Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released as the lead single from Kate's third album Never For Ever. The lyrics of the song are about a foetus, very much aware of what is going on outside the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, which implies that the song is set either during a nuclear war scare or a post-apocalyptic birth. The lyrics also refer to the foetus absorbing nicotine from the mother's smoking. In an interview that year Bush described the song as her "little symphony", adding that she considered it her best work to date. Bush stated that the information within the song mostly came from a documentary she had seen about the effects of nuclear war, while the tone of the song was inspired by Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. The song was recorded over three days in early 1980. The track includes spoken words describing the flash from a nuclear bomb. The exact words - which are missing from the artwork on the album - are: "In point of fact it is possible to tell the Difference between a small nuclear explosion and a large one by a very simple method. The calling card of a nuclear bomb is the blinding flash that is far more dazzling than any light on earth - brighter even than the sun itself - and it is by the duration of this flash that we are able to determine the size of the weapon. After the flash a fireball can be seen to rise, sucking up under it the debris, dust and living things around the area of the explosion, and as this ascends, it soon becomes recognisable as the familiar 'mushroom cloud'. As a demonstration of the flash duration test let's try and count the number of seconds for the flash emitted by a very small bomb; then a more substantial, medium-sized bomb; and finally, one of our very powerful, 'high-yield' bombs."
dude, while kate recorded a demo on tape of a song '' wuthering heights'' she wrote at 18 years old , unbeknown to her , a friend ricky hopper posted it to David Gilmour of pink floyd, he was impressed, in fact he was so impressed so the story goes ,the legendary guitarist contacted kate bush to go get it professionally recorded at a studio which he paid for theses two exceptionally talented artist became friends to which she attended recording sessions at their studio listening in, she was infunlance by floyd and this particular song was one of them .
I don't know about "swelling guitars", but the most predominant feature of that particular section was the fretless bass played wonderfully by John Giblin.
There's a Japanese music teacher and performer, who now lives in UK, who is covering every Kate Bush song from her albums in order of release and posting them on YT about every fortnight. She has just finished Never for Ever and begins The Dreaming next month. Her YT channel is 'Yuri Kono Kate Bush'.
Where is she? She's in the womb, breathing her mother in, breathing her nicotine, breathing the fall-out, in, out, in, out, in, out, out, out... It's difficult to get across how much we were all influenced by the threat of nuclear war back in the early 80s, that's what Kate's singing about. The male voice in the middle section is from the 'public service' announcements we were going to hear broadcast 'when that moment arrived', we would be treated to radio and tv announcements about how to recognise a nuclear explosion if one happened to land in your backyard, what to do if one of your relatives died ("Wrap them in a bag and place them outside, remembering to tag the body for identification purposes") Yay, I just reached the point where you got it. It's not a cheerful song. It's possibly one of the least cheerful songs, ever. But you have to see it from where we all were then, we lived under a huge dark cloud. We still do, but somehow we found a way to ignore the threat, it's as big as it ever was, but we go on...
About the violin thing: she has not played it in any of her songs. As a kid she went to an all girls convent school where all the students were required to study at least one musical instrument. Her father encouraged her to take up violin lessons but she never grew fond of it. As you said, it is not an instrument you can just pick up easily. Kate much prefered the piano because it gave her a lot more freedom to express her budding creativity. After leaving school, she even wrote a song called "violin" as a kind of joke on how much anxiety her childhood violin lessons gave her. It's a very literal song about wanting to be played like a violin that has a very punk rock vibe to it. Only Kate Bush would think of writing a rock song about a violin. She even mimics the instrument with some of her highest notes.
Loving your Kate Bush reactions. A true artist from the very first. She spent her advance from EMI records on dance lessons, bought herself a Steinway piano with the profits from "Wuthering Heights", and after a couple of successful albums built herself a studio so she could immerse herself completely in the creation of her music. And somehow she is still a lovely person Good luck with your channel!
A baby in the womb scared to be born into a nuclear war x hence the mushroom cloud at the end x probably one of the most emotional songs ever and I find songs that talk about difficult issues really healing as you need to release the fears x
She has a muse and definitely has innate musical ability that wasn't taught but did have inspiration from her brothers who played unusual instruments and her other brother a poet but no musical schooling. Obviously you learn as you go along too but everything down to her dancing comes out of her wildly imaginative mind! She never played violin but has had the brilliant violinist Nigel Kennedy play on 'The Fog' which is a beautiful song from 'The Sensual World' plus other songs. love your reviews x
She did indeed take violin lessons as a child but didnt like them too much. There is a track on the Never For Ever LP, same as The Dreaming, called Violin where she sings about her experiences of playing the violin.
