Keep Breathing My Mother In

"Breathing" from Never Forever

Long before Lady Gaga showed up to award shows in egg coffins, Kate Bush was spinning inside a plastic womb complete with a gigantic umbilical cord. This song, "Breathing" is about the earth as mother, and how we are poisoning its air. In her music video from 1980, she makes it clear that radioactivity is our biggest threat. Now, it seems that we are instead harming everything by degrees, through the use of toxic chemicals to solve our problems.

Although her performance art has always been a large part of her career, I actually prefer this stripped down live rendition, below, where we can focus on the eerie and ethereal quality of her voice, which is more than enough to deliver the message behind her words. She intimately shares her feelings about Earth, calling her "my beloved." It seems even more important to hear this now, when we are coming more perilously close to turning "Beloved Mother" into our planet's epitaph.

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At other times, we can also rejoice that we are part of the earth and its beauty as well. I don't know how it was possible to turn a song about a couple in the midst of childbirth into a popular hit, without it being sentimental or twangy. But she did it, creating and performing with the raw energy of fear, uncertainty, and also sadness, as the old life of youth gives way to the new parental one of tenderness and gratitude. It sends chills through me every time.

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Music and Lyrics by Kate Bush from The Sensual World

Pray God you can cope.

I stand outside this woman's work,

This woman's world.

Ooh, it's hard on the man,

Now his part is over.

Now starts the craft of the father.

I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.

I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.

I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things I should've said,

That I never said.

All the things we should've done,

That we never did.

All the things I should've given,

But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go,

Make it go away.

Give me these moments back.

Give them back to me.

Give me that little kiss.

Give me your hand.

(I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.

I know you have a little life in you yet.

I know you have a lot of strength left.)

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.

I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things we should've said,

That were never said.

All the things we should've done,

That we never did.

All the things that you needed from me.

All the things that you wanted for me.

All the things that I should've given,

But I didn't.

Oh, darling, make it go away.

Just make it go away now.

Kate Bush was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Music in 2013. She received the award by Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle.

Dedicated to Steffanie, who first introduced me to this wonderful artist in her prime.