they don't become a cult like Powell and Pressburger's film.
Rather than showing us the world through different eyes, as she had done previously, here the sweet Kate seems to limit herself to telling stories that don't impact, that don't leave a deep mark. Take "Why Should I Love You". From the title itself, you can sense something is amiss: the chorus is a bit silly, the organ is a bit dull, and the lyrics linger on cloying word plays ("The L of the lips are open/ to the O of the host / the V of the velvet / the E of my eye", and as if the acrostic weren't enough, here's the assonance "The eye in wonder / The eye that sees / The I that loves you").
Contributions from two renowned guitarists, Eric Clapton on the track "And So Is Love", and Jeff Beck, aren't enough to make this album soar. Nor are the many other guest stars, or the Trio Bulgarka, the Bulgarian voices that had already collaborated with Kate on the previous "The Sensual World".
Released in 1993, "The Red Shoes" is a respectable work, worth listening to, but it lacks that spark one would expect from an artist with as much talent as Kate Bush. Despite the impressive 3 million copies sold worldwide, an impending creative fatigue is evident. In fact, a long silence will follow the album, twelve years of absence from the music scene which only "Aerial", in 2005, will be called to interrupt.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Rubberband Girl (04:45)
See those trees
Bend in the wind
I feel they've got a lot more sense than me
You see I try to resist
A rubberband bouncing back to life
A rubberband bend the beat
If I could learn to give like a rubberband
I'd be back on my feet
A rubberband hold me trousers up
A rubberband ponytails
If I could learn to twang like a rubberband
I'd be a rubberband girl
A rubberband girl me
A rubberband girl me
Oh I wanna be a rubberband girl
When I slip out
Of my catapult
I gotta land with my feet firm on the ground
And let my body catch up
A rubberband bouncing back to life
A rubberband bend the heat
If I could learn to give like a rubberband
I'd be back on my feet
A rubberband hold me trousers up
A rubberband ponytails
If I could learn to twang like a rubberband
I'd be a rubberband girl
A rubberband girl me
A rubberband girl me
Oh I wanna be a rubberband girl
Give like a rubberband
Twang like a rubberband
Snap like a rubberband
Rub-a-dub-a-dub-a-dub
Rub-a-dub-a-dub
Rub-a-dub
One rubberband won't keep you up
Two rubberbands won't keep you up
Three rubberbands won't keep you up
Here I go......(aDLib)
.... Yeah!
One rubberband won't keep you up
Two rubberbands won't keep you up
Three rubberbands won't keep you up
03 Eat the Music (05:11)
Split me open
With devotion
You put your hands in
And rip my heart out
Eat the music
Does he conceal
What he really feels?
He's a woman at heart
And I love him for that
Let's split him open
Like a pomegranate
Insides out
All is revealed
Not only women bleed
Take the stone out
Of the mango
You put it in your mouth
And pull a plum out
Take a papaya
You like a guava?
Grab a banana
And a sultana
Rip them to pieces
With sticky fingers
Split the banana
Crush the sultana
Split 'em open
With devotion
You put your hands in
And rip their hearts out
Like a pomegranate
Insides out
He's a woman at heart
And love him for that
Take a papaya
You like a guavva?
Grab a banana
And a sultana
Rip 'em to pieces
With sticky fingers
Split the banana
Crush the sultana
All emotion
And with devotion
You put your hands in
What ya thinking?
What am I singing?
A song of seeds
The food of love
Eat the music
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