How Kate Bush set out her stall in ‘The Saxophone Song’

(Credits: Far Out / Parlophone Records)

Mon 26 May 2025 11:00, UK

The talent of Kate Bush surprised a lot of people in the 1970s. As the fires of punk raged while disco tried to ice out the world’s nightlife, Bush arrived as a teenage sensation built out of the theatricality of British eccentricity couple with the wisdom of a songwriter far older. ‘Wuthering Heights’ would prove to be a smash hit song and catapult the young Bush toward everlasting fame.

Her 1978 album The Kick Inside would prove to be the first step in a long journey toward National Treasure status for Bush. The album was a unique blend of wilful exuberance and songwriting know-how. Rarely allowing herself to fall into convention, this was a debut LP that said more about the artist than most can achieve in their lifetime’s discography.

“I was lucky to be able to express myself as much as I did,” said the star, still aching to take more control of her work. Lyrically, the songs were completely hers; however, some of the instrumentation was a little removed from what would become her signature style: “I would like to learn enough of the technical side of things to be able to produce my own stuff eventually.” She would achieve this goal and so much more with albums like Hounds of Love and The Sensual World. Not as complete as some of her other work, The Kick Inside was the roundhouse in the gut that the machismo world of music needed. But, most importantly, it told the world exactly who Kate Bush was.

Of course, the lead single, ‘Wuthering Heights’ did a lot for that with an enticing blend of incredible imagery, literary lyrical mastery and bold, daring sounds. But it was the second song on the record that perhaps best established the kind of artist Bush was about to become. Unrestrained and unguarded, Bush set out her stall with a song about a saxophone.

Starting the track with the unmistakable yells of whales, Bush kicks in with her delicately sharp vocals. Rolling into the kind of soft rock pop that underscored so much of Bush’s early sound, the titular instrument then arrives with aplomb. But the really interesting thing here is not necessarily what the tune sounds like but what it was written about.

Countless music journalists would try to piece together the metaphorical content of the track, they would scratch around to find who might be the player of the instrument, with more than a few suggesting it was an ode to David Bowie. While Bush was a fan of the ‘Starman’, the song was more simply a tribute to the instrument itself. “I wrote it about the instrument, not the player,” she told a 1979 fan club newsletter.

Writing it at the young age of 15, Bush told Sounds in 1980: “I love saxophones so I wanted to write a song about them. I think of a beautiful sax like a human being, a sensuous, shining man being taken over by the instrument. The perfect setting was this smoky bar in Berlin with nobody listening except me in the corner.”

There will be very few fans of Kate Bush clamouring to have ‘The Saxophone Song’ enshrined as one of her best. In fact, for most, it is a forgettable footnote in her career. But, as a teenager writing your first album, to reject the notion of a traditional love song in favour of a sonnet-like pop track for a musical instrument is a strong artistic move indicative of the kind of creator Bush always was.

Few pop stars, with the swell of hype Bush was enjoying following her debut single, would move to create such a track. Even fewer would stand by it with the steely resolve of a brigadier. Bush laid down clear markers that she wasn’t going to be your typical pop star, she was going to be something special.

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