- Babooshka (song)
Infobox Single
Name = Babooshka
Artist =Kate Bush
from Album =Never For Ever
B-side = "Ran Tan Waltz"
Released =23 June 1980
Format = 7" single
Recorded = 1979
Genre =Art rock
Length = 3:19
Label =EMI
Writer =Kate Bush
Producer = Kate Bush, Jon Kelly, John L Walters
Certification =
Last single = "Breathing"
(1980)
This single = "Babooshka"
(1980)
Next single = "Army Dreamers "
(1980)"Babooshka" is a song by British singerKate Bush , taken from her album "Never for Ever ". Released as a single onJune 23 ,1980 it spent 10 weeks in the UK chart, peaking at number five. The song chronicles a wife's desire to test her husband's loyalty. To do so, she takes on the "nom de plume " of Babooshka and writes to her husband in the guise of a young, seductive woman -- something which she fears is the opposite of how her husband currently sees her (Hence the barbed lines: "Just like his wife before she freezed on him / Just like his wife when she was beautiful...").The trap is set when, in her bitterness and paranoia, Babooshka arranges to meet with her husband, who is attracted to the character that reminds him of his wife in earlier times. She thereby ruins the relationship due to her paranoia, according to Kate Bush's 1980 interview [ [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64sqReQ14Kc&NR=1|brief Youtube recording of 1980 Countdown interview] ] with the Australian TV series "Countdown".
The music video depicts Bush beside a double bass (a.k.a. contrabass) which symbolizes the husband, wearing a black bodysuit and a veil in her role as the embittered wife, alluding to a definition of the word "babooshka" - a headscarf. This changes into an extravagant, mythlike and rather sparse 'Russian' costume as her alter-ego, Babooshka.
The track features
John Giblin on bass and marks the significance offretless bass sounds as instrumental "male" partners through Kate's music in the early eighties.The B-Side contains her song "Ran Tan Waltz", her second non-album B-Side.
"
Babushka " is the Russian word for "grandmother" (albeit the stress in Russian falls on the first syllable, not the second), and sometimes indicates in English a garment worn over women's hair, much like a bandana.Charts
Notes
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