Lovers of literature celebrate today as Bloomsday in honor of the life and writings of Irish writer James Joyce. The events of his monumental novel Ulysses occur on June 16, 1904, a date made dear to Joyce’s heart because it was the day upon which he and his eventual wife and long-time love, Nora Barnacle, had their first outing together. The day’s name honors Joyce’s character Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses.

In the late 1980s, eclectic and influential British singer/songwriter Kate Bush wanted to write a song based on Molly Bloom’s sexy, often censored soliloquy, which ends the novel. However, Joyce’s grandson Stephen Joyce, who has long held decision-making power over his grandfather’s estate, forbade it. He has been famously resistant to granting permission to other artists and writers who have sought to quote or incorporate elements of Joyce’s work into their own. Undaunted, Bush reworked the lyrics and created a beautiful work of art, her song “The Sensual World,” and released it as part of the album of the same name in 1989. The song is about Joyce’s character Molly Bloom stepping down off the pages of the novel into the real world of the senses, and it lifts phrases and ideas from Ulysses without quoting from the novel at great length or too directly.

In 2011, the Joyce estate at last granted Bush license to use her original material, and she rerecorded the song as “Flower of the Mountain,” and released it on the album Director’s Cut. Lovely as it is with Kate’s voice grown earthier with time, I prefer the lighter sound and lyrical flow of The Sensual World.