“Running Up That Hill” began not with a lyric or chord progression but with a sound Kate Bush found in the Fairlight CMI.
Bush later explained that she immediately liked the Fairlight sound that became the central riff and wanted a military, drone-like atmosphere around it. A Linn drum pattern was programmed, the Fairlight repeated its figure, and she developed the vocal over that foundation. The familiar sustained atmosphere also involved freezing Fairlight material through a Quantec processor.
I like this because it is an unusually clear example of sound design becoming composition.
A preset is normally treated as something that comes after the musical idea. Choose the notes first, then search for an appropriate sound.
Here the relationship is reversed.
The timbre suggested the music.
That is one reason synthesizers and samplers changed songwriting so profoundly. They did not merely provide electronic replacements for piano, strings or drums. A strange sound could suggest a rhythm, a register, an atmosphere and eventually an entire song.
There is another useful detail. The Fairlight sample was noisy.
Today that might send us searching immediately for a cleaner library.
Bush built one of her most recognisable recordings around it.
The imperfect sound was not a problem waiting to be fixed.
It was the reason to begin.
