Never for Ever, released through EMI in 1980, is the third studio album by British art pop musician Kate Bush. Following the conclusion of the Tour of Life, Bush found herself exhausted with the idea of extensive concert performing (something she wouldn't do again until 2014) and directed herself back towards the studio, moving away from the live-friendly sound of her first two records in favor of a more elaborate, effects-heavy style.
In the leadup to the album's recording sessions in September of 1979, Bush provided backing vocals for two songs on Peter Gabriel's own third studio album, Melt, where she was introduced to the Fairlight CMI, a new digital sampler that provided a much greater amount of flexibility than previous tape loop equipment. Excited by this, she brought the device to this album as well, using a mixture of it, digital synthesizers, and drum machines to consolidate the more layered approach and setting the stage for the even denser style of her future albums. "Babooshka" in particular would be credited as the first single to utilize the Fairlight, which provided glass-shattering sounds at the end of the song.
Together with this change in sound, Bush took up production duties alongside Lionheart engineer Jon Kelly; while Bush was previously credited as producer for the live EP On Stage, this marked the first time that Bush would produce a full-length album of her own. According to Bush, the decision to do this was one she'd been keen on for a while, and resulted in the album feeling more personally driven than before; she would consequently describe it as the first record of hers that she felt truly content with. Consequently, like the change in sound, the change in staff would stick to her later material as well, with Bush becoming the sole producer on her work starting with her next album, The Dreaming.
A commercial success in the UK, Never for Ever was Bush's first album to top the UK Albums charts (as well as the first studio album by a female solo artist to achieve that distinction), additionally hitting No. 1 in France. The album would go on to be the 27th best-selling of 1980 in Britain and stay on the charts for 23 consecutive weeks; it would later be certified platinum in Canada and gold in the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Not keen on touring again, Bush instead promoted the album through record-signing events and promo appearances on various TV and radio shows throughout Europe. In the US, meanwhile, Never for Ever initially went unreleased thanks to the commercial underperformance of both The Kick Inside and Lionheart. However, the chart entrance and strong College Radio and MTV airplay of The Dreaming would motivate EMI America Records to belatedly release the album Stateside in 1984, reissuing Bush's first two albums over there as well.
Never for Ever was supported by three singles: "Breathing", "Babooshka", and "Army Dreamers".
Tracklist:
Side 1- "Babooshka" (3:20)
- "Delius (Song of Summer)" (2:51)
- "Blow Away (For Bill)" (3:33)
- "All We Ever Look For" (3:47)
- "Egypt" (4:10)
Side 2
- "The Wedding List" (4:15)
- "Violin" (3:15)
- "The Infant Kiss" (2:50)
- "Night Scented Stock" (0:51)
- "Army Dreamers" (2:55)
- "Breathing" (5:29)
Tropes of Plutonium are twinkling in every lung:
- Alliterative Title: "Delius (Song of Summer)", "Night Scented Stock".
- Alternate Album Cover: The initial Japanese CD release crops the cover illustration to only focus on the creatures in the bottom-right corner. Reissues from 1995 onwards revert to the full cover.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Bush affects an Irish accent on "Army Dreamers".
- Chainmail Bikini: The music video for "Babooshka" features Bush in one as part of a stylized Valkyrie costume.
- Concept Video: "Army Dreamers" depicts a harrowing wartime scenario befitting the song's antiwar lyrics.
- Credits Gag: The liner notes credit "Roland" with playing percussion on track 2, a tongue-in-cheek nod to the fact that the percussion track consisted solely of a Rhumba beat from a Roland CR-78 drum machine.
- Crusading Widow: The protagonist of "The Wedding List" is a woman hunting down the people who killed her husband on her wedding day.
- Deadly Euphemism: The protagonist of "The Wedding List" uses the title phrase to refer to her hitlist against the people who killed her husband.
- Design Student's Orgasm: An elaborate pencil drawing by Nick Price (who previously designed the tour program cover for the Tour of Life) depicting a myriad of monsters and animals flying out from Bush's dress. According to Bush, the idea behind the illustration was to represent the dichotomy of people's light and dark sides and how they conflict with one another.
- Downer Ending: The album closes out with "Breathing", about a fetus witnessing a nuclear apocalypse. The music video likewise ends with a shot of a nuclear blast in the distance.
- Driven to Suicide: The protagonist of "The Wedding List" offs herself after completing her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Face on the Cover: The album cover depicts a drawing of Bush with various creatures flying out of her dress.
- Fading into the Next Song:
- "Babooshka" fades into "Delius (Song of Summer)".
- "Night Scented Stock" hard-cuts into "Army Dreamers" via the sound of a rifle cocking.
- Fidelity Test: "Babooshka" revolves around a woman who decides to test her husband's faithfulness by sending him pseudonymous love letters.
- Foreign Culture Fetish: "Egypt" is narrated by a person obsessed with a surface-level image of Egypt, which they've never been to, based on romanticized depictions of it in western media. According to Bush, the aggressive tone of the instrumental breaks is meant to contrast these wistful lyrics by representing the un-glamorous reality of the country, describing the juxtaposition of the two as an allegory for "how blindly we see some things."
- Genre Roulette: The album dives into a number of styles, including Hard Rock, Soft Rock, Baroque Pop, Irish folk, and Progressive Rock, among others.
