‘Moments Of Pleasure’ is a song written by Kate Bush. Premiered on television (see below) and officially released on her seventh album The Red Shoes. The song was subsequently also released as a single on 15 November 1993.

Bush wrote the chorus “to those we love, to those who will survive” for her mother, who was sick at the time of recording. She died a short time later.

Versions

There are two different versions of ‘Moments Of Pleasure’: the album version (which was also the single version) from the 1993 album The Red Shoes. In 2011, a re-recording of the song appeared on Bush’s album Director’s Cut.

Formats

‘Moments Of Pleasure’ was released in the UK as cassette single, a 12″ single with free poster, a regular CD-single and a limited edition box set CD-single with card prints. Although the single was not released commercially on 7″ vinyl, copies do exist and were made exclusively for promotional and jukebox purposes.
The 7″ single and the cassette single featured the instrumental version of ‘Moments Of Pleasure’ on the B-side. The 12″ single added the track Home For Christmas. The CD-singles were different entirely and added, besides the title track, the tracks December Will Be Magic Again and Experiment IV. The non-limited version also had the track Show A Little Devotion.
Finally, there was also a Dutch 2 track CD-single, featuring Home For Christmas as the second track.

Music video

The music video was also used in the movie The Line, The Cross and The Curve and features Kate rotating around in the snow, lipsynching the song and meeting various actors near the end of the song.

Performances

Kate Bush premiered ‘Moments Of Pleasure’ during a rare TV appearance in the programme Aspel & Co on BBC television (UK) on 20 June 1993. She was interviewed by the host Michael Aspel, after which she performed the song on stage, sat behind a black grand piano.

Cover versions

‘Moments Of Pleasure’ was covered by Ebony Buckle, Kat Devlin, E-Clypse featuring Emma Price, Goodknight Productions, Göteborgs Symfoniker and Nerina Pallot.

Critical reception

Only few reviews of this single were published.

Beautiful and traditional Bush fare with expansive orchestrations, poignant vocals and off-her-trolly lyrics.

Alan Jones, Music Week, 20 November 1993

Kate about ‘Moments Of Pleasure’

I think the problem is that during [the recording of] that album there were a lot of unhappy things going on in my life, but when the songs were written none of that had really happened yet. I think a lot of people presume that particularly that song was written after my mother had died for instance, which wasn’t so at all. There’s a line in there that mentions a phrase that she used to say, ‘every old sock meets an old shoe’, and when I recorded it and played it to her she just thought it was hilarious! She couldn’t stop laughing, she just thought it was so funny that I’d put it into this song. So I don’t see it as a sad song. I think there’s a sort of reflective quality, but I guess I think of it more as a celebration of life.

Interview with Ken Bruce, BBC Radio 2, 9 May 2011

I wasn’t really quite sure how “Moments of Pleasure” was going to come together, so I just sat down and tried to play it again– I hadn’t played it for about 20 years. I immediately wanted to get a sense of the fact that it was more of a narrative now than the original version; getting rid of the chorus sections somehow made it more of a narrative than a straightforward song.

Ryan Dombai, ‘Kate Bush: The elusive art-rock originator on her time-travelling new LP, Director’s Cut’. Pitchfork, May 16, 2011

Highest chart positions

UK: 26

Lyrics

Some moments that I’ve had
Some moments of pleasure

I think about us lying
Lying on a beach somewhere
I think about us diving
Diving off a rock, into another moment

The case of George the Wipe
Oh God I can’t stop laughing
This sense of humour of mine
It isn’t funny at all
Oh but we sit up all night
Talking about it

Just being alive
It can really hurt
And these moments given
Are a gift from time

On a balcony in New York
It’s just started to snow
He meets us at the lift
Like Douglas Fairbanks
Waving his walking stick
But he isn’t well at all
The buildings of New York
Look just like mountains through the snow

Just being alive
It can really hurt
And these moments given
Are a gift from time
Just let us try
To give these moments back
To those we love
To those who will survive

And I can hear my mother saying
“Every old sock meets an old shoe”
Isn’t that a great saying?
“Every old sock meets an old shoe”
Here come the Hills of Time

Hey there Maureen,
Hey there Bubba,
Dancing down the aisle of a plane,
‘S Murph, playing his guitar refrain,
Hey there Teddy,
Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road,
Hey there Michael,
Do you really love me?
Hey there Bill,
Could you turn the lights up?

Credits

Piano: Kate

References