Breathing (Kate Bush song)

"Breathing" is a single by Kate Bush, the first cut from her 1980 album Never for Ever, with backing vocals by Roy Harper.

"Breathing"
Single by Kate Bush
from the album Never for Ever
B-side"The Empty Bullring"
Released14 April 1980
GenreProgressive rock
Length4:52 (Single edit)
5:30 (Album version)
LabelEMI 5058
Songwriter(s)Kate Bush
Producer(s)Kate Bush, Jon Kelly
Kate Bush singles chronology
"Strange Phenomena"
(1979)		 "Breathing"
(1980)		 "Babooshka"
(1980)
Music video
"Breathing" on YouTube
Audio sample
  • file
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The single was issued on 14 April 1980, four months before the album was released, and reached number 16 in the UK charts, remaining in the charts for seven weeks.[1] It was the first single by Bush to feature a non-LP track on its B-side, "The Empty Bullring".

Content

"Breathing" is 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.[2] The lyrics also refer to the unborn baby 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.[3] 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 (side three in particular).[4] The song was recorded over three days in early 1980.

The track includes spoken words describing the flash from a nuclear bomb.

The music video features Bush in a womb portraying a foetus.[5] Bush performed the song live in the benefit concert in aid of The Prince's Trust in July 1982.[6] In 1985, Bush donated the song as her contribution to the multi-artist compilation Greenpeace – The Album.

Charts
Chart (1980) Peak
position
UK Singles Chart[1] 16
Dutch Singles Chart[7] 44
Belgian Singles Chart[8] 25

See also

References
  1. "Kate Bush - Full Official Chart History". Official Charts Company. Official Charts Company. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
  2. "Kate Bush – Breathing Lyrics | Genius Lyrics". web.archive.org. 15 April 2019. Retrieved 15 April 2019.
  3. Lorne Murdoch (1985). "Kate Bush". Record Collector (December 1985, No. 76): p.21
  4. Melody Maker, 10 October 1980
  5. "Kate Bush - Breathing". YouTube. 1 March 2007.
  6. Smith, Sally Bedell (21 November 2017). Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 9780812979800.
  7. http://dutchcharts.nl/showitem.asp?interpret=Kate+Bush&titel=Breathing&cat=s
  8. https://radio2.be/top-30/
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