Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush (1978)

When Kate Bush was 18 years old, she caught the last 10 minutes of the 1970 film version of Wuthering Heights, and immediately afterwords read the entire book. Then, in a fit of creative passion, wrote this song in just a few hours one night, while watching moonlight stream in through her open bedroom window.

There's something so endearingly girlish about this, that, combined with the infectiously catchy melody and Kate Bush's particularly distinctive high voice, makes this song so delicious.



Apparently, Kate was really adamant about this song being the first single off her first album, The Kick Inside, despite the fact that her record label (who signed her because David Gilmour thought she ruled) wanted to use a different song. She held her ground and, of course, she was right and "Wuthering Heights" was huge.

The way the melody lilts and soars and dips and twirls and the silly bookish drama of the lyrics just... sounds like the way it feels to be a girl caught up in the romantic fancy of a sweeping love story.



I've never read Wuthering Heights, but now I kind of want to.