Kate Bush has shared the official video of her music video for her classic cover of Elton John‘s ‘Rocket Man’ for the first time ever.

See it first on NME below.

One of Bush’s favourite songs of all time, her rendition of Elton’s space-faring staple reached Number 12 in the charts back when it was released in December 1991. Now, she has given the high-quality, self-directed music video its first ever official release.


“I remember buying this when it came out as a single by Elton John,” Bush told NME. “I couldn’t stop playing it – I loved it so much. Most artists in the mid seventies played guitar but Elton played piano and I dreamed of being able to play like him.”

“Years later, in 1989, Elton and Bernie Taupin were putting together an album called ‘Two Rooms’, which was a collection of cover versions of their songs, each featuring a different singer. To my delight they asked me to be involved and I chose ‘Rocket Man’. They gave me complete creative control and although it was a bit daunting to be let loose on one of my favourite tracks ever, it was really exciting. I wanted to make it different from the original and thought it could be fun to turn it into a reggae version. It meant a great deal to me that they chose it to be the first single release from the album.”

“I dreamed of being able to play piano like Elton”

– Kate Bush

She continued: “That meant I also had the chance to direct the video which I loved doing – making it a performance video, shot on black and white film, featuring all the musicians and… the Moon!”

“Alan Murphy played guitars on the track. He was a truly special musician and a very dear friend. Tragically, he died just before we made the video so he wasn’t able to be there with us but you’ll see his guitar was placed on an empty chair to show he was there in spirit.”

Kate added: “This is the first time this video has officially been released.”


Kate’s new take on the Elton classic comes from ‘The Other Sides’, collection of rare tracks that will be released on March 8. The latest release is the final physical instalment of the Bush’s definitive catalogue

remastering project that was released last year.

The four CDs are a mixture of b sides, 12” mixes, rare tracks and cover versions – with one CD being devoted to covers including Kate’s versions of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ and ‘Candle In The Wind’, and George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘The Man I Love’.

Other tracks include ‘Brazil’ from the eponymous films soundtrack, ‘Lyra’ from the film ‘The Golden Compass’, ‘Be Kind To My Mistakes’ from ‘Castaway’ and ‘Humming’, an early demo that has never seen the light of day.

Although they featured in the November release, the new CDs mark the first time they have been available in their own right.

How To Be Invisible, a book of lyrics selected by Bush, was also published late last year.