In mid-May 1979 Kate Bush stepped off the stage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon, not to return for 35 years. Instead, she could focus her energies on elaborate productions like the televised special that Christmas which she’d use to promote tracks from her third album “Never for Ever.”

For a song called “Egypt,” Bush sonically captured the complex nature of the country with conflicted lyrics and the exotic tones of Max Middleton’s Minimoog.

"The song is very much about someone who has not gone there thinking about Egypt, going: 'Oh, Egypt! It's so romantic...the pyramids!'” Bush told ZigZag magazine in 1980 “Then in the breaks, there's meant to be the reality of Egypt, the conflict.”

Middleton had been a key figure inside Jeff’s Beck’s orbit during the height of his solo career in the mid-Seventies, and that pedigree along transformed him into an in-demand session player by the time he got the call to work with Bush. His Minimoog part, which is featured throughout the track, resembles a high-pitched version of the Egyptian ney – a traditional wooden flute made from a hollowed-out piece of cane. With a little bit more attack and some subtle reverb, the Model D hovers between sounding electronic and a bit mystical.

“Never for Ever” went unreleased in the U.S. for several years, but it became the first album by a solo female artist to top the album charts in the U.K.. Bush had once again assembled the right collection of sounds and stories to continually prove herself a unique voice in the pop world.