Exhale Inhale

Exhale Inhale
Song
Artist	AURORA
Album	The Gods We Can Touch Sky: Concert in the Light
Released	January 21, 2022
Length	3:32
Label	Decca Records Glassnote Petroleum Records
Writer(s)	AURORA Magnus Skylstad Glen Roberts
Producer(s)	AURORA Magnus Skylstad
God/Goddess	Oizys Thanatos

The Gods We Can Touch standard chronology
Previous	"The Innocent"
Next	"A Temporary High"

The Gods We Can Touch alternative chronology
Previous	"Blood in the Wine"
Next	"A Temporary High"

Sky: Concert in the Light chronology
Previous	"Concert Intro"
Next	"Exhale Inhale Outro"

"Exhale Inhale" (originally titled "Exhale, Inhale" and "Pollution") is a song by AURORA from her album The Gods We Can Touch. It was written by Aurora, Magnus Skylstad and Glen Roberts, and produced by Aurora and Skylstad.

About the song

Aurora explained the track to Apple Music:

"I think very carefully about how I place the songs on every album. I knew that after 'The Innocent', I would want something extremely open, to remind people to breathe again. 'Exhale Inhale' is about breath, to remember to breathe about anxiety for yourself, for the world, for your part in this world."

She later explained to Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant:

"It's an important song for me. It is about the fear of the great disasters that await us, and the feeling that can overwhelm us that it is all too big and overwhelming, that we can no longer avert the disaster. I see that paralysis around me, in many young people. And not only with regard to the climate problem, but also in social interaction with each other. Also when you see that a friend of yours is in trouble, if someone is in mental distress, you must intervene. Even if you think it's too late. It is not. We will have to overcome our fear of the irreversible."

In the book, Aurora wrote the following two things:

"I have anxiety. Sometimes among people, in crowded places and sometimes when I'm alone. Just in my chest. In my head.

I have anxiety for the world often. It can keep me awake. It keeps me worrying about the future, the planet, the people.

What will happen? I think the planet, and our body, are very similar. How would I sit down with a child and explain to them that one day the world might be ruined? Beyond repair? The current state of the world is uncertain."

"Originally I named the song "Pollution" but then I realized "Exhale, Inhale" is so much better. Because it is not "only" an environmental song about our dying world, it is also about feeling like you're going to die.

When everything is closing in around you, it is something we carry alone. But still, let me hold your hand. I'm here.

Just.... exhale.. inhale.... Just breathe..... It's going to be okay.

A song for the one you wished asked for help before it was too late. Do something before it's too late.

The thing is nature has always been a sanctuary for me. A safe place. What do I do if one day... it all dies? What do people do? What will happen to the heart? And the mind? It scares me so."

Lyrics

I was a moving thing
Before I was a human being
I was the ice before it melts
I was the tree before it fell
My dear, come near
Do you understand
What is happening?

Crawl beneath the earth
To feel the hunger and the thirst
If you could fly and be the bird
Then you would see the forest burn
My dear, come near
Do you understand
What is happening?

Who is calling me?
For the emergency
Who is listening?
To the sirens singing

We are stood, and somehow calm,
Within the madness of a storm
With no solution for the scared
Tasting pollution in the air
My dear, come near
Do you feel my hand?
It is there

(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale
(Exhale) Inhale

Who is calling me?
For the emergency
Who is listening?
To the sirens singing

Take from our world no more
Take from my world no more
Take from our world no more
Take from my world no more

Lyrics transcribed by listening.

Scrapped book lyrics

The following lyrics were written down in her book, The Gods We Can Touch.

The body. And the world.
And the soul.

Take from my soul no more
Take from my world no more
Let me live

Trivia

• The song was first discovered in various song repertoires.
• The Gods We Can Touch was released in several variants, including vinyl and cassette versions named after the goddess of this song, Oizys.
• In a video for Spotify, Aurora said that the god that inspired the song was Thanatos, personification of death, and noted: "This whole song is about that it's so important to reach out for help or to offer help before it's too late."