Experiment IV

"Experiment IV" was the one new song on Kate Bush's hits album The Whole Story (excluding the re-recorded rendition of "Wuthering Heights"). "Experiment IV" was also the only single release from The Whole Story.

The song tells a story about a secret military plan to create a sound that is horrific enough to kill from a distance. The ending of the story is unclear, but in the music video the people working on the project are killed by the horrific sound.

At the end of the song a helicopter is heard (the very same helicopter sound heard in Pink Floyd's The Happiest Days of our Lives from their 1979 album, The Wall).

The music video includes cameos from Dawn French, Hugh Laurie and Peter Vaughan and was banned from Top of The Pops because it was considered too violent.^[1]

"Experiment IV" was released on October 27, 1986 and climbed to number 23 in the UK Singles Chart, alongside "Don't Give Up", Bush's duet with Peter Gabriel, which reached number 9. This made her the first British female to have two singles chart simultaneously on the UK Top 40.

An extended version of the song appeared on the 12" vinyl release of the single, which again included "Wuthering Heights (New Vocal)", her re-working of the song which catapulted her to stardom in 1978, together with "December Will Be Magic Again". It was also included as the last track on the second CD, second cassette or third LP of rarities on the This Woman's Work box set released in 1990.

The song is notable for featuring Nigel Kennedy on violin, who at one point replicates the screeching violins from Bernard Herrmann's famous scoring of the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho.