50 Words for Snow, released in 2011, is the tenth and most recent studio album by English art pop musician Kate Bush. Recorded simultaneously with Director's Cut and released six months later, the record is a Concept Album themed around snowscapes and otherwise wintry settings, inspired by an urban legend that falsely claims that the Inuit have a ridiculously large number of words for snow (itself born out of the concept of linguistic relativity). Fitting this, the sound on the album is far more subdued than the eclectic direction of Bush's previous albums, shifting to a minimalist combination of chamber pop and Jazz Fusion driven primarily by piano and drums, with little of the flowery embellishments that she was known for.
As Director's Cut consisted solely of re-recorded material from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, this album stood as Bush's first release of new material since Aerial six years prior. The album was also Bush's second release on her vanity label Fish People, the first being the aforementioned Director's Cut. Unlike Director's Cut, the US release of 50 Words for Snow would be distributed by fellow independent label ANTI-.
In-line with other Bush albums, 50 Words for Snow was primarily promoted by promotional spots on TV and radio, plus Stop Motion Animated Music Videos for "Wild Man" and a section of "Misty". The closing track, "Among Angels", would also be featured in Bush's 2014 residency show Before the Dawn, her first extensive concert series since the Tour of Life all the way back in 1979.
50 Words for Snow was promoted by just one single: "Wild Man".
Tracklist:
- "Snowflake" (9:52)
- "Lake Tahoe" (11:08)
- "Misty" (13:32)
- "Wild Man" (7:17)
- "Snowed in at Wheeler Street" (8:05)
- "50 Words for Snow" (8:31)
- "Among Angels" (6:49)
I can feel him troping in my hand, troping:
- Alliterative Title: "Among Angels".
- Animated Music Video: The videos for both "Misty" and "Wild Man" are depicted in Stop Motion.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: "Wild Man" is about a research team's hunt for the yeti in the Himalayas.
- Book Ends: In "Snowed in at Wheeler Street", the first and last points in history that the Star-Crossed Lovers describe meeting at is the burning of Rome, watching it from a distant hilltop.
- Concept Album: True to its title, every song on the album focuses on winter in some way, shape, or form.
- Concept Video: The music video for "Misty" adapts the song's lyrics about a woman who sleeps with a snowman and wakes up to find that he's melted.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The album packaging consists entirely of black, white, and gray tones all across.
- Design Student's Orgasm: The cover photo depicts an elaborate snow sculpture of a woman and a snowman kissing, designed to resemble a bas relief. Other snow sculptures in this fashion appear throughout the liner notes.
- Downer Ending: "Misty" ends with the titular snowman melting after a night of passion with the woman he loves, leaving her mourning his fate the next morning.
- Epic Rocking: Every track on the album goes well over the six-minute mark. The 13-and-a-half-minute "Misty" in particular stands as the longest song in Bush's catalog, taking up the entirety of side two on the double-LP release.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
- "Snowflake" is a song about a literal snowflake.
- "50 Words for Snow" consists primarily of Stephen Fry listing off fifty different terms for snow.
- List Song: "50 Words for Snow" mainly comprises a list of fifty words for snow.
- Location Song: "Lake Tahoe", about a freshwater lake in northern California. The song specifically recounts an urban legend claiming that the lake's grounds are inhabited by a woman who drowned there in the 19th century.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Inverted; the closing track, "Among Angels", is actually the shortest song on the album.
- Loudness War: Averted — the album is very dynamic compared to other albums in the 2010s, at DR13, though the piano tracks (which form the music's backbone) audibly clip at points.
- New Sound Album: Tranquil, piano-driven chamber pop with traces of Jazz Fusion in the drumming.
- One-Man Song:
- "Misty", about a sentient snowman that the narrator falls in love with.
- "Wild Man", about the Abominable Snowman.
- One-Word Title: "Snowflake", "Misty".
- Shaped Like Itself: The fiftieth word for snow in "50 Words for Snow" is... "snow."
- Snowlems: The title character of "Misty" is a snowman who comes to life and falls in love with the woman who built him. Unfortunately, his love becomes his downfall when he sleeps with her and melts overnight.
- Snow Means Love: With the sole exception of the Title Track, nearly every song on the album uses winter imagery to invoke feelings of love and longing; "Snowed in at Wheeler Street" in particular describes the star-crossed lovers' one prolonged moment together taking place while they're, well, snowed in at Wheeler Street. The album cover even depicts a snow sculpture of the couple from "Misty".
- Sophisticated as Hell: Invoked on the Title Track. Bush stated that her chief motivation for getting Stephen Fry to voice professor Joseph Yupik was the chance to hear him recite various silly-sounding terms with the same gravity as an important lecture.
- Soprano and Gravel:
- A gender-inverted case happens with "Snowflake". The lead vocals are provided by Bertie McIntosh, who was just thirteen at the time and consequently sings in a waiflike soprano. This is contrasted with his mother's vocals on the choruses, which are comparatively deep and rugged.
- A more traditional case occurs with "Snowed in at Wheeler Street", where Bush's elegiac vocals are contrasted with Elton John's deeper-pitched performance.
- Special Guest:
- Scientists Stefan Roberts and Michael Wood provide backing vocals on "Lake Tahoe".
- Andy Fairweather Low of Willie and the Poor Boys provides backing vocals on "Wild Man".
- Elton John duets with Bush on "Snowed in at Wheeler Street".
- Stephen Fry provides the voice of professor Joseph Yupik on the Title Track.
- Spoken Word in Music: Stephen Fry's part on the Title Track consists of him dryly listing off various words and phrases that can describe snow.
- Step Up to the Microphone: Bush's son, Bertie McIntosh, provides lead vocals on "Snowflake".
- Star-Crossed Lovers: "Snowed In At Wheeler Street" is about a couple who keep on running into each other throughout various points in history (in order, the burning of Rome, an unspecified time in Paris, The Holocaust, the Great Smog of London
, and the September 11 attacks), but for one reason or another are unable to stay with together. - Title Track: The penultimate song on the album.
- Tragic Ice Character: The title figure in "Misty" is a Snowlem who dies melting in the arms of his lover.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: In "Snowed in at Wheeler Street", the narrator notes that when she and her star-crossed lover met in New York City during 9/11, they didn't pay attention to the attacks and simply shared a moment of love taking each other's photographs.
