This month, Kate Bush will release The Other Sides, a stand-alone four-CD set of B sides and rarities, previously available only as part of larger vinyl and CD box sets released last year. One of the highlights is an elegant, sultry cover of the Billie Holiday signature “The Man I Love.”
The arrangement has some echoes of Lady Day’s 1939 Vocalion recording, but Bush makes it her own both vocally and in a classy video, previously unreleased, where she wanders a soundstage among musicians in a cinch-waisted, trench-cut leather jacket, conjuring a cross between Lauren Bacall and James Dean.
Bush recalled some details on her website:
This romantic song was written by George and Ira Gershwin and when Larry Adler put an album together of their songs, called The Glory of Gershwin, he asked me to sing this beautiful song. The album was produced by George Martin. I was very fond of George — such a special talent and creative spirit, a really gentle man, very kind and incredibly interesting. It was a great honour to work with him and Larry. George and Larry were very different personalities (Larry was a real character), but they made a great creative combination.
It was released as a single and Kevin Godley directed the video. I loved working with Kevin — so imaginative and great fun. I’d worked with him and Lol Creme when they directed the video for Peter Gabriel’s song, “Don’t Give Up.” Kevin chose to present the video in a very traditional way which suited the song extremely well. Godley and Creme are huge talents who left their mark not just in the music industry with their intelligence and wit in the band 10cc but also in the visual world with their groundbreaking videos, working with an impressive list of diverse artists.
This is the first time this video has officially been released since its original TV broadcast.
The Other Sides is out Friday in the U.K. and Europe, and internationally on March 22nd. The set is now available for preorder.