Me at 15? Well, I was listening to Bush incessantly, actually. I'd just discovered her. Or, to put it more accurately, I was introduced to her by a couple of sisters with whom I'd spend most of my high school years. For them, music revolved around two artists: Ms. Bush and George Clinton. If they weren't throwing themselves into the sweeping theatrics of The Kick Inside or one of her later albums, they were givin' up the funk to Parliament or "Atomic Dog" or "Do Fries Go with That Shake." Surrendering to Clinton was a no-brainer for me: hell, he said, "Free your mind and your ass will follow" for a reason, after all - but coming around to Bush took a little more work.

They'd stick The Kick Inside into the tape deck - yes, these were pre-CD days, but at least I can say this was still years after the album first came out! - and I wasn't sure what to make of it, honestly. I'd never heard anything like it: the weeping, swooping soprano; the otherworldly cries and squawks; the Renn Faire-recalling imagery. And were those dolphins I heard in the background? Could we switch back to Clinton, maybe? Please?

Over time my sense of mental dislocation gave way to curiosity, and then eventually somewhere between my freshman and sophomore year, I finally came to understand Kate Bush. Once you've come round to her wonderfully singular way of thinking, fandom is inevitable, and so soon enough I'd bought myself a copy of The Kick Inside, and it wasn't long before others in her catalog came home with me from the one record store in town. Years later, I now own them all - on CD, even, ha ha! - but Kate's debut will always hold a very special place in my heart. She's casting some mighty-ass spells here, let me tell you. The passage of three decades has done very little to diminish them.

Talk about an opener: the album starts off with the alluring mini-epic "Moving," a yearning piece of romantica introduced by the howling of wolves and boasting the immortal line "you crush the lily in my soul." Here, we are given a first taste of Bush's keening octave-vaults, as well as her reliably witchy backing vocals. There is something about the song's "na na-na na na" phrasing that is simultaneously titillating and frightening. Its follow-up, "The Saxophone Song," might suffer slightly by comparison, depending on your threshold for sax solos - not as bold or brash as those on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" or the entirety of Glenn Frey's '80s hamfist-o-ramas, thankfully, but definitely period-piece nonetheless. Still, it's an exquisitely crafted little confessional, loaded with spacey ambient sounds and a dramatically now-or-never string arrangement at the end.

"Kite" - with its bizarro-Baroque reggae rhythm and its opening declaration of "Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o/ my feet are heavy and I'm rooted in my Wellios" - has always been a highlight for me, as is "James and the Cold Gun." Perhaps the most overtly rock song on the album, "James" temporarily shelves her pre-electricity leanings in favor of an arrangement more fitting for the decade. Offering feisty guitar riffs and whirling, careening Hammond organ, it's a relatively straightforward foot-stomper - well, for Bush, anyway. Her vocal acrobatics, however, remain in place: in fact, they are given quite the showcase, considering the track's "let-it-all-loose" vocal requirement. "Feel It" casts a hot glow with its unabashed carnality ("Feel your warm hand walking around/ I won't pull away, my passion always wins"), introducing a theme which she would continue to explore lyrically throughout her career, particularly on the 1985 jaw-dropper Hounds of Love.

Finally, of course, there is the sheer two-in-a-row bang-bang brilliance of "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" and "Wuthering Heights," tracks five and six on The Kick Inside. The former - all lushness and tenderness in its sunbathed orchestration - disguises the narrator's aching vulnerability in string-laden sweetness and twinkling-piano sensitivity, but pay attention to the lyrics and a whole other story opens up. Bush's guy might sound all right on first listen, but pull a bit closer to her words, and suddenly things don't sound too hot: "They say 'No, no, it won't last forever/And here I am again my girl/ Wondering what on earth I'm doing here/ Maybe he doesn't love me/ I just took a trip on my love for him."

"Wuthering Heights": what to say? Simply put, the most unashamedly bold-stroked romantic gesture ever made on the airwaves. It ended up an enormous hit all over the world, except for here in the states, and in the process sent many a listener scurrying to the local bookshop or library for Emily Bronte's finest. And who could ever forget the video? Out to the wiley, windy moors, then, shall we?: