Oh to Be in Love

The meaning is plain: Kate is exulting the state of being in love. I find this song to be rapturous, and I particularly love the various aspects of physical and temporal transition in it, going from one state to another, not just shifting across the floor but from the past to the present and the potential of the future even if it is by way of "slipping into tomorrow too quick." Interesting that the clock has to stop in order to let the singer and the singer's loved one to another place vaguely defined--by time? by geography? by...?

A hallmark of this song is the chanting male backing vocals. I'm thinking that this was the first time Kate used this variety of bvs but not the last, see also "Kashka From Baghdad," "All We Ever Look For," "Pull Out the Pin," etc. There is something very "olde" about this male chanting, and I wonder if it is a vestige of Roman Catholic liturgical chanting rearing up out of Kate's past. Just a speculation, IMHO...

I think one of the bonuses of the male vocals, is that it highlights the qualities of her voice that she is famed for. I might be wrong, but doesn't Paddy Bush provide them? Or at least the majority of them?

The feeling of being in love with someone and never being able to fall out of love with them, being trapped in this situation. How it can be anyone at anytime, a completely random event that you mistakenly find yourself trapped in. The magic of someone telling you the same things you've heard before but it sounding great coming from a new person and you finding these new moments hard to forget, you becoming sick of the repetition of these situations as represented by the pendulum.