I keep the lights on to ease my soul – Hammer Horror

Horror Moments, Kate Bush Edition

‘Horror Moments’ is a series examining horror-inflected scenes and themes in unexpected places. Each batch of ten articles explores a particular source, from Wallace & Gromit to the plays of William Shakespeare. The ‘moments’ are published weekly on Thursdays, and I share articles on the history of magic, theatre, storytelling, and more on Mondays – don’t forget to subscribe!

We’ve all been there: an actor friend of yours has died in an on-set accident whilst playing the lead in a new Hammer Films production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and you’ve stepped in to replace him. It’s nothing personal, just a job, you’re sure he’d understand.  

Yet something doesn’t quite feel right. You become uneasy about the fact that his misfortune has worked out in your favour. Perhaps deep down you were always jealous of his success.

Perhaps it’s not just guilt that haunts you…

This is the plot of ‘Hammer Horror,’ the first single from Kate Bush’s second album, Lionheart (1978). After the phenomenal success of her first album, The Kick Inside, which included ‘Wuthering Heights,’ Lionheart had a more mixed reception and ‘Hammer Horror’ failed to reach the UK Top 40 chart.

Bush had been rushed into releasing Lionheart nine months after The Kick Inside and many of the songs were old compositions. She felt she hadn’t had enough time to prepare it and it’s rare that a Kate Bush fan will cite it as their favourite album, though it’s got some absolute bangers on it and ‘Hammer Horror’ is one of them. An underrated gem.

You’ve got to love lyrics like these:

You stood in the belltower
But now you're gone
So who knows all the sights
Of Notre Dame?

They've got the stars for the gallant hearts
I'm the replacement for your part
All I want to do is forget
You, friend

This is Bush at her most theatrical, having exactly the sort of campy fun with the subject matter that feels most natural to it, after all Hammer’s horror titles were famed for their gore and gothic melodrama. I’m sure Hammer legends like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing would have enjoyed the thought of putting the line ‘I’ve got a hunch that you’re following to get your own back on me’ in a song about an actor being haunted by a rival Quasimodo.

Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror
Won't leave it alone
The first time in my life
I keep the lights on to ease my soul
Hammer Horror, Hammer Horror
Won't leave it alone
I don't know
Is this the right thing to do?

Apart from making an extremely catchy chorus, the refrain of ‘Hammer Horror’ is a reminder of how important Hammer Films was in the history of British horror, familiar even to people who hated the genre.

Hammer was founded in 1924 but reached its zenith between the mid-50s and 70s. Bush was born in 1958 and came to fame in the late 70s, so her life and career had so far overlapped with the studio’s golden years.

Oddly enough though, the story of the song isn’t inspired by a Hammer film but by a scene from a TV programme where a character had mimicked Lon Chaney’s turn as the Hunchback in the 1923 Universal Pictures version. It’s revealing that for Bush’s generation, horror and Hammer was so intimately linked that all spooky stories seemed to belong to them whether or not they had actually made the films. ‘Hammer Horror’ had become a shorthand for ‘cinema that makes you sleep with the lights on.’

We don’t quite have an equivalent for this today. There are studios like Blumhouse and streaming services like Shudder which specialise in horror titles, but I don’t think any single company has quite such a claw-hold on our perception of the genre. This song could only have been written in the 70s, but the enduring legacy of Hammer means it still somehow makes sense today.

Next week, our journey through horror moments in the songs of Kate Bush will take us to a dangerous experiment. Until then, happy nightmares everyone!

Horror moments are posted every Thursday and a wide variety of articles exploring the history of magic, theatre, storytelling, and more are published on Monday afternoons.