Top of the City

I'm really, but really disappointed that no one said one thin about this song, my own favorite Kate Bush song.

to me this song is really inspiriting and bittersweet, talking about loneliness and love yet also about many more tiny things about people's personal lives - the fake social life, the desire to run away from anything, to agonize yourself with relationship that isn't satisfying.

I think the City itself is a metaphor for a person, most likely to herself or the person she sings to/about, also there is the feeling…strange feeling, when she’s watching him and the city from above it’s make the singer enigmatic being/character, like she’s the angel or she’s already on the top of city…also I wonder about the possibility of death.

She sounds like a ghost of beloved one who watches over the lover she left behind.

‘Life is sad and so is love…’ The Red Shoes is a sad album, but the central message is love… ‘Live your life for love…’

Top Of The City is one of the sad songs, and I tend to regard it literally…

To me, the song is about a cry-for-help suicide attempt… The girl has given too much of herself to a failed relationship… She is (or imagines) climbing up onto the highest point of a church or cathedral… (see the angel on the steeple of Guildford Cathedral…) She tells herself, ‘One more step…’ She feels terribly alienated from ‘the city’ (metaphor for life) … It no longer feels good for her…

She is momentarily distracted by the cityscape. But…

‘I don't know if you'll love me for it [jumping] But I don't think we should suffer this There's just one thing we can do about it…’ …The suicide attempt is an act of punishing him?

Midway through the song, she appeals to him: Look, I’m here with the ladder to a more fulfilling relationship, and he can take her to a better ‘top of the city/angel’s shoulders’ … and restore her sense of meaning/purpose/fulfilment etc… In the ‘Mmm yes!’, I see her climbing back down and maybe giving him a call…

'that building there is nearly built' - connotes the relationship that she (and he) had been working on, etc. 'a big fire...' - also connotes the ending of that relationship, both occupying her mind.

Magnificent song! I used to be very literal and go to the highest car-park in my city (a very small city with only one big car-park!) and listen to this on my headphones while looking over the edge at the traffic and people on the street. Up there I could quite easily say I was at the top of the city, but Kate's city I think was a huge metropolis, and it is a very satisfying feeling being in the midst of a large city and being up so high just taking in everything.

I see her in this song as someone who's trying to make the man see her as 'the one', but also wishing him to test himself and not give himself up at the first chance of a love affair. Kate's goal is to challenge herself and needs the man to be just as fascinated by the seemingly unreachable. It's like when you see something grand about a fellow human and they maybe don't realise it themselves... Also it's about the dream of being desired and sharing a growing love with somebody who is discovering along with you their true potential.

every night before bed i pray to Kate