KATE BUSH - WOW

Released: March 9, 1979

Charts:  UK: #14 

With “Wow,” the standout single from her 1978 album “Lionheart”, Kate Bush delivered one of her earliest and most incisive dissections of the entertainment world. Released as a single in March 1979, the track climbed to No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart and lingered there for ten weeks. It also found success across Europe, including a No. 17 peak in Ireland.

“Wow” emerged from Bush’s fascination with the ethereal soundscapes of Pink Floyd. Determined to write something spacey, she drew on the influence of the very band whose David Gilmour had helped launch her career by funding her early demos. The result is a lush, slow-burning ballad anchored by soaring strings and Bush’s expressive, theatrical vocals—a sound world that feels simultaneously glamorous and melancholic.

Lyrically, “Wow” is a sharp, satirical portrait of show business. Bush slips into the character of a glamorous actress or sex symbol, navigating a world of superficial praise, backstage politics, and fragile egos. In a 1979 fan club newsletter, she described the track as a send-up of the entertainment industry in all its contradictions: the “ripoffs, the rat race, competition,” but also the undeniable magic of performance. That tension—between disillusionment and wonder—forms the heart of the song.

One of its most controversial lines, “He’s too busy hitting the Vaseline,” sparked conversation and a BBC censorship moment. Bush later clarified the lyric as a simple observation about the prevalence of homosexuality in show business, not a critique. But her cheeky on-screen gesture during the line—playfully patting her backside in the song’s original music video—was enough for the BBC to pull the clip from airplay.

The video itself captures Bush in her element: emerging from darkness, spiraling into light at the chorus, embodying both the theatricality and vulnerability conveyed in the song. A second video, released in 1986 for her compilation “The Whole Story”, abandoned the controversy in favor of a montage of live performances.

The momentum around “Wow” coincided with Bush’s first—and for decades, only—major concert tour. Her appearance performing the song on ABBA in Switzerland in April 1979 further boosted its visibility, helping to push “Lionheart” back into the UK Top 20.