10/10
A Moment in History
6 February 2021
It cut through my head suddenly and jarringly, like a thunderflash, the teenager's shrill soprano (not immediately appealing), framing words I couldn't make out, except a repeated cry of "Cath-ee", and someone mentioning to me that it was about Wuthering Heights. But in between "I've come home" and "I'm so cold" she inserted two wordless notes sounding like "oh...ho...", that somehow managed to put-out the most erotic pulse of any short musical passage. Those few seconds of 1978 burned into me, in the way that some have described the first performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I call it 'making a moment'. And that was before I'd seen any pictures of her, either stills or video.

Here we have Version 1 of the video, and everything is here, that brand of glamour beyond prettiness, the shimmering white dress, the mysterious challenge in the eyes, the inviting gestures, the confident dance-moves, perhaps even her karate training had something to do with it. (Kate had a fight on her hands getting this one produced to her exacting standards; character had as much to do with it as talent.) Why this version failed to please America, it's hard to fathom. They wanted her in red, dancing in a forest. That version is good, but not great.

Before making this track, the then-unknown Kate said "I'd like my music to intrude". It did.
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