This Woman's Work

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.

I don't know why, but lately the lyrics from this Kate Bush penned song have really been resonating with me. According to a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Woman%27s_Work_(song)) I read on the subject, "the lyrics of the song are about being forced to suddenly confront reality and adulthood in times of crisis."

This was certainly the intent in featuring the song in John Hughes' 1988 movie "She's Having a Baby," starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. It's a movie I think a lot of Kevin Bacon fans may have missed but shouldn't. The scene the song plays under, of Bacon's young father sitting helplessly in the waiting room of a hospital as his wife struggles through the problematic delivery of their first child, is a wonderful piece of acting. If you don't cry watching him, you don't have a heart. And the lyrics say it all:

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.

Fast forwarding to now, I don't think I'm finally confronting adulthood, at least since I felel like I've been doing that for years. And I'm not having a baby. So the crisis theory must be what draws me to this song. But I also think it's the music. Kate Bush has always been one of my favorite artists, and her voice is surely one of the most original in music. But for Kate, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and so many other emotive female songwriters would not have careers today. The opening tones of Kate's fragile soprano on the recorded version from her album The Sensual World sound like the first glimpse of a sunrise. They say smell is the closest sense connected to memory, but for me sound is my instant tie to memory and emotion.

If Kate Bush isn't exactly your taste, check out Maxwell's cover of the song on his 2001 album Now. He more than does it justice. I own both versions of the song, and I have a hard time choosing which one I like best. Thanks to the magic of my iPod, I can listen to both any time I want.

Either way, check this song out. I'll bet it gets inside your head too.