Cloudbusting



"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."

Music video
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.

Filming took place at The Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire, England. The hill on which the machine is positioned is Dragon Hill, immediately below the Uffington White Horse, a prehistoric hill carving which can be seen briefly in a couple of the shots. Bush found out in which hotel Sutherland was staying from actress Julie Christie's hairdresser and went to his room to personally ask him to participate in the project. In the UK, the music video was shown at some cinemas as an accompaniment to the main feature. Due to difficulties on obtaining a work visa for Sutherland at short notice, the actor offered to work on the video for free. Although the events depicted in the story took place in Maine, the newspaper clipping in the music video reads "The Oregon Times," likely a reference to Reich's home and laboratory "Orgonon".

The Cloudbusting machine in the video was designed and constructed by people who worked on the Alien creature and bears only a superficial resemblance to the real cloudbusters, which were smaller and with multiple narrow, straight tubes and pipes, and were operated while standing on the ground. In a reference to the source material of the song, Bush pulls a copy of Peter Reich's "A Book of Dreams" out of Sutherland's coat.

The full length video features a longer version of the song which is different from the Organon Mix released on 12 Inch.

Cover versions
Utah Saints sampled the song's line "I just know that something good is going to happen" for their song "Something Good" (1992) as well as scenes from Bush's video for their video. It reached no. 4 on the UK Singles Chart and no. 8 when re-mixed and re-released in 2008 (the latter of which used a different sample from another artist).

Italian metal band Novembre covered this song, as did as American rock band The Twilight Singers. American singer-songwriter Charlotte Martin covered this song in 2007 on her all-covers album Reproductions. Scottish pop act Swimmer One recorded an electro cover version of this song in 2005, released by Dogbox Records. UK punk band P.A.I.N. used a sample in their song "Eastern Dub (Wilhelm Reich in Hell)", without the permission of record label EMI.

Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave 3) covered the track for American Laundromat Records children's charity compilation "Sing Me to Sleep - Indie Lullabies" in 2010.

Irish singer / songwriter Gemma Hayes covered the song in 2009, and performed it on her tours in 2011 and 2012.

Wild Nothing covered Cloudbusting in 2010, from Cloudbusting 7" - Single, Captured Tracks.

In 2012, Geographer released a version of the song on their website.

Neil Cicierega's 2014 album of mashups, Mouth Silence, features a mashup between Cloudbusting and Katy Perry's song California Gurls, called "Orgonon Gurlz."

Canadian alternative rock singer-songwriter Matthew Good covered the song with Holly McNarland on his 2015 album Chaotic Neutral.

Track listing
The B-Side to the single was "Burning Bridge", in which a woman desperately pleads with her lover to step up his level of commitment to her. The 12" featured the additional track "My Lagan Love", a traditional Irish melody with lyrics by John Carder Bush, Kate Bush's brother. The 12" version of "Cloudbusting" was a special remix called "The Organon Re-Mix" in which the verses were downplayed and the main focus was the development of the song's chorus. In the USA, this mix was issued as "The Meteorological Mix", a title used in the UK for 12" version of Bush's later single "The Big Sky".


 * 7" single (UK)


 * 12" single (UK)


 * CD single (US)

Charts
In Australia, "Cloudbusting" narrowly missed the Kent Music Report top 