The news that Kate Bush is to return to the stage 35 years after she retired from touring received widespread coverage in the media. Since the announcement in March, all manner of articles have been written about the singer including her recent plea to fans not to use phones or tablets at the concerts.

The reporting of Bush’s early career wasn’t quite so comprehensive. The first mention in the Guardian/Observer archive is a Clive James TV review of rock programme Revolver on 28 May 1978, in which he states that he can’t be sure ‘whether Kate Bush is a genius or a headcase, but she is definitely something else’. Later that year the Pendennis diary column carried a short piece about the imminent release of Lionheart, her second album.

In April 1979 Kate Bush embarked on the Tour of Life, a six-week jaunt around the UK and Europe that proved to be a great critical success. As well as being impressed with the music, the Guardian’s Robin Denselow noted the innovations in ‘rock choreography and microphone design’. Clive James reviewed Kate Bush in Concert (‘talent to burn...but she is also a weirdo) the following year, and again in 1984. The BBC’s Nationwide programme made a fascinating behind-the-scenes special in the run-up to the tour.

As Simon Reynolds points out, Kate Bush has always viewed interviews as a chore and a distraction from her real work, but she has occasionally spoken to newspapers. In 1982, while promoting fourth album The Dreaming, she told the Guardian’s Mick Brown that many people latched onto the physical side of her because she ‘could be looked at in a neat little labelled way as a body.’

A short review of the Hounds of Love appeared on 20 September 1985 and Michael Berkeley later wrote about working with Bush on the album. Four years on she gave an interview to coincide with the release of the The Sensual World.

The Red Shoes appeared in 1993 and then there was a wait of 12 years before the next album, Aerial, in 2005.

The album 50 Words for Snow was released in 2011.