1978Released
3:34

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about The Kick Inside. By Songfacts®.

This is about a brother and sister who fall desperately in love with each other. When she becomes pregnant by her own brother, she commits suicide. The song itself is the suicide note. She does not want her brother to be hurt or her family to go through the unspeakable shame of incest. The note (or song) is telling her brother not to feel responsible for her death: "I'm giving it all in a moment or two, giving it all in a moment for you. This kicking here inside, makes me leave you behind. No more under the quilt to keep you warm. Your sister I was born, you must lose me like an arrow shot into the killer storm."

This song was inspired by an old traditional English-Scottish song titled "Lucy Wan." When Kate heard the tune, she was intrigued by the idea of writing an unusual love song about a taboo topic. "It was an area that I wanted to explore because it's one that is really untouched and that is one of incest. There are so many songs about love, but they are always on such an obvious level," she explained.

Some were surprised at the 19-year-old, convent-schooled Kate Bush writing a song with the controversial topic of brother-sister incest. She told Q magazine's Phil Sutcliffe that keeping constant faith with the characters that she'd created was important, and she didn't judge them.

Top Listeners

Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of The Kick Inside.
C♯Key
MajorMode
3/4Time Signature
143BPM

Album

The album The Kick Inside is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released The Kick Inside.
Parlophone UK
© 1978 Parlophone Records Ltd. This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection. All rights reserved. (C) 1978 Parlophone Records Ltd
℗ 1978 The copyright in this sound recording is owned by Parlophone Records Ltd

See your Spotify stats (with number of plays and minutes listened) and discover new music.

Music data, artist images, album covers, and song previews are provided by Spotify. Spotify is a trademark of Spotify AB.

6MArtists
75.1MSongs
12.6MAlbums
6.5KGenres
2.6MLabels
494.7KPlaylists