Skip this one, Julia. (She thinks Kate Bush is creepy.)

I’ve been in love with Kate Bush’s music nearly all my life. From the day in 1978 when I first heard “The Man with the Child in His Eyes,” on Boston’s WBCN radio station, I was hooked on her gorgeous voice and inimitable artistry. I was 14. That day, she became my answer to the question “Who’s your favorite artist?”—and it hasn’t changed since.

Kate’s birthday was yesterday. And yesterday is when I found out that she’s just five years older than me. She wrote that song when she was 15. When it became her second huge hit, she was 19.

Her first hit song was “Wuthering Heights,” also released in 1978, a song she insisted be her first single even though it was unlike anything people had ever heard.

It reached number one in the UK, and according to Wikipedia, it’s still her most successful single.

Another favorite from her first album, The Kick Inside, is “The Saxophone Song,” featuring a memorable tenor sax solo by Alan Skidmore:

I spent my college years wearing out my Walkman and cassette tapes of Kate’s late-70’s and early 80’s releases, Lionheart, Never for Ever, and The Dreaming, all stunning and hallucinatory. Here’s “Breathing,” from Never for Ever, with its hypnotic chants of “out in out in out in”:

Her biggest album was 1985’s Hounds of Love, which includes the first song of hers most people think of, “Running Up That Hill”:

But flip that album over to side 2 and you’ll hear my favorite, the mind-bending suite that includes “Waking the Witch”:

Last year when Susan and I drove the Ring of Kerry, in Ireland, one morning, we were oohing and aahing over the rugged coastline views, and I suddenly needed to hear side 2 of Hounds of Love. That’s the suite that Kate calls “The Ninth Wave,” about a woman shipwrecked, which features traditional Irish instruments. Thanks to Apple Music and Susan’s forbearance, I spent the next 27 minutes seeing the Irish coast through Kate’s mind, hearing through her ears.

One recent artist who evokes Kate is Aldous Harding. Here’s her beautiful—and some might say creepy—song from 2019, “The Barrel”:

When I read, I like to be on shaky ground, not sure if I can trust the narrator, and not ever quite certain what’s going on. It’s a certain overloading density of information I’m after, I think. My favorite author at the moment is Adam Levin, and his most recent book, Bubble Gum, plus his first one, The Instructions, do that for me.

I have a similar experience listening to Kate’s music, and I think that’s one reason why she’s remained my number one for 42 years and counting. Happy Birthday, Kate!