"Cloudbusting" | ||||||||
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Single by Kate Bush | ||||||||
from the album Hounds of Love | ||||||||
B-side | "Burning Bridge" | |||||||
Released | 14 October 1985 (UK) Spring 1987 (US) |
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Format | 7" single / 12" single | |||||||
Recorded | 1984 | |||||||
Genre | Art rock | |||||||
Length |
5:06 (song) 6:59 (video) |
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Label | EMI- KB2 | |||||||
Writer(s) | Kate Bush | |||||||
Producer(s) | Kate Bush | |||||||
Kate Bush singles chronology | ||||||||
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5:06 (song)
"Cloudbusting" is a song written, produced and performed by British singer Kate Bush. It was the second single released from her number one 1985 album Hounds of Love. "Cloudbusting" peaked at no.20 in the UK Singles Chart.
The song is about the very close relationship between psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and his young son, Peter, told from the point of view of the mature Peter. It describes the boy's memories of his life with Reich on their family farm, called Orgonon where the two spent time "cloudbusting", a rain-making process which involved pointing at the sky a machine designed and built by Reich, called a cloudbuster. The lyric further describes Wilhelm Reich's abrupt arrest and imprisonment, the pain of loss the young Peter felt, and his helplessness at being unable to protect his father. The song was inspired by Peter Reich's 1973 memoir, A Book of Dreams, which Bush read and found deeply moving.
In a retrospective review of the single, Allmusic journalist Amy Hanson praised the song for its "magnificence" and "hypnotic mantric effects". Hanson wrote: "Safety and danger are threaded through the song, via both a thoughtful lyric and a compulsive cello-driven melody. Even more startling, but hardly surprising, is the ease with which Bush was able to capture the moment when a child first realizes that adults are fallible."
The music video, directed by Julian Doyle, was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush as a short film. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush in the role of his young son, Peter. The video shows the two on the top of a hill trying to make the cloudbuster work. Reich leaves Peter on the machine and returns to his lab. In flashback, he remembers several times he and Peter enjoyed together as Reich worked on various scientific projects, until he is interrupted by government officials who arrest him and ransack the lab. Peter senses his father's danger and tries to reach him, but is forced to watch helplessly as his father is driven away. Peter finally runs back to the cloudbuster and activates it successfully, to the delight of his father who sees it starting to rain.