But though Cave had worn his heart on his sleeve previously (the “Ship Song” etc) it was on the standout from Boatman’s Call that he finally felt able to stand unadorned before the world. “I don’t believe in an interventionist God/ But I know, darling, that you do/ But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him/ Not to intervene when it came to you.”Ī gooey love song from pop’s very own fire and brimstone preacher man seemed a contradiction in terms. The way Peter’s father is compared to such a vivid childhood memory is a perfect, haunting testimony to the ways we are affected by loss as adults. So you have “Cloudbusting”, about the relationship between psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and his son, Peter, the latter of whom Bush inhabits with disarming tenderness. But he and Barât – and the rest of us – would always have “Can’t Stand Me Now”, a laundry list of petty betrayals that gets you right in the chest.įew artists use surrealism as successfully as Kate Bush – or draw inspiration from such unusual places. Shortly afterwards, Doherty’s spiralling chemical habit would see him booted out of the group and he would become a national mascot for druggy excess – a sort of Danny Dyer with track marks along his arm. Has a breakup dirge ever stung so bitterly as when The Libertines duo counted the ways in which each had betrayed the other? The great pop bromance of our times came crashing down shortly after Carl Barât and Pete Doherty slung their arms around each others shoulders and delivered this incredible platonic love song. “An end fitting for the start/ You twist and tore our love apart.” “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.

Shortly beforehand he wrote to her his final farewell – a coda to the ballad that had come to define her in the wider world.

She died three months before Cohen, in July 2016.

Everybody wants to rule the world piano