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Kate Bush about the song:

It's about a baby still in the mother's womb at the time of a nuclear fallout, but it's more of a spiritual being.
It has all its senses: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing, and it knows what is going on outside the mother's womb, and yet it wants desperately to carry on living, as we all do of course. (1980, Smash Hits)

When I wrote the song, it was from such a personal viewpoint. It was just through having heard a thing for years without it ever having got through to me. 'Til the moment it hit me, I hadn't really been moved. Then I suddenly realised the whole devastation and disgusting arrogance of it all. Trying to destroy something that we've not created - the earth. The only thing we are is a breathing mechanism: everything is breathing. Without it we're just nothing. I was worried that people wouldn't want to worry about it because it's so real. I was also worried that it was too negative, but I do feel that there is hope in the whole thing, just for the fact that it's a message from the future. It's not from now, it's from a spirit that may exist in the future, a non-existent spiritual embryo who sees all and who's been round time and time again so they know what the world's all about. This time they don't want to come out, because they know they're not going to live. (1980, Zigzag)

"Breathing", I think, was one of my first, what I would call spiritual songs. The subject matter isn't necessarily, but the spark is. When I was writing it, it felt like: Hang on, I don't think I'm writing this - this is a bit too good for me! Rather than the song being my creation, I was a vehicle for something that was coming through me. (1990, Q Special)

LYRICS

Outside
Gets inside
Through her skin.
I've been out before
But this time it's much safer in.

Last night in the sky,
Such a bright light.
My radar send me danger
But my instincts tell me to keep

Breathing,
("Out, in, out, in, out, in...")
Breathing,
Breathing my mother in,
Breathing my beloved in,
Breathing,
Breathing her nicotine,
Breathing,
Breathing the fall-out in,
Out in, out in, out in, out in.

We've lost our chance.
We're the first and the last, ooh,
After the blast.
Chips of Plutonium
Are twinkling in every lung.
I love my
Beloved, ooh,
All and everywhere,
Only the fools blew it.
You and me
Knew life itself is

Breathing,
("Out, in, out, in, out...")
Breathing,
Breathing my mother in,
Breathing my beloved in,
Breathing,
Breathing her nicotine,
Breathing,
Breathing the fall-out in,
Out in, out in, out in, out in,
Out in, out in, out in, out...

("Out!")
"In point of fact it is possible to tell the
("Out!")
difference between a small nuclear explosion and
a large one by a very simple method. The calling
card of a nuclear bomb is the blinding flash that
is far more dazzling than any light on earth--brighter
even than the sun itself--and it is by the duration
of this flash that we are able to determine the size
("What are we going to do without?")
of the weapon. After the flash a fireball can be
seen to rise, sucking up under it the debris, dust
and living things around the area of the explosion,
and as this ascends, it soon becomes recognisable
as the familiar "mushroom cloud". As a demonstration
of the flash duration test let's try and count the
number of seconds for the flash emitted by a very
small bomb; then a more substantial, medium-sized
bomb; and finally, one of our very powerful,
"high-yield" bombs

"What are we going to do without?"
Ooh please!
"What are we going to do without?"
Let me breathe!
"What are we going to do without?"
Ooh, Quick!
"We are all going to die without!"
Breathe in deep!
"What are we going to die without?"
Leave me something to breathe!
"We are all going to die without!"
Oh, leave me something to breathe!
"What are we going to do without?"
Oh, God, please leave us something to breathe!"

"We are all going to die without
Oh, life is--Breathing.