With "Breathing" Kate Bush releases a single for our times

Kate Bush : Breathing

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On April 14, 1980 Kate Bush released the UK#16 single "Breathing". Most of the lyrics sound as though they were written for these times, locked inside our homes , afraid to breathe in what strangers are breathing out.

Sung from the point of view of a foetus frightened by the effect of nuclear fallout, Bush says the song --with its lyrics 'Chips of plutonium are twinkling in every lung' --was inspired by a documentary she had seen on the effects of nuclear war.  

"It's about a baby still in the mother's womb at the time of nuclear fallout, but it's more of a spiritual being," she tells Smash Hits. "It has all its senses: sight, small, touch, taste ad hearing and it knows what is going on outside the mother's womb, and yet it wants desperately to carry on living, as we all do of course.

"Nuclear fallout is something we're all aware of, and worried about happening in our lives, and it's something we should all take time to think about. We;'re all innocent, none of us deserve to be blown up."

For the video, Kate performed the song in what appears to be a womb.