...alas, if you want nightmares watch "Threads", a c. 1980 BBC representation of a nuclear strike on the UK. Very disturbing to have that in amongst normal life. Kate as always is enigmatic, beautiful and keeps you thinking
I highly recommend "Suspended In Gaffa" and "Night of The Swallow". For me, those are the two best songs from "The Dreaming" album (1982), an album where you can listen to Kate Bush in her peak of experimentation, although I suggest listening to the whole "The Dreaming".
The Dreaming is my favourite Kate Bush album and my favourite track is Sat in Your Lap, which is clearly inspired by Dave Brubeck's Take Five, unfortunately the official music video on TH-cam is from an old video master which has some pitch shifting issues, so I would recommend you watch this fan-remastered version which has much better sound: th-cam.com/video/L5xxVQF1zAk/w-d-xo.html
Loved seeing you taking the moment in to really get it. The insight flashed through your face and thats the beauty that kate bush does to people. Getting them to think deep. Another great job with your reaction to this, friend! 🙌🏽💫
It’s cool to see your journey into the world of Kate’s music. She only did two tours, 1979 and 2014. She has some good live stuff from The Tour of Life, 1979. Keep up the good work .
@@BryPazReacts You could say "only one": "Tour Of Life" (sic!) 1979 in UK and Europe (a few in Germany and mostly only one event in other countries). "Before The Dawn" 2014 was a 22 night residency only in London, 35 years later...
This is Kate Bush at the peak of her early powers magnificent songwriting and subject matter superb singing and production a total masterpiece from the absolute GENIUS that is Kate Bush the GOAT
You've gotta check out Violin, a rocking banger from Kate's third album, Never for Ever, in which rather than playing the violin, she sings it, like the meanest fiddler that ever set bow to string, slipping and sliding up her octaves, skipping stacati, and bending the pitch to capture all the harmonics of her instrument. It's wild. Back when Breathing was released, in 1980, the cold war was going full pelt, Russia had invaded Afghanistan - yes, they had a go before the US, but with no greater success - Reagan had just been innaugurated, and the rhetoric of diolomacy had a dark and ominous tone. Clouds were gathering over the forthcoming Moscow Olympics, but that was of secondary concern to the threat of global annihilation from a nuclear war. It was a dangerous time, and the debates between the hawks and the backfists rumbled on ceaselessly. Huge CND marches, and a very famous protest by women at Greenham Common, a military airbase about 60 miles outside of London, where US ballistic nuclear missiles were kept in a state of readiness, primed for the end of time. There were plenty of protest songs, but many focused on the hard politics of it, and the leaders who would betray us. Kate's approach is very different, and of course, utterly feminine. I don't think anyone hearing it back then would have been in much doubt what she was singing about, though. It reminded me how much things changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The peace dividend brought many benefits to the world, one of them being that young people stopped hearing constantly about Armageddon. Of course, we have found other things to preoccupy us since then, but at least prior to the war in Ukraine, we've not had to think much about the threat of widescale annihilation.
Do a reaction the Whole of the Ninthwave which is the entire 2nd side of the Hounds of Love and for me the greatest 30 mins of music ever and The entire Dreaming album which is her other Masterpiece
I share your interpretation of a fetus in the womb expecting birth into a crazy world of nuclear (cold) war and destruction of the environment (this song is from 1980, it was all around), being also poisoned by her mother's nicotin consumption, and the inability to breathe under such circumstances. "Give me something to breathe - out, in, out, in..." (BTW: I'm uncertain about the fact, that she always puts "out" before "in", there may oder may not be a hidden meaning! ;-))
Actually the crunchy heavy guitars were used ten years before this with bands like Black Sabbath. The godfathers of metal. 80s metal bands were just recreating what Black Sabbath invented in 1970.
Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released as the lead single from Kate's third album Never For Ever. The lyrics of the song are about a foetus, very much aware of what is going on outside the womb and frightened by nuclear fallout, which implies that the song is set either during a nuclear war scare or a post-apocalyptic birth. The lyrics also refer to the foetus absorbing nicotine from the mother's smoking. In an interview that year Bush described the song as her "little symphony", adding that she considered it her best work to date. Bush stated that the information within the song mostly came from a documentary she had seen about the effects of nuclear war, while the tone of the song was inspired by Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. The song was recorded over three days in early 1980.
The track includes spoken words describing the flash from a nuclear bomb. The exact words - which are missing from the artwork on the album - are: "In point of fact it is possible to tell the Difference between a small nuclear explosion and a large one by a very simple method. The calling card of a nuclear bomb is the blinding flash that is far more dazzling than any light on earth - brighter even than the sun itself - and it is by the duration of this flash that we are able to determine the size of the weapon. After the flash a fireball can be seen to rise, sucking up under it the debris, dust and living things around the area of the explosion, and as this ascends, it soon becomes recognisable as the familiar 'mushroom cloud'. As a demonstration of the flash duration test let's try and count the number of seconds for the flash emitted by a very small bomb; then a more substantial, medium-sized bomb; and finally, one of our very powerful, 'high-yield' bombs."
The fretless bass in this tune is one reason I play bass. In '84 when I first heard this, it blew me away. She's years ahead of her time.
Army Dreamers, Moving... so many great Kate Bush tunes to choose from
dude, while kate recorded a demo on tape of a song '' wuthering heights'' she wrote at 18 years old , unbeknown to her , a friend ricky hopper posted it to David Gilmour of pink floyd, he was impressed, in fact he was so impressed so the story goes ,the legendary guitarist contacted kate bush to go get it professionally recorded at a studio which he paid for theses two exceptionally talented artist became friends to which she attended recording sessions at their studio listening in, she was infunlance by floyd and this particular song was one of them .
Thats awesome!
I don't know about "swelling guitars", but the most predominant feature of that particular section was the fretless bass played wonderfully by John Giblin.
Your channel deserves to grow big. Your reactions are interesting.
Thank you!!
You are right. Hiru no tsuki and Tsuki no Ie are beautiful. Probably she is a fan, Kate has her japanese fandom too since 1978.
There's a Japanese music teacher and performer, who now lives in UK, who is covering every Kate Bush song from her albums in order of release and posting them on YT about every fortnight. She has just finished Never for Ever and begins The Dreaming next month. Her YT channel is 'Yuri Kono Kate Bush'.
@@Beejay950 That is right. I follow her
Where is she? She's in the womb, breathing her mother in, breathing her nicotine, breathing the fall-out, in, out, in, out, in, out, out, out...
It's difficult to get across how much we were all influenced by the threat of nuclear war back in the early 80s, that's what Kate's singing about. The male voice in the middle section is from the 'public service' announcements we were going to hear broadcast 'when that moment arrived', we would be treated to radio and tv announcements about how to recognise a nuclear explosion if one happened to land in your backyard, what to do if one of your relatives died ("Wrap them in a bag and place them outside, remembering to tag the body for identification purposes")
Yay, I just reached the point where you got it. It's not a cheerful song. It's possibly one of the least cheerful songs, ever. But you have to see it from where we all were then, we lived under a huge dark cloud. We still do, but somehow we found a way to ignore the threat, it's as big as it ever was, but we go on...
Aah yes that bloody "Protect and Survive" leaflet. "When The Wind Blows" amd Threads demonstrated that the advice was complete bullshit...
About the violin thing: she has not played it in any of her songs. As a kid she went to an all girls convent school where all the students were required to study at least one musical instrument. Her father encouraged her to take up violin lessons but she never grew fond of it. As you said, it is not an instrument you can just pick up easily. Kate much prefered the piano because it gave her a lot more freedom to express her budding creativity. After leaving school, she even wrote a song called "violin" as a kind of joke on how much anxiety her childhood violin lessons gave her. It's a very literal song about wanting to be played like a violin that has a very punk rock vibe to it. Only Kate Bush would think of writing a rock song about a violin. She even mimics the instrument with some of her highest notes.
Paganini up on the chimney 😁
Love that song! Crazy
Love that song too... Kate is so creative.
Loving your Kate Bush reactions. A true artist from the very first. She spent her advance from EMI records on dance lessons, bought herself a Steinway piano with the profits from "Wuthering Heights", and after a couple of successful albums built herself a studio so she could immerse herself completely in the creation of her music.
And somehow she is still a lovely person
Good luck with your channel!
A baby in the womb scared to be born into a nuclear war x hence the mushroom cloud at the end x probably one of the most emotional songs ever and I find songs that talk about difficult issues really healing as you need to release the fears x
Army Dreamers and Delius are on the same album. One Beautifully bonkers and one sadder than a neglected puppy - both genius like only Kate does.
She has a muse and definitely has innate musical ability that wasn't taught but did have inspiration from her brothers who played unusual instruments and her other brother a poet but no musical schooling. Obviously you learn as you go along too but everything down to her dancing comes out of her wildly imaginative mind!
She never played violin but has had the brilliant violinist Nigel Kennedy play on 'The Fog' which is a beautiful song from 'The Sensual World' plus other songs. love your reviews x
She did indeed take violin lessons as a child but didnt like them too much. There is a track on the Never For Ever LP, same as The Dreaming, called Violin where she sings about her experiences of playing the violin.
Such a dope song! He definitely would like that one. 👌🏽
What do you mean "same as The Dreaming?" There's no track called Violin on The Dreaming.
@@carmensandiego7749 My bad, I meant to write Breathing.
...alas, if you want nightmares watch "Threads", a c. 1980 BBC representation of a nuclear strike on the UK. Very disturbing to have that in amongst normal life.
Kate as always is enigmatic, beautiful and keeps you thinking
Wasn't 1980 the year after the Three Miles Island nuclear desaster? Ah, yes, March 28, 1979!
I highly recommend "Suspended In Gaffa" and "Night of The Swallow". For me, those are the two best songs from "The Dreaming" album (1982), an album where you can listen to Kate Bush in her peak of experimentation, although I suggest listening to the whole "The Dreaming".
The Dreaming is my favourite Kate Bush album and my favourite track is Sat in Your Lap, which is clearly inspired by Dave Brubeck's Take Five, unfortunately the official music video on TH-cam is from an old video master which has some pitch shifting issues, so I would recommend you watch this fan-remastered version which has much better sound:
th-cam.com/video/L5xxVQF1zAk/w-d-xo.html
Loved seeing you taking the moment in to really get it. The insight flashed through your face and thats the beauty that kate bush does to people. Getting them to think deep. Another great job with your reaction to this, friend! 🙌🏽💫
It’s cool to see your journey into the world of Kate’s music. She only did two tours, 1979 and 2014. She has some good live stuff from The Tour of Life, 1979. Keep up the good work .
Whaaat??? Only Two????? 😮😮😮
@@BryPazReacts You could say "only one": "Tour Of Life" (sic!) 1979 in UK and Europe (a few in Germany and mostly only one event in other countries). "Before The Dawn" 2014 was a 22 night residency only in London, 35 years later...
England - Poole, Liverpool, 2x Birmingham, Oxford, Southampton, Bristol, 2x Manchester, Sunderland, 8x London
Germany - Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, Mannheim, Frankfurt
Scotland - Edinburgh
Sweden - Stockholm
Denmark - Copenhagen
Netherlands - Amsterdam
France - Paris
@@BryPazReacts she found touring terrifying. Terrible stage fright
@@colrhodes377 That said, she absolutely killed it on the first tour. I think as time went by it just became harder for her to consider.
This is Kate Bush at the peak of her early powers magnificent songwriting and subject matter superb singing and production a total masterpiece from the absolute GENIUS that is Kate Bush the GOAT
You've gotta check out Violin, a rocking banger from Kate's third album, Never for Ever, in which rather than playing the violin, she sings it, like the meanest fiddler that ever set bow to string, slipping and sliding up her octaves, skipping stacati, and bending the pitch to capture all the harmonics of her instrument. It's wild.
Back when Breathing was released, in 1980, the cold war was going full pelt, Russia had invaded Afghanistan - yes, they had a go before the US, but with no greater success - Reagan had just been innaugurated, and the rhetoric of diolomacy had a dark and ominous tone. Clouds were gathering over the forthcoming Moscow Olympics, but that was of secondary concern to the threat of global annihilation from a nuclear war. It was a dangerous time, and the debates between the hawks and the backfists rumbled on ceaselessly. Huge CND marches, and a very famous protest by women at Greenham Common, a military airbase about 60 miles outside of London, where US ballistic nuclear missiles were kept in a state of readiness, primed for the end of time. There were plenty of protest songs, but many focused on the hard politics of it, and the leaders who would betray us. Kate's approach is very different, and of course, utterly feminine. I don't think anyone hearing it back then would have been in much doubt what she was singing about, though. It reminded me how much things changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The peace dividend brought many benefits to the world, one of them being that young people stopped hearing constantly about Armageddon. Of course, we have found other things to preoccupy us since then, but at least prior to the war in Ukraine, we've not had to think much about the threat of widescale annihilation.
React to Kate Bush - Sensual World
👍
Do a reaction the Whole of the Ninthwave which is the entire 2nd side of the Hounds of Love and for me the greatest 30 mins of music ever and The entire Dreaming album which is her other Masterpiece
Do anti-war songs get any better? Try Kate singing, Army dreamers now for another amazing anti-war song.
There may be a hundred of us but some of us are just horribly elderly old men seeking validation of the music they grew up with.
I share your interpretation of a fetus in the womb expecting birth into a crazy world of nuclear (cold) war and destruction of the environment (this song is from 1980, it was all around), being also poisoned by her mother's nicotin consumption, and the inability to breathe under such circumstances. "Give me something to breathe - out, in, out, in..."
(BTW: I'm uncertain about the fact, that she always puts "out" before "in", there may oder may not be a hidden meaning! ;-))
Breathing the *fall out* in (ie nuclear fallout)
@@matthewadams8127 Sounds kate-style sensible!
Sophia Pangloss wrote sth. similar in another comment....
Actually the crunchy heavy guitars were used ten years before this with bands like Black Sabbath. The godfathers of metal. 80s metal bands were just recreating what Black Sabbath invented in 1970.
The 'swelling guitars' is a fretless bass
Oh wow! 😮