Lionheart

Kate Bush

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: November 13, 1978
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000007MVL
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #31,943 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Like a warm, cherished secret, September 26, 2003

By	Hjm Smits (Holland) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I think this album is a bit underrated since everybody is always so wild about Hounds Of Love. "Lionheart" is Kate Bush at her best.
This album is lush and sensual and in a way deliciously 70-ies with its weird cover photography and instrumentation.
A warm record to cherish and keep a secret and listen to in the darker and colder part of the year (for that specific reason the album's overall atmosphere strangely reminds me of Bjork's "Vespertine")
It doesn't suffer the somewhat hysterical overproduction of later work such as "The Dreaming", "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes" (although it loses one star because of "Coffee Homeground", which in its silliness should've been on "Never For Ever".)
On Lionheart the melodies and choruses are richly beautiful ("Fullhouse", "Symphony in Blue") and songs like "In Search Of Peter Pan and especially "Oh England My Lionheart" have that typical Romantic-Kate-Bush-Old-English-Roses-And-Nursery-Fairytale-Feel that is so unique (and pretty hard to describe..)

That Feel of secrets in the garden and whispers in your sleep.
The smell of coffee and dusty attics and female eroticism...

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eerie Wonderland, August 17, 2005

By	Hiloani Kialeta "Hilo Kia" (Hawaii USA) - See all my reviews

As a sophomore this is amazing and as an album it is wonderful!
The music on this album is very quaint and tightly structured.
"Lionheart" is probably the most 'english' album of all time.
With bold refrences to mostly everything remotely english this album is possibly an ode to her home country.

With subjects ranging from murder,affairs and death this album is certainly not lacking in subject matter.
Although the main thing that attracts about this album is it's beauty and majesty.
Kate's voice as usual is phenomenal, an individual rarity you may say.

Highlights on this album include the wonderful "Coffee Homeground", the groovy "Hammer Horror" and the lusty "Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake".

Spectacular imagery is also a treat here and you really feel what she is trying to get across. Overall, "Lionheart" is one of the most spectacular and superb albums ever and will appeal to a wide range of musical tastes.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kate is my Lionheart!, November 11, 2001

By	Daniel J. Hamlow (Narita, Japan) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Kate's second album is mellower than most of her work. Most of it is Kate's still-girlish vocals and her piano. The sole exception is the frantic guitar rocker "Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake", which is inbetween two lovely songs--"Wow" and "Oh England, My Lionheart." "Heartbreak" contains a wonderful metaphor of spilling red beads to blood, and "Wow" is one of Kate's best singles.

"Symphony In Blue" is an interesting contrast between the calmer, sadder, and more tranquil blue modes and red modes, which are of love, jealousy, and sex. She sees God as tempering the beast from red to blue, and guiding her towards her symphony, for which she is needed.

"Oh England, My Lionheart" is a wonderful love song to the country of Shakespeare, Peter Pan, London Bridge, a country whose arms warmly embraces her and that she never wants to leave, even when she's ready to shuffle off that coil. For her, this is an England after the devastating effects of the Second World War, where clovers grow where air-raid shelters used to be.

"In The Warm Room" is an erotically beautiful song sensually sung from Kate's lips. "You'll fall into her like a pillow/Her thighs are soft as marshmallows/Say hello, to the soft musk of her hollows" Now that's just beautiful writing with wonderful similes.

The slightly bouncy "Coffee Homeground" with a witty chorus of arsenic in the tea, (a nod to Arsenic And Old Lace surely), and mentions of cyanide in chocolate, belladonna in coffee, depicts all the ways the lonely serial killer disposes of whoever comes to visit her. Anyone going to a house with "pictures of Crippen, lipstick-smeared" should do an about-face towards the front door.

"Hammer Horror" is her nod to the British companies that put out budgeted but effective Dracula and Frankenstein movies during the 1960's and 1970's.

From 1189 to 1199, England may have had a Coeur de Lion in King Richard I, but in 1978, they had another Coeur de Lion in Princess Katherine, Kate to her fans. Lovely album, your Highness.