Love and Anger

Album: The Sensual World (1989)
Charted: 38
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This is a song about self analysis, seeking how to express how one really feels, and turning to someone one can trust when in difficulty. It helps to open up because when "two strings speak in sympathy," things get better.
  • Kate Bush's mentor David Gilmour played guitar on this song and also another from The Sensual World album, "Rocket's Tail."
  • This received significant airplay in the States, reaching #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. It has been so far, Kate Bush's only chart-topper on any US chart.
  • The video features cameos from Kate Bush's musician brothers and her boyfriend/collaborator Del Palmer.
  • This was the first song Bush wrote for The Sensual World but she initially found it difficult to put it together. She came back to it 18 months later and this time managed to pierce it together. Despite having difficulties in remembering the song's lyrics, Bush explained its meaning in an interview with the NME: "Obviously the imagery you get as a child is very strong. This is about who you can or cannot confide in when there's something you can't talk about. 'If you can't tell your sister/If you can't tell the priest'... who did I have in the lyrics? Was it sister or mothers, I can't remember." (It was "sister," Kate!)
  • Nada Surf covered this on their 2010 album If I Had A Hi-Fi. Nada Surf's lead singer Matthew Caws explained: "After we finished touring for Lucky we wanted to stay busy without having to wait for me to cook up another batch of songs for a new album. The solution was an album of covers, which we hoped we could 'get away with' after five albums of original songs. The only thing we knew we didn't want to do was try to make an album that perfectly represented our influences, figuring that would feel like homework real fast. We just recorded whatever we excited about playing, whether it was old or new, an influence or not. That's why it ranges from 'Love and Anger,' a song I'd be listening to since 1989, to 'Electrocution' by a new obsession of Ira's, Bill Fox." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Bertrand - Paris, France

Comments: 1

  • Miles from Vancouver, CanadaThe best song on The Sensual World.
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