Tracey Thorne writes:

For me, like many others, the musical highlight of the year was Kate Bush’s return to the live stage, with her show Before the Dawn. It was an incredible performance, and after I saw it I wrote a piece for the New Statesman about how much it moved me.

When I was asked to be guest editor for the Radio 4 Today programme, I realised immediately that one thing I wanted to do was pay tribute in some way to Kate. I’ve never sung any of her songs before, and I’ve chosen a lesser known one called Under the Ivy, recording it with Ben Watt on piano, and a string arrangement written by Nick Ingman. Her version of the song originally appeared as a B-side to Running up that Hill, back in the days when every record had a B-side, a place where often a great song could be semi-hidden.

That feeling of concealment is particularly relevant to this lyric, which is all about privacy and intimacy, hiding “away from the party”, meeting someone in a safe and secret place. It could be about a lover of course, but I also think it partly describes Kate Bush as an artist. In contrast to many music stars, she’s lived a proper private life, devoting much of her time and her energies to her family. And even with these amazing Before the Dawn shows, I don’t really feel that she was entering back into the public arena of the music business, more that she briefly invited us into her world, giving us a glimpse of all the things she can do. For that, and for this beautiful song, I thank her and hope I’ve done it justice.

Tracey