- Gratuitous Panning: "All We Ever Look For" features the sound of Bush wandering a room and opening doors to a "Hare Krishna" mantra, a tranquil nature scene, and waves crashing upon a beach, a sequence which pans across the two stereo channels as it goes on.
- Grief Song: "Blown Away (For Bill)" mourns Bill Duffield, the lighting director for the Tour of Life who was killed in a stage accident during the tour.
- Instrumentals: "Night Scented Stock", an interlude that reprises the melody of "Blown Away (For Bill)".
- Ironic Name: A case that happened completely by accident. The protagonist of "Babooshka" disguises herself as a beautiful young woman to test her husband, and takes on the pseudonym Babooshka, which, unbeknownst to Bush at the time, is Russian for "grandmother."
- Irony: The husband in "Babooshka" sees the title character as representative of her wife before her luster faded away over the years, unaware that Babooshka is actually said wife in disguise.
- Last Note Nightmare:
- "Babooshka" ends with a series of haunting glass-shattering noises, implying that the wife's Two-Person Love Triangle with her husband ended in violence.
- "The Wedding List" ends with the narrator screaming her husband's name before abruptly cutting off into a jarring echo, representing her death.
- Longest Song Goes Last: The closing track, "Breathing", outpaces every other song on the album at five and a half minutes.
- That Man Is Dead: The protagonist of "The Wedding List" notes that she spiritually died with her husband when he was murdered, using this to justify her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- Melismatic Vocals: The vocals of "Night Scented Stock" consist solely of this.
- Miniscule Rocking: "Night Scented Stock" just barely falls short of one minute.
- Murder-Suicide: The protagonist of "The Wedding List" mows down her husband's murderers before ultimately taking her own life.
- New Sound Album: Thanks to Bush becoming co-producer and introducing digital synths and samplers, the album's sound is more layered and effects-oriented than The Kick Inside and Lionheart, informing the approach of her following material.
- One-Woman Song: "Babooshka", an unusual example in that the woman in question is the protagonist.
- One-Word Title: "Babooshka", "Egypt", "Violin", "Breathing".
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The bride in "The Wedding List" tracks down the men who murdered her new husband at their wedding. After killing them all, she turns the gun on herself. On top of everything, she was pregnant, so her unborn child died with her.
- Record Producer: Unlike The Kick Inside and Lionheart, which were produced by Andrew Powell (with Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour co-producing the former), this album was handled by Jon Kelley and Bush herself. Bush would switch to producing her material entirely on her own starting with her next album.
- Revenge Ballad: "The Wedding List", where a pregnant bride tracks down and kills the murderers of her husband before committing suicide.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After her husband is killed on their wedding night, the protagonist of "The Wedding List" hunts down and kills his murderers one-by-one.
- Sampling: The scene behind the first door in the interlude to "All We Ever Look For" is represented by a clip of the Radha Krsna Temple reciting the "Hare Krishna" mantra.
- Say My Name: "The Wedding List" ends with the protagonist loudly shouting her husband's name before the audio cuts off into an echo, implying that his name was the last word on her lips before she killed herself.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In "Babooshka", the wife who sets up the Two-Person Love Triangle to trap her husband in the act of infidelity is implied to have "freezed on him" due to her suspicions that he was having an affair, leading to him being easily tempted by a woman who reminded him of her before the tension arose between them. Essentially, her own paranoia and bitterness over her suspicions of his infidelity are the main thing that led to him contemplating infidelity in the first place.
- Shout-Out:
- "Blown Away (For Bill)" namechecks the then-recent deaths of Minnie Riperton, Keith Moon, Sandy Denny, Sid Vicious, and Marc Bolan and the much older death of Buddy Holly.
- "Violin" namedrops Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini and obliquely references the rumors within his lifetime that he became so skillful at the instrument via a Deal with the Devil.
- Special Guest:
- Longtime Bush collaborator Ian Bairnson (of The Alan Parsons Project) provides backing vocals on "Delius (Song of Summer)".
- Roy Harper provides backing vocals on "Breathing".
- Spoken Word in Music: There's a long, eerie instrumental break near the end of "Breathing" with a recording of a man describing the effects of a nuclear bomb.
- "Too Young to Die" Lamentation: The mother in "Army Dreamers" laments how her son was killed in battle before even reaching his twenties.
- Translated Cover Version: Bush recorded a French-language version of "The Infant Kiss", titled "Un Baiser D'enfant", as the B-side to the French-exclusive non-album single "Ne T'enfuis Pas".
- Two-Person Love Triangle: "Babooshka" revolves around a woman who creates a pseudonym to communicate with her husband incognito to test his faithfulness; he ends up falling in love with the alter-ego.
- War Is Hell: "Army Dreamers" concentrates on the grief of a mother whose son is killed in an overseas war, with his body being flown back home in a metal casket. The narrator points out how said son only joined the army because he was unqualified for anything else, lacking both money and education and consequently being preyed on by the British armed forces.
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- "Delius (Song for Summer)" is based on the 1968 made-for-TV film Song of Summer, about the final five years in the life of composer Frederick Delius.
- "The Wedding List" is based on the 1968 film The Bride Wore Black.
- "The Infant Kiss" adapts the 1961 film The Innocents, about a woman who believes that the ghosts of a deceased couple are possessing the children she's looking after.
