The Big Sky

Album: Hounds Of Love (1985)
Charted: 37
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song is about someone sitting and watching the clouds change, like many of us have done as a child. Sometimes the clouds will change into shapes that remind you of a person or object. "I think we forget these pleasures as adults," Bush explained in a 1985 fan club newsletter. "We don't get as much time to enjoy those kinds of things, or think about them, we feel silly about what we used to do naturally. The song is also suggesting the coming of the next flood - how perhaps the 'fools on the hills' will be the wise ones." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Lee - Ottawa, Canada
  • Bassist Martin "Youth" Glover of the British rock band Killing Joke brought a rock-and-roll energy to the track. Bush had a lot of trouble figuring out what the song should sound like and went through a few arrangements and melody lines before she pinned it down. Del Palmer, Bush's longtime bassist/engineer who manned the drum machine on the tune, credits Youth for bringing the right sound. Palmer told Musician in 1985: "He plays that particular style that's just perfect for that kind of track. That was very much a case of getting the right person for the right thing on the right track. Horses for courses."
  • The music video, directed by Bush, finds the singer on rooftops peering at the sky through giant binoculars. She ends up in a crowd of sky-bound travelers, including aviators, astronauts, and even Superman, then heads to the stage for a performance. Bush put a call in to her fan club to round out the audience for the scene. "Two hundred beautifully behaved people arrived on the day of the shoot," she recalled. "It was very moving, they filled us all up with energy - It made it feel like a real concert."
  • The clip was nominated for Best Female Video at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards (Madonna took the prize for "Papa Don't Preach").
  • This was the album's fourth and final single. It had its greatest chart success in Ireland, where it peaked at #15.
  • Martin "Youth" Glover told Mojo magazine about his contribution to the song:

    "She sent a car to take me over to her family's house in Welling. My bass rig was basically a half PA, so we loaded it whole into the back of this Volvo estate, and I think Kate was quite impressed. I'd shared a rehearsal space with Motorhead, and I was trying to sound like 'Family Man' Barrett [from Bob Marley and the Wailers] crossed with Lemmy [of Motorhead], who played it more like a guitar, and if you hear my one part that got used, on 'The Big Sky,' it's got a quite a fierce, metallic sound. And then, if you hear the drum overdubs towards the end, they're very tribal, very Killing Joke."

Comments: 3

  • Jim from New Jersey, UsaIf I recall correctly, she confessed in a contemporaneous interview to being a little inebriated when she did the screaming overdubs.
  • Jason from Ibiza, SpainYou're more or less right, Simon. It was Kate's way of responding to hte critical slating of her previoius album The Dreaming; with this song she tries to convey that her music is wide and open and not as aclectic and inaccessible as on The Dreaming LP.
  • Simon from Southampton, EnglandI always thought this song was about Kate's relationship with the press and how they have never understood her. 'The Big Sky' reffers to her artistic flare, and how the press 'look down at the ground, missing'
see more comments

Editor's Picks

Stephen Christian of Anberlin

Stephen Christian of AnberlinSongwriter Interviews

The lead singer/lyricist for Anberlin breaks down "Impossible" and covers some tracks from their 2012 album Vital.

Graham Bonnet (Alcatrazz, Rainbow)

Graham Bonnet (Alcatrazz, Rainbow)Songwriter Interviews

Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai were two of Graham's co-writers for some '80s rock classics.

Zakk Wylde

Zakk WyldeSongwriter Interviews

When he was playing Ozzfest with Black Label Society, a kid told Zakk he was the best Ozzy guitarist - Zakk had to correct him.

Band Names

Band NamesFact or Fiction

Was "Pearl" Eddie Vedder's grandmother, and did she really make a hallucinogenic jam? Did Journey have a contest to name the group? And what does KISS stand for anyway?

Mike Scott of The Waterboys - "Fisherman's Blues"

Mike Scott of The Waterboys - "Fisherman's Blues"They're Playing My Song

Armed with a childhood spent devouring books, Mike Scott's heart was stolen by the punk rock scene of 1977. Not surprisingly, he would go on to become the most literate of rockers.

Chris Squire of Yes

Chris Squire of YesSongwriter Interviews

One of the most dynamic bass player/songwriters of his time, Chris is the only member of Yes who has been with the band since they formed in 1968.