The Sensual World

"The Sensual World" b/w "Walk Straight Down the Middle"
Released: 18 September 1989
"This Woman's Work" b/w "Be Kind To My Mistakes"
Released: 20 November 1989
"Love and Anger" b/w "Ken"
Released: 26 February 1990

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
BBC	(Favourable)^[1]
AllMusic	^[2]
Chicago Tribune	^[3]
Rolling Stone	^[4]
Spin's Book of Alternative Albums	(8/10)^[4]
Los Angeles Times	^[5]
Robert Christgau	(B)^[6]

The Sensual World is the sixth studio album by the English singer Kate Bush. It was released in October 1989 and peaked at no. 2 on the UK Albums Chart. It has been certified Platinum by the BPI for sales of 300,000 in the UK,^[7] and Gold by the RIAA in the US.^[8]

Overview

Bush drew inspiration for the title track from the novel Ulysses by James Joyce. Bush realised that Molly Bloom's soliloquy, the closing passage of the novel, fitted the music she had created. When the Joyce estate refused to release the text, Bush wrote original lyrics that echo the original passage, as Molly steps from the pages of the book and revels in the real world.^[9] She also alluded to "Jerusalem" by William Blake in a reference to the song's gestation ("And my arrows of desire rewrite the speech"). The song includes Irish instrumentation (uilleann pipes, fiddle, whistle) under a breathy rendering of the orgasmic 'Yes' of the original text.

The songs "Deeper Understanding", "Never Be Mine", and "Rocket's Tail" all feature backing vocals by the Bulgarian vocal ensemble Trio Bulgarka. "Heads We're Dancing" includes a characteristic Mick Karn fretless bassline. The song "This Woman's Work" from the movie She's Having a Baby (1988) was re-edited for this album. On 27 November 2005 it was featured in the British TV drama Walk Away and I Stumble starring Tamzin Outhwaite. Due to that broadcast, the song reached #3 on the UK download chart in late 2005.^[10] This song has also been used in a long-running UK television advert for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, broadcast in 2005–2008, and in the Extras Christmas Special in 2007. A version of the song was recorded by R&B artist Maxwell in 1997 for his MTV Unplugged album.

Released as CD players were becoming increasingly popular, the original LP ended with "This Woman's Work", whilst "Walk Straight Down the Middle" was included as a bonus track on the CD and cassette versions of the album. The gap between these two tracks is slightly longer to indicate the album was intended to finish with "This Woman's Work".

A video collection called The Sensual World: The Videos was also released. It contained videos for the title song, "Love and Anger", and "This Woman's Work" (all directed by Bush herself), as well as excerpts from an interview Bush gave to the music TV channel VH1.

In 1991, The Sensual World received a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.^[11]

Bush was also nominated for two BRIT Awards in 1990 as Best British Producer and Best British Album of the Year for the album The Sensual World.

In May 2011, Bush released a new album, Director's Cut which featured new versions of four songs from The Sensual World, including the title song now called "Flower of the Mountain". Finally having received permission from the Joyce estate, Bush recorded a new vocal using Molly Bloom's soliloquy as the lyric. Additionally, she re-recorded a sparse, piano-only version of "This Woman's Work". The new version of "Deeper Understanding" was released as a single, with an accompanying video.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Kate Bush.

Side one
No.	Title	Length
1.	"The Sensual World"	3:57
2.	"Love and Anger"	4:42
3.	"The Fog"	5:04
4.	"Reaching Out"	3:11
5.	"Heads We're Dancing"	5:17

Side two
No.	Title	Length
6.	"Deeper Understanding"	4:46
7.	"Between a Man and a Woman"	3:29
8.	"Never Be Mine"	3:43
9.	"Rocket's Tail"	4:06
10.	"This Woman's Work"	3:32
11.	"Walk Straight Down the Middle" (CD bonus track)	3:48

Personnel

Haydn Bendall: engineer
Andrew Boland: engineer
Stoyanka Boneva: vocals
Kate Bush: piano, keyboards, vocals, background vocals, producer
Paddy Bush: mandolin, valiha, tupan, whip (swished fishing rod), background vocals
Clare Connors: violin
Ian Cooper: cutting engineer
Stuart Elliott: drums
Eva Georgieva: vocals
John Giblin: bass guitar
David Gilmour: guitar
Paul Gomazel: engineer
John Grimes: assistant engineer
Michael Kamen: arranger, orchestration
Mick Karn: bass guitar
Nigel Kennedy: violin, viola
Kevin Killen: engineer, mixing
Tom Leader: assistant engineer
Dónal Lunny: bouzouki
Charlie Morgan: drums
Alan Murphy: guitar
Michael Nyman: string arrangements
Del Palmer: bass guitar, percussion, rhythm guitar, engineer, Fairlight CMI, mixing
Justin Pearson: cello
Dimiter Penev: arranger
Yanka Rupkina: vocals
John Sheahan: fiddle
Davy Spillane: pipe, whistle (human), whistle (instrument), uilleann pipes
Alan Stivell: background vocals, Celtic harp
Trio Bulgarka: vocals
Eberhard Weber: solid-body electric double bass
Bill Whelan: arranger
Jonathan Williams: cello

Reception

"While Bush's famously fey voice would probably be enough to hold the disparate strands of The Sensual World together, the album takes its cue and colouring too from the hypnotically sinuous sway of the pipes on the title track," wrote Robert Sandall in Q. "There are some strapping power chords to be despatched here and there, most notably on Love And Anger, but the dominant mood is of Oriental reverie, similar in feel to that achieved latterly by Japan. And the last track on A side, Heads We're Dancing, reproduces that mysteriously sproingy bass sound favoured by Mick Karn."^[12] Slant Magazine listed the album at #55 on its list of the "Best Albums of the 1980s" saying "Blessed with one of music's most wildly expressive voices, Bush takes each song further than she has to, resulting in an album that forms its own unique world."^[13]

Charts

Peak positions

Chart (1989/90)	Position
Australian ARIA Albums Chart^[14]	30
Canadian RPM Albums Chart^[15]	14
Dutch Mega Albums Chart^[16]	16
French SNEP Albums Chart ^[17]	38
German Media Control Albums Chart ^[18]	10
Italian Albums Chart^[19]	14
Japanese Oricon Albums Chart^[20]	18
New Zealand Albums Chart ^[21]	27
Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart^[22]	7
Swedish Albums Chart^[23]	17
Swiss Albums Chart^[24]	11
UK Albums Chart ^[25]	2
United States Billboard 200^[26]	43

Year-end charts

Chart (1989)	Position
Canadian Albums Chart^[27]	93
Italian Albums Chart^[19]	66
UK Albums Chart^[28]	45

Certifications and sales


Region	Certification	Sales/shipments
Canada (Music Canada)^[29]	Gold	50,000^{^}
France (SNEP)^[30]	Gold	80,200^[31]
Japan (Oricon Charts)		20,010^[32]
United Kingdom (BPI)^[33]	Platinum	330,000^[28]
United States (RIAA)^[8]	Gold	500,000^{^}
^{^}shipments figures based on certification alone ^xunspecified figures based on certification alone