Kate Bush turns to Irish novelist James Joyce

Kate Bush
Kate Bush

Singer Kate Bush is to release a new album which will feature lyrics taken from the novel Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce.

The album is to be called Director’s Cut and will feature new songs alongside older songs recorded in the last 20 years. Some are taken from her albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes which were recorded in the late eighties and early nineties.

All the older tracks are reworked with new vocals and arrangements.


Flower of the Mountain words by James Joyce

The Sensual World is the song that gets the most radical reworking. It’s been renamed Flower of the Mountain and its original lyrics have been discarded in favour of words taken from Joyce’s Ulysses.

Kate hasn’t revealed exactly which extract from the novel she will be using from the novel but as the song has been renamed Flower of the Mountain, it will presumably be some of the words expressing the thoughts of Molly Bloom which begin, “I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used ….”

James Joyce
James Joyce

Poetic, of course, but Kate may need to take a long breath before she starts because the extract goes on and on as only Joyce can, with no punctuation and no pauses.

Kate has revealed that she had called the song Flower of the Mountain when she first wrote it more than 20 years ago.

It was originally based on the extract from Ulysses but the publishers of the novel refused her permission to quote from it.

She then had to write new lyrics and rename the song, The Sensual World. Now, however, the publishers have changed their minds and allowed her to use the words, enabling Kate to return to her original and preferred version.

I’m looking forward to hearing the finished version when the album is released on 16th May. Anyone brave enough to take on James Joyce is all right by me.

By Patrick Kehoe

Pat Kehoe is a writer for Irish Music Daily. His favourite Irish music bands are the Dubliners and Planxty.