Song Stories - "What Songs Mean To Me". Story One: The Morning Fog by Kate Bush

Hi everyone!

This is the first part of a series of blogs that I will post sporadically.
This new series is called 'Song Stories' where I will be sharing stories behind many of my favourite songs, telling you all about exactly what that song means to me.

If you've been following my music career for a while, you may remember I had something similar to this on my music blog were I would share the story behind songs that I had written.
However, I decided to stop doing that because I felt it can distract people from having their own stories and connection to songs that I've written.

Anyway, as you may know, I love everything about music. Music is something that's very personal to me, and it's something I'm very passionate about. I often develop strong connections to songs that I hear and love, so I thought it would be cool to share those connections with you!

My first song story is about 'The Morning Fog' by Kate Bush!

A photo posted by Josh Starmer (@joshstamer) on Aug 8, 2014 at 10:47am PDT

So the picture you see above is my photo of the legendary Hammersmith Apollo in London, where Kate Bush played the last night of 'The Tour Of Life' back in 1979 and made her highly-anticipated comeback to the stage with her 'Before The Dawn' shows earlier this year. My photo was taken on the second night of those shows.

I won't talk about the show too much - my thoughts and feelings on it deserve their own blog post. All I will say for now is that the show was undoubtedly a life changing experience.

Anyway, back to 'The Morning Fog'.

Now I've got to admit, 'The Morning Fog' isn't one of my favourite Kate Bush songs. Before I watched 'Before The Dawn', a part of me wished that 'The Ninth Wave' ended on 'Hello Earth'. Something about it seemed a little anti-climatic. It was only when I saw the show that I realised exactly how important 'The Morning Fog' is to that story, and what exactly the song means to me.

*WARNING: This contains spoilers*

For those who aren't familiar with 'The Ninth Wave', it is a seven piece song-cycle, featured at the end of Kate Bush's 1985 album, 'Hounds Of Love'. It tells the story of a girl alone in water attempting to stop herself from drowning. The song-cycle delves into a dark journey through the girl's hallucinations.
Since it's release, the album has gone on to receive many accolades and is a favourite among Kate Bush fans. (It is also my personal favourite album of all time!)

From the first time I heard 'The Ninth Wave', I've been trying to figure out what actually happens to the protagonist at the end of the story. After a while, I realised that Kate cleverly leaves the ending open to interpretation. You don't exactly find out whether or not she was able to be saved, but the final song makes perfect sense either way. 

In my mind, the protagonist sadly isn't able to be saved. I see the link between 'Hello Earth' into 'The Morning Fog' as symbolic of a transition into some kind of afterlife. 'The Morning Fog' is the protagonist waking up after this tragic ordeal and wishing she hadn't taken the things in her life for granted. However, the protagonist looks at this new life with optimism, because she now has the ability to watch over and protect her family (linking back to the fear expressed in 'Watching Me Without You')

The performance in 'Before The Dawn' echoed that interpretation. After seeing her lifeless body being carried away by the fish people during 'Hello Earth', only to wake up in some kind of surreal but heavenly world to give this ethereal performance of 'The Morning Fog' made me feel more confident about how I had interpreted it.

Now, whenever I hear the song, it's a reminder of how lucky I am and that I must never take what I have for granted. Without meaning to sound corny, even though I'm only young, I've been through a lot in my life. I now extend the meaning of 'The Morning Fog' to outside of the story and it always makes me feel incredibly happy. It tells me that the good things in my life will always outweigh the bad, and I must never let it be any other way.

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I really appreciate it.

Please share your song stories with me.
Did you get to see 'Before The Dawn'? If so, what did you think?

Josh :-)