Don't rush me: Kate Bush. Photo Trevor Leighton. Courtesy EMI Music Canada.
The cat owners, knit-circle members and raven-haired
introverts who comprise Kate Bush’s
fan base are rejoicing this week: on
Nov. 8, the
English singer releases Aerial, a two-disc
set that is her first new recording
since The
Red Shoes in 1993. In the hectic world
of the music business, a 12-year
hiatus can seem like an eternity
and a day. Yet Bush’s near-total
absence from the public eye in
that period only seemed to strengthen
her cachet among admirers and stylistic
heirs like Tori Amos and Fiona
Apple. In fact, a successful disappearing act
can sustain or even revive the fortunes of
musicians, filmmakers, actors and authors.
Here are ten famously protracted coffee breaks;
while most of these creative giants eventually
returned to the spotlight, a few are content
just to get up in the morning… and then go
to sleep at night.
KATE BUSH
Famous for: being discovered
as a teen prodigy by Pink Floyd’s
David Gilmour; recording a series
of lush yet eerie songs about hounds,
hills and wuthering heights
Length of hiatus: 12 years
between albums (1993-2005)
Reasons for break: After
abandoning touring due to her fear of flying,
Bush grew less prolific after 1986’s Hounds
of Love. A
one-year break after The Red Shoes turned
into many.
How she used the time off: Besides
spending six years on Aerial, Bush
holed up in her home in Reading, England and
raised her son, Bertie. As she recently told
The New York Times, “I spend quite a lot of
time doing housework.”
The return: Featuring one
song about the calculation of pi
and another laden with Renaissance-era instruments, Aerial is
as rich and idiosyncratic as any
of her recordings. Fans hope she does not take
her own advice in the new song How to Be
Invisible.
Photo by Brenda Chase/Newsmakers/Getty Images.
JOHN LENNON
Famous for: being a Beatle;
staying in bed with Yoko;
not liking Paul
Length of hiatus: five
years between albums (1975-80)
Reasons for break: burnout
after notorious booze-and-coke-filled
“lost weekend” in Los Angeles
and recording the oldies album Rock
and Roll
How he used the time off: served
as chief caregiver for son
Sean; enjoyed Ringo’s solo career
from afar
The return: The Double
Fantasy album and the single Starting
Over had just hit the charts when
Lennon was shot dead outside
the Dakota apartment building
in Manhattan. A steady stream of coffee-table
books, movies, reissues and even two
“new” Beatles songs ensured that not
even death could impede his career now.
MILES DAVIS
Famous for: presiding over
the birth of cool; playing
trumpet with back to audience; going electric
Length of hiatus: five
years between albums (1975-80)
Reasons for break: constant
touring and a car accident
left him in ill health and needing a
hip replacement
How he used the time off: “Sex
and drugs took the place that
music had occupied in my life
until then,” Davis wrote in his 1990 memoir Miles,
“and I did both of them around
the clock.” No slacker here.
The return: Released The
Man With the Horn album and began
touring again a year later.
Lambasted for going pop and
covering Cyndi Lauper, Davis died before
having to tour with Sting.
Photo Steve Finn/Getty Images.
QUENTIN
TARANTINO
Famous for: making
the jump from mouthy video-store clerk
to celebrated auteur with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp
Fiction, thereby
inspiring the getting of medieval
on asses
Length of hiatus: six
years between movies (1997-2003)
Reasons for break: The
subtle charms of his laidback
film Jackie
Brown were
largely lost on audiences.
Plus, he may have been as sick
of himself as we were of him.
How he used the time off: Appeared
in the 1998 stage production
of Wait Until
Dark and made a cameo in the equally
ill-fated film Little Nicky. Spent
several years writing the WWII
screenplay The
Inglorious Bastards before deciding
to write something for Uma
Thurman.
The return: Two
bloody volumes of Kill Bill earned
Tarantino even more geek love
(and Sofia Coppola’s phone number).
He then presided over the Cannes
jury that awarded Fahrenheit
9/11 the Palme d’Or, put his name
on the Chinese action epic Hero and
directed a few minutes of Sin City. Still
can’t get enough attention.
AXL ROSE
Famous for: being taken
down to Paradise City, where
the grass is green, the girls are pretty
and reconstructive surgery is competitively
priced
Length of hiatus: eight
years between tours (1993-2001)
Reasons for break: After
the covers album The Spaghetti Incident, the
Guns N’ Roses leader busied
himself with the task of replacing every
other member of his band. As
to why, only his psychics know for sure.
How he used the time off: Only
one new song (the instantly
forgettable Oh
My God) surfaced from sessions for Chinese
Democracy, the still-unfinished album
that now carries an estimated
price tag of over US$15 million.
The return: With
a new lineup of GN’R and a creepy
new face, Rose returned to the
stage in Las Vegas. The subsequent
tour is remembered chiefly for
its spate of cancelled shows,
including one that caused a
riot in Vancouver. Kicking
Rose while he was down, punk
pranksters The Offspring nearly
named their own album Chinese
Democracy: You Snooze, You Lose.
Photo Carlo Allegri/Getty Images.
JANE FONDA
Famous for: spending time
in Hanoi; faking an orgasm in Klute;
sweating in stretchy fabrics
Length of hiatus: 15
years between movies (1990-2005)
Reasons for break: Despite
strong critical notices for her ‘80s
work, Fonda claimed her acting
career had become “agony.” She
neglected to explain how living
with Ted Turner could be considered
an improvement.
How she
used the time off: She
moved to Atlanta, started programs
in support of reproductive health
and launched an art-book imprint.
Fonda inadvertently became involved
in the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign
when Republicans released doctored
photographs portraying Senator
John Kerry onstage with her,
disproving the Washington adage
that nothing ruins a political
career faster than being caught
with a dead girl or a live boy.
The return: Her appearance
in Monster-in-Law prompted speculation
over “J-Fo vs. J-Lo” real-life confrontations.
Yet Fonda’s comeback was largely
free of incident until a man in Kansas City,
MO spat tobacco juice in her face at a book signing
for her memoir My
Life So Far. He was arrested before a pack
of very fit women could kick him
to death.
THOMAS PYNCHON
Famous for: writing extremely
big and complicated books; not having his picture
taken
Length of hiatus: 17 years
between books (1973-90)
Reasons for break: The mystifying Gravity’s
Rainbow (1973) made Pynchon a literary
giant, but he was determined to frustrate journalists’
attempts to learn about his private life or
even what he looked like.
How he used the time off: Busied
himself with writing another book as big and
complicated as Gravity’s Rainbow, which
turned out not to be 1990’s Vineland,
but 1997’s much-longer-in-the-works Mason & Dixon.
The return: After Vineland, Pynchon
became marginally less media-hostile, writing
liner notes for alt-rock band Lotion, lending
his voice to a Simpsons episode and
being caught on camera (albeit in a street scene)
by CNN. He explained to the news channel that
“recluse” is a journalistic code word for “doesn’t
like to talk to reporters.”
TERRENCE MALICK
Famous for: crafting two of
the most mystical and gorgeous American films
of the ‘70s, Badlands and Days of
Heaven
Length of hiatus: 20 years
between movies (1978-98)
Reasons for break: largely
unknown, though spending two
years editing a Richard Gere movie
may have pushed him to the breaking
point
How he used the time off: lived
in France, ate baguettes, wrote an unused screenplay
for the Jerry Lee Lewis biopic Great Balls
of Fire
The return: Despite the presence
of nearly every major Hollywood actor from Sean
Penn to John Travolta to future messiah Jim Caviezel,
Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ WWII novel The
Thin Red Line divided critics and audiences.
His take on the Pocahontas story, The New
World, is out in December — maybe.
Photo Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
VASHTI BUNYAN
Famous for: becoming the cultiest
of cult artists to emerge from the same British
folk scene that spawned Nick Drake
Length of hiatus: 35 years
between records (1970-2005)
Reasons for break: the descent
of 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day into
oblivion put Bunyan on a less vocal life path
How she used the time off: raised
children and chickens in rural England and had
no idea that her music was so coveted until she
looked herself up on the Internet
The return: Responding to
the enthusiasm of young acolytes like Joanna
Newsom and Devendra Banhart, Bunyan released
her second album, Lookaftering, in October
— which sounds like she still believes in the
existence of unicorns.
Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images.
J.D. SALINGER
Famous for: writing about
loquacious youngsters in seminal
novels of ‘50s
and early ‘60s; being so press-averse
he makes Pynchon seem like a Hilton sister
Length of hiatus: 40 years
between books (1965-2005)… and still counting
Reasons for break: Salinger
resented fame so much he did his best to avoid
garnering any more. “A writer’s feelings of anonymity-obscurity,”
he once wrote, “are the second most valuable
property on loan to him.”
How he used the time off: suing
potential biographers, having desultory affairs
with much younger women (like Joyce Maynard,
who later put his letters up for auction) and,
according to his daughter, drinking his own urine
The return: Not yet. It remains
to be seen whether Salinger’s death will yield
an unfinished work like Ralph Ellison’s Juneteenth or
Ernest Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden or
194,329,992 pages filled with the phrase “All
work and no play makes J.D. a dull boy.”
Jason Anderson is a Toronto writer.
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