Gordon Lightfoot Forums - Kate Bush-This Woman's Work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Woman's_Work

Song information[edit]
The lyric of "This Woman's Work" is about being forced to confront an unexpected and frightening crisis during the normal event of childbirth. Written for the movie She's Having a Baby,[2] director John Hughes used the song during the film's dramatic climax, when Jake (Kevin Bacon) learns that the lives of his wife (Elizabeth McGovern) and their unborn child are in danger. As the song plays, we see a montage sequence of flashbacks showing the couple in happier times, intercut with shots of him waiting for news of Elizabeth and their baby's condition. Bush wrote the song specifically for the sequence, writing from a man's (Jake's) viewpoint and matching the words to the visuals which had already been filmed.[3]

The version of the song that was featured on The Sensual World was re-edited from the original version featured on the film soundtrack. The version released as a single was a third, slightly different mix.

"This Woman's Work" is one of several songs that were completely re-recorded on her 2011 album Director's Cut. The new version features a sparse performance of Bush playing the piano and singing.

Composition According to the sheet music published in Musicnotes.com by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the song is set in the time signature of common time, with a slow tempo of 66 beats per minute. It is written in the key of A-flat major with Bush's vocal range spanning from A♭3 to E♭5.[4]

Music video[edit]
The music video for "This Woman's Work", which was directed by Bush herself, starts with Bush, spotlighted in an otherwise black room, playing the introductory notes on a piano. In the next scene, a distraught man (played by Tim McInnerny) is pacing in the waiting room of a hospital. It is then revealed through flashbacks that his wife (played by Bush) has collapsed while they were having dinner. The story blurs into a continuous scene where he carries her to the car, a desperate race to the hospital, and his wife being wheeled away on a stretcher as he races in behind her. While waiting, the husband is wracked with fear and imagines his wife in happier times, kissing him in the rain, and even imagines the nurse coming to tell him she has died. The nurse then pulls him out of his reverie, as she reassuringly puts her hand on his shoulder and tells him about his wife's situation, the outcome of this is left ambiguous. The final scene of the video returns to Bush as silently closes the piano keyboard.

Pray God you can cope
I stand outside this woman's work
This woman's world
Ooh, it's hard on the man
Now his part is over
Now starts the craft of the father

I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left
I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things I should've said
That I never said

All the things we should've done
That we never did

All the things I should've given
But I didn't

Oh, darling, make it go
Make it go away

Give me these moments back
Give them back to me
Give me that little kiss
Give me your hand

(I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left
I know you have a little life in you yet
I know you have a lot of strength left.)

I should be crying, but I just can't let it show
I should be hoping, but I can't stop thinking

Of all the things we should've said
That were never said

All the things we should've done
That we never did

All the things that you needed from me
All the things that you wanted for me
All the things that I should've given
But I didn't

Oh, darling, make it go away
Just make it go away now