Song written by Kate Bush. Originally released on her fifth studio album Hounds Of Love. Fourth track of The Ninth Wave suite.
Versions
There is only one studio version of this song.
A live version appears on the album Before The Dawn.
Performances
In 2014, Kate performed ‘Watching You Without Me’ live during all the shows of Before The Dawn.
Cover versions
‘Watching You Without Me’ was covered by Theo Bleckmann, Ehrfrucht Observatory, Heidi Harris, Isadar, the Linus Pauling Quartet, Del Palmer, Paraquat, The Sandman’s Orchestra and TM Collective.
Kate about ‘Watching You Without Me’
Now, this poor sod [laughs], has been in the water for hours and been witch-hunted and everything. Suddenly, they’re kind of at home, in spirit, seeing their loved one sitting there waiting for them to come home. And, you know, watching the clock, and obviously very worried about where they are, maybe making phone calls and things. But there’s no way that you can actually communicate, because they can’t see you, they can’t you. And I find this really horrific, [laughs] these are all like my own personal worst nightmares, I guess, put into song. And when we started putting the track together, I had the idea for these backing vocals, you know, [sings] “you can’t hear me”. And I thought that maybe to disguise them so that, you know, you couldn’t actually hear what the backing vocals were saying. (Richard Skinner, ‘Classic Albums interview: Hounds Of Love. Radio 1 (UK), aired 26 January 1992)
Lyrics
(“What’s that?”)
(“It’s four, five, six, seven…”)
You can’t hear me
You can’t hear me
You can’t hear what I’m saying
You can’t hear what I’m saying to you
You watch the clock
Move the slow hand
I should have been home
Hours ago,
But I’m not here
But I’m not here
You can’t hear me
You can’t hear me
You can’t feel me
Here in the room with you now
You can’t hear what I’m saying
You don’t hear what I’m saying, do you?
Can’t let you know
What’s been happening
There’s a ghost in our home,
Just watching you without me
I’m not here
(“You don’t hear me”) [backwards]
But I’m not here.
(You can’t hear me)
But I’m not here
(You don’t hear what I’m saying.)
. . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . . _ _ _ . . .
“We see you here” [backwards]
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
“We see you here”
You don’t hear me come in
Help me baby, help me, baby
Don´t do this to me, baby
Listen to me, listen to me
Talk to me, talk to me, please
Listen to me, listen to me
Help me, help me, baby
Talk to me, talk to me
Please, please talk to me
You won’t hear me leaving
Credits
Drums: Stuart Elliott
Double bass: Danny Thompson
