Hello Earth

When I heard this song the first time,i saw a guy who was drowning in the ocean after a storm. His soul goes in space and he watches Earth for the last time. he remembers the last time he was with his cherished love driving his car and she was sleeping by his side. As he is immaterial he can hear radio conversations. And then he goes to the light.

"Tiefer, tiefer, irgendwo in der Tiefe gibt es ein Licht" is what is said before "Go to sleep little Earth". It's German for "Deeper, deeper, somewhere in the depth there is a light." (that's what it says on gaffa) I don't know what the rest of the chanting is though. This song sounds like it's about the end of the world..

i love playing this song at night staring up at the sky its my way of telling god that the world isnt what it seems.

Wow! I didnt think of the songs being connected at all!!! I noticed that a lot Hound of Love songs had pieces in it like ''get out of the water!'' but i thought she just added them for the fun of it. I find that Kate Bush is such a unique creative person and i am so glad we get to hear her songs and see life through her perspective!

I think this song is at the moment the heroine is rescued, but she's too exhausted and "out of it" to recognise what is happening.

As she is floating the water, completely delirious, she imagines she is an astronaut watching earth and has flashbacks to seeing a light in the sky in her "ordinary life -" this is in fact the helicopter that will rescue her.

As she watches the storm brew she urges those on the boat to leave, but it has already happened.

The motif "get out of the waves! Get out of the water" comes in here and I think this is the sign she is being rescued - it is shouted in Waking the Witch from the helicopter. She vaguely hears this coming closer but does not realise what it is.

However before she can be rescued entirely she passes out. The German lines are a reference to a poem, I believe, but I do not have it to hand.

As I’ve read me plenty of different listeners lyrical analysis on this song, it seems we all have a similar idea on what the song is about,besides carrying the theme of the ninth wave. I believe this song is about saying bye to earth but diving into the album lyrically and knowing Kate bush is clever and can make a simple sentence mean so many things,this song has a lot of different meanings. I’ve never really seen anyone mention shes referencing cloud generating machines on this song. She’s going back to the theme on cloudbusting,from talking about “the men in power”, “everytime it rains,you’re here in my head” etc. For those who don’t know she wrote Cloudbusting as a memoir to the book of dreams by Peter reich. You really have to read the book, it reveals so much more not just on cloudbusting but other songs on the album like hello earth. I believe shes talking about actual machines that were made to generate clouds into the sky, “Watching storms Start to form Over America”. I did research on why and how those machines even exist and its alarming. I always questioned why she said “over America”…so it then it clicked. She’s talking about disastrous floods that happened in America? From the beginning of the song you hear a recording of a convo between an astronaut and nasa. They mention the space shuttle “Columbia”,a reference to the great flood of Columbus? “Just watch them swing With the wind out to sea”. Different words but one is rooted from another, was conceived by the revolutionary Francisco de miranda as a reference to the New World, especially to all American territories. From the Cloudbusting video having cloud making machines and watching the “men in power”/government go out of their way to manipulate its citizens. The chanting and dark production..to the lyrics having multiple themes. Man vs man? Man vs machine? Man vs nature? If Kate wrote it,it’ll never have one meaning.

it's odd how corny these lyrics can look on paper, but the song pulls them off handily. does anyone know what the chanty-sounding voices are saying -- most evident toward the end?

the eerie almost-gregorian chanting throughout the song is from Werner Herzog's film, Nosferatu. there aren't words in it, it's unscripted chanting, and it's used in the film during the plague scenes.

I'm wrong. the gregorian chant is actually a piece called Tsintskaro. there's various spellings of it.

Once upon a time I was playing various parts in a silly and serious play that angels were treating me to and in one role I was linked to the earth goddess Ge. I have no idea how it was originally pronounced but they were saying Gee as in gee whiz and I was Baby Ge or Little Earth—dreaming to spare Ge the indignity of being blown up with nuclear weapons. Talk about being out of my league … and the angels would sing this song with me. With just one hand held up high, I can blot you out—I was insignificant and small. They were driving—I was sleeping. We became something bright, traveling fast, moving at breakneck speed, communicating in torrents but not really accomplishing anything that I was aware of. Our storm formed in America and anyone who witnessed the event couldn’t really intervene—angels are exceedingly clever. The admonition for sailors, life-savers and cruisers to get out of the water was a message I wasn’t overly fond of because it suggested that much of what we felt we could do to impede war wasn’t going to work—and face it, who wants to hear that? I liked it even less because it wasn’t clear at all what might work and they were saying, go to sleep little earth—don’t worry about it. Being there at the birth refers to when this began and while we haven’t descended into World War III, things haven’t exactly been calm. So it would have been me asking why did I go? Why even listen to such nonsense? And they said go to sleep little earth. Sounds like a fairy tale so I made it one. From what I understand about life, we could easily blow this planet up and simply say, well gee, we felt like starting over although I personally think it’s a bit strange to think of blowing up home no matter how short the visit. Could be—majority rules and I’m in the minority.