Hands down, this ballad by Kate Bush has THE BEST violin solo of any non-classical song. The song itself, though a bit of a downer, is really very beautiful.
"The Fog"
You see, I'm all grown up now.
He said,
Just put your feet down child,
'Cause you're all grown up now.
Just like a photograph,
I pick you up.
Just like a station on the radio,
I pick you up.
Just like a face in the crowd,
I pick you up.
Just like a feeling that you're sending out,
I pick it up.
But I can't let you go.
If I let you go,
You slip into the fog...
This love was big enough for the both of us.
This love of yours was big enough to be frightened of.
It's deep and dark, like the water was,
The day I learned to swim.
He said,
Just put your feet down, child.
Just put your feet down child,
The water is only waist high.
I'll let go of you gently,
Then you can swim to me.
Is this love big enough to watch over me?
Big enough to let go of me
Without hurting me,
Like the day I learned to swim?
'Cause you're all grown up now.
Just put your feet down, child,
The water is only waist high.
I'll let go of you gently,
Then you can swim to me.
from The Sensual World
19 Nov 06 ·mrtanner: I agree. This song is stunning.
The album is a huge disapointment (12 years for making an album that sounds like rejected b-sidesmaterial to hounds of love) but this lovely, moving piano ballad about her mothers death shows why there really is no one else like Kate Bush.
This is a strange song and it hits me in a strange place. The melody is very pretty, yet complex and unexpected and there are odd washes of moog at times. It's a Christmas song and has a Christmas feeling but not the familiar fireside one. Instead it's the cold alien blank expanse of snow and that pulse of stars. Kate Bush is a genius at creating this precise, complicated emotional terrain. Also, being a genius requires you to risk making a fool of yourself and Kate Bush certainly isn't afraid to do that. She's like that eccentric high school drama teacher I never had. In this song she turns herself into the snow that falls over the white city. "Jumpin' down with my paraCHUTE! Oh see how I fall."
20 Feb 04 ·jeanette: I always think that this kind of christmas song just isn't done enough. It is a great song anyway, but what makes it even better is that it has this unusual view of the festive season - that it's not just about being jolly / feeling downbeat / singing about how "so much has happened in a year" etc etc. Kate Bush of course is mistress of the offbeat lyric and it's nice that she found a way to marry it to a christmas tune.
