Waking the Witch

you left out alot

*

'Wake up!' 'A good morning, ma'am. Your early morning call.' 'You must wake up!' '[titter] Wake up! [titter]' 'Wake up, man!' 'Wake up, child! Pay attention!' 'Come on, wake up!' 'Wake up, love!' 'We should make the night, but see your little light's alive!' 'Stop that lyin' and a-sleepin' in bed--get up!' 'Ma needs a shower. Get out of bed!' [words uncertain] 'Little light...' 'Can you not see that little light up there?' 'Where?' 'There!' 'Where?' 'Over here!' 'You still in bed?' 'Wake up, sleepy-head!' 'We are of the going water and the gone. We are of water in the holy land of water' 'Don't you know you've kept him waiting?' 'Look who's here to see you!'

'Listen to me, listen to me, baby. Listen, baby, help me, baby! Help me, help me! Listen to me, talk to me!' 'You won't burn.' 'Red, red roses.' 'You won't bleed.' 'Pinks and posies.' 'Confess to me, girl.' 'Red, red roses,'* 'Go down!'

'Spiritus sanctus in nomine...[inaudible]' 'Spiritus sanctus in nomine...[inaudible]' 'Spiritus sanctus in nomine...[inaudible]' 'Spiritus sanctus in nomine...[inaudible]' 'Poor little thing,' 'Red, red roses,' 'The blackbird!' 'Pinks and posies.' 'Wings in the water,' 'Red, red roses, Go down,'** 'Go down.' 'Pinks and posies.'

'Deus et dei domino...[inaudible]' 'Deus et dei domino...[inaudible]' 'Deus et dei domino...[inaudible]' 'Deus et dei domino...[inaudible]' 'What is it, child?' 'Bless me, father, bless me, father, for I have sinned.' 'Red, red roses!' 'Help me, listen to me!' 'Red, red rose!' 'I question your innocence!' 'Help this blackbird!' 'She's a witch!' 'There's a stone around my leg.' 'Uh! Damn you, woman!' 'Help this blackbird! There's a stone around my leg.' 'What say you, good people?' 'Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!' 'Help this blackbird!' 'I am responsible for your actions.' 'Oh-hoh-hoh!' 'Not guilty!' 'Help this blackbird!' 'Wake (of) the witch!' 'Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!'

This is one of only two songs that have ever actually frightened me the first time I heard them (the other being Tori Amos' cover of "'97 Bonnie and Clyde"). I had fallen asleep listening to Kate's songs and this is the song that woke me up. I woke to the sound of the different voices calling "wake up!" and this part of the song:

'Listen to me, listen to me, baby. Listen, baby, help me, baby! Help me, help me! Listen to me, talk to me!' 'You won't burn.' 'Red, red roses.' 'You won't bleed.' 'Pinks and posies.' 'Confess to me, girl.' 'Red, red roses,'* 'Go down!'

Before the chanting of "Spiritus sanctus in nomine.."

It was pure terror, fumbling in the half-consciousness between sleep and awake, trying to figure out where I was, where the voices were coming from, what was going on... I was frantic for a good twn or twenty seconds before coming fully awake and realizing I only needed to take the headphones from my ears. This song is more powerful to me now because of that experience, I feel almost as if I came close to feeling how our heroine in the song must have felt while that was going on. Lost, frantic, panicked and confused... terrified.

-- "And Dream of Sheep" - (little light/great hope… face lit up by both… ‘IF they find me…’ = doubting/hurting) - -- is followed by a dream that turns… ‘I can't be left to my imagination!’ …into a nightmare ("Under Ice"). -- Then another nightmare. THE WITCH-HUNT is like being surrounded by a ring of damning accusers and silent witnesses… -- On 'Red, red roses,/Pinks and posies' see the sea shanty “Blood Red Roses” (sailorsongs.com/blood_redroses.htm) -- ‘Red, red rose!’ = love/desire/courage/Christ/rosary/etc. -- Witchcraft in Europe was often associated with weather-making. -- In England, witch-pricking was common. It was believed that the diabolical mark would neither bleed, hurt nor show a wound when stabbed by a needle. -- “The beautiful song of the blackbird makes it a symbol of temptations, especially sexual ones. The devil once took on the shape of a blackbird and flew into St. Benedict's face, thereby causing the saint to be troubled by an intense desire for a beautiful girl he had once seen. In order to save himself, St. Benedict [The Exorcist; patron against witchcraft and those fighting temptation, etc.] tore off his clothes and jumped into a thorn bush. This painful act is said to have freed him from sexual temptations for the rest of his life.” -- Catholic guilt? … By the end of the song, the protagonist also identifies herself as a blackbird! … ‘Go down!’

I'm pretty sure this is an ancestor of Kate (or the narrator of the whole 9th Wave song suite thing) being tried for witchcraft. The helicopter noise and "get out of the waves, get out of the water!" kind of suggest that she's having some sort of past life flashback after falling in the ice at the end of "Under Ice". Even before I had any idea what was supposed to be going on, this track gave me chills on first listen; all those layers of vocals and weirdly chopped up spoken fragments are incredibly disorienting.

Obviously the protagonist of the 9th wave suite has now become exhausted after being stuck in the icy water for so long, and she begins to dream and hallucinate: here about going to confess to a priest but being mistakenly taken for a witch. Her confessions are sexually charged ("Listen to me come, baby: ohhh!") but the unsympathizing clergy and judge of this fictitious town won't have anything to do with it: they're evil in her eyes.

Beyond the story of the 9th wave, this seems to be saying that in the most desperate of situations, we crave for people to accept us and see us for who we are, but they instead shun us and mistake us for something we definitely are not.

Kate Bush is simply amazing.

Of course, the little ending part with the helicopter and men shouting "Get out of the waves, get out of the water!" is a reference to her being rescued finally. The 9th Wave suite is constantly jumping from point to point in its story. This line is also a fore-echo from the second-to-last song on this album, Hello Earth.

I think one thing anybody can tell is that this, whatever else it may mean, is on one level telling the story of a witch burning, as were common in the 1500s and 1600s.

However, somebody suggested to me that this song might be inspired by the novel "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare. After all, it does have the recurring line "help this blackbird" - and Kate is hardly a stranger to writing fabulous songs about fabulous novels! :D

1 level is about sleepy person. She goes to another world - the world of dreams. And there is a place where she meets the witch. And the witch asks for help.

2 level - I think its about real witch. She fell in love with the man or maybe demon (?)and they "made love" before wedding. "Red roses" is a symbol for sensual lo ve. "Help the blackbird" Blackbird in Christian tradition - symbol of flesh, desire, sexuality. the girl understood that she made something awful and came to confess to the priest. But the priest betrayed her, and he called her a witch. But the demon or devil is on here side, he says: "You won't burn." "You won't bleed." - its a very interesting part. It is called "silent charm" - when the devil anaesthetises witch when she is burned at the stake. This phenomenon was described in the book by Paul Reniar "Intellectual epidemics" (I don`t know how translate correct because I read this book in russian).

I have the second version of this.

It was a tradition to drown witches. witch thrown into the river with a stone on her legs and watched : If she floats - it means she is not witch so she can be buried in the churchyard, and if she sinks - she is a witch, and can be buried like a dog. Remember she sings: There's a stone around my leg.'

But one way or another - she had relationship with a man before marriage, which in the Middle Ages were regarded as sinful. Probably he has a wife. if a woman seduced a married man, she was called a witch. Attractive beautiful woman in the Middle Ages always a witch. Sorry for my no-perfect inglish - its not my native language:) I hope youll enjoy my opinion)

Witches, who certainly aren’t all creepy and evil, were burned at the stake because: --they presented a threat to the Christian religion\ --because there’s no such thing as a good witch --because other forms of kindling were hard to come by

Fear, exhaustion, hallucination, crisis… Revisiting the cause ("Under Ice")… revisiting the past ("Waking the Witch")… The human need to locate oneself… within (dis)order…

The survival instinct is trying to kick in, trying to surface through dreamwork - ‘Wake up! Pay Attention! Keep focussed. We can make the Night! Attend to the Light! Listen to me! Help me!’

But shock waves, weakness and disorientation plunge her into a Kafkaesque nightmare… internal schisms... …Her Right to Survive is on trial… …She faces the possible (machine-gun) firing squad of her own super-ego… …Will she condemn herself? …Will she sink or swim? …Her biggest challenge yet!

Kate at her most terrifying!

(EXORCISM AND PRAYER TO ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL?)

Kate Bush: "I think even though a lot of people say that the side is about someone drowning, it's much more about someone who's not drowning, and how they're there for the night in the water, being visited by their past, present and future to keep them awake, to keep them going through until the morning, until there, uh, there's hope."

"Waking the Witch" is a battle between Thanatos (death instinct) and Eros (life instinct).

‘Get out of the waves! Get out of the water!’ suggests a surfacing of the Life Force…

Unconscious, she hears the wings of the helicopter and her survival instinct (EROS) kicks in, reminding her to focus on getting out… Alive! (‘The 9th Wave’ reminds me of the UK Channel 4 series, ALIVE).