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The Fog Lyrics

You see, I'm all grown up now.
He said:
"Just put your feet down child
'Coz 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
lt'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.
"Coz 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.
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Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

THE FOG contrasts the child's overcoming fear with the adult who sees/feels too much fear and ego-insecurity. Both must face the pull and the push of reaching out...

REACHING OUT celebrates the blind marvel of everything... The Big Bang... The Creation of Adam... Life, the Universe, the Human Condition... and maybe the filial-parental triangle, with its sad, inevitable pattern of discipline, needy clinging and breaking away...

Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

I also think the song is about a child learning to let go of his/her parent.. like the day a child learns to swim. And in the song the child is wondering whether this love is big enough to let go of her, without hurting her.. What a beautiful song..and what a beautiful theme..and what a beautiful album. And yes Theresa Gionoffrio you are just right, the song is just like a fog..You loose yourself completely in it

Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

One of those songs that keeps folding in on itself.

Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

child abuse ne 1? eerie song

Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

The music rolls around like an enveloping fog... You lose yourself in this song...

Maybe a song about trauma-recovery. Trauma can 'burn the library' - destroy confidence and knowledge skills. Imagine 'surviving' an underground bomb attack, and then being hounded by panic attacks when taking the subway. Trauma can cause psychological regression. The adult becomes the night-frightened child... 'After an initial deep split the tremors can go on indefinitely...'

The opening lines recall the child's thrilling wave of transition... A 'remembrance of things past' ... Learning to swim as a rite of passage into adulthood... The world promises reassurance and excitement... But the post-traumatised (post-Ninth Wave) adult feels vague, distant, detached, cast out, "uncanny" (à la Freud)... the world is familiar yet foreign... cognitive shock, panic, fear of the (un)familiar, a bad trip... "I can't let you go..." ... The Fog is threatening, dangerous, disarming... And trauma can shroud 'the everyday' in fog... a fog that envelopes perceptions, distorts reality, and alienates one from oneself and others...

Emotional trauma can shatter/expand one's sense of self... Grief reveals just how necessary a relationship is or had become; how deep, dark and vast it had (always) been... We can 'see' the drowning-potential of water but not always of relationships... When one embarks on a relationship, one doesn't necessarily perceive its dangerous essentiality... Like going for a swim and suddenly finding yourself uncomfortably far out... Alone, and Not waving But drowning...

Maybe the song is about pre-Wedding Day Anxiety; about the father 'giving away' the bride... Maybe the song captures the scary realisation that a relationship risks becoming a vital organ to a (dys?)functioning self... She feels scared of the deep commitment... Her fears of drowning (in the relationship) are surfacing... The big parental dynamic 'defined' her ego security, art, sense of self, etc. And now she fears ego-compromise or creative-castration (à la Plath?)... She must reassure herself, teach and remind herself that she has learned to swim (to and/or away)... Maybe she can let herself go and trust them entirely as she did her father... Or maybe the relationship is becoming too complicated and scary... Flight and Fright!

Foggy conditions are frightening. Though the song, The Fog, is full of paternal comfort and reassurance, somehow it still reminds me of Kesey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest... "Nobody complains about all the fog. I know why, now: as bad as it is, you can slip back in it and feel safe. That's what McMurphy can't understand, us wanting to be safe. He keeps trying to drag us out of the fog, out in the open where we'd be easy to get at."

Cover art for The Fog lyrics by Kate Bush

I agree with most there is like a letting go that takes place in this song. Possibly letting go of something familiar yet painful or at least a part of her that will be missed.

However it also brings up a possible toxic relationship romantic ar familiar. I now she has been personality typed as a possible INFP so I don't think you can separate or overlook her statements as an intuitive empath about "picking up" ones energy or thoughts. When she does let things slip she feels lost or may get lost. It may even refer to a co-dependant relationship such as an Empath with an Narcissist, which can indeed be "deep and dark" at times and maybe not provide enough space for the empath's need of authenticity, to be herself. Will it be BIG enough to keep her safe...? Without hurting her? So there may be a fear of moving on and letting go, putting her feet down and going on her own.

My Opinion
 
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