Flower of the Mountain

Recorded between 2009 and 2011 for Director's Cut, with Kate Bush revisiting The Sensual World after finally receiving permission to use text from James Joyce's Ulysses. The recording retained and reshaped earlier musical elements with a new lead vocal, Steve Gadd on drums, Del Palmer on bass, Davy Spillane on pipes and whistles, John Sheahan on fiddle, and Paddy Bush on canes. Released by Fish People and EMI in 2011, Flower of the Mountain opened Director's Cut and fulfilled Bush's original concept for The Sensual World. It marked the most explicit example of the album's purpose: reworking earlier songs as new recordings rather than remixes. The track remains a distinctive entry in Kate Bush's catalogue because it restored the Joyce text she had originally wanted to set to music in 1989. It stands as a rare case where a major artist returned decades later to complete a song's original literary design.