DON'T GIVE UP (W/ KATE BUSH)

Random happenstance that I'm giving this single a chance, as the music video for the A-side, "Don't Give Up", unsurprisingly showed up in my YouTube feed. Being a fan of Kate Bush since my college years, and certainly forever significantly more than her one protégé of sorts, Mr. Gabriel here, I've been digging into her back catalog, listening to non-album B-sides and their respective singles and watching any remaining music videos of hers that I had missed (there are many). Speaking of music videos, the one for this song is as sweet as the song and lyrical content therein: simply a hilltop embrace by Peter and Kate lasting the entirety of the video. This song is very soulful, almost a duet gospel track. An expectedly humanist gospel tune, sung in gratitude to friendship. Kate takes the chorus and what I would consider the first bridge, the second so-called bridge sung by Gabriel. Pretty song. Very not progressive haha. That is, perhaps, until the very end. The beat picks up and shifts in a very peculiar way. The bass, for one thing, is phenomenal.

The B-side is the classic "In Your Eyes". Beautiful vocal performance by Peter here. He is, of course, one of the figureheads of what is now considered Post-Progressive music (the other most major figure being Japan's David Sylvian). As the A-side guest Kate Bush is always apt and willing, so too does Peter explore textures and sonic choices that may be somewhat unusual in the world of Western Pop. In the case of this track, as we might expect from him, specifically from this time, these sonic explorations result in a "World Music", equally popularized by another Post- Progressive voice, David Byrne. Lovely track. Expectedly lovely music video, featuring some old-school '50s(?) clips of a woman dancing, and with wonderful imagery, of course using Peter's and others' eyes blown up on various surfaces. Great stuff.