| Letting the Cables Sleep | |
| Cover: | bush_letting_the_cables_sleep.png |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Bush |
| Album: | The Science of Things |
| Released: | 18 January 2000 |
| Recorded: | 1999 |
| Genre: | Soft rock[1] |
| Length: | 4:36 (album version) 4:33 (single version) 4:30 (edit) |
| Label: | Trauma/Interscope |
| Producer: | Clive Langer, Alan Winstanley, Gavin Rossdale |
| Prev Title: | Warm Machine |
| Prev Year: | 2000 |
| Next Title: | The People That We Love |
| Next Year: | 2001 |
"Letting the Cables Sleep" is the second single from British band Bush's third studio album The Science of Things, which was released in 1999. In an interview, Gavin Rossdale revealed that the song was written for a friend who had contracted HIV.[2]
The song became a minor hit, and pushed the album to platinum status. The song was a bigger hit than its predecessor "Warm Machine", but not nearly as successful as the first single from the album, "The Chemicals Between Us." The song was featured in the film and in the TV series ER, Charmed and Cold Case.
The music video (directed by Joel Schumacher) features Gavin looking for an apartment and finding himself in a room with a woman (played by actress Michele Hicks).[3] She is dressed in black and does not acknowledge him until their hands meet on the wall. After this first touch, they begin to kiss and take off their clothes. This sequence is interlinked with scenes of them wordlessly putting their clothes back on after sex. She seems troubled by either regret or the desire to tell him something, but she leaves without a word. After this, she is sitting on a chair elsewhere while Gavin begins painting the wall with the lyrics about 'silence' and 'talking', seeming upset and frustrated. Afterwards, Gavin catches up with her on a sidewalk, and she uses sign language to say that she can't hear him. She is then pulled away by a concerned friend who uses sign language to ask her why she did not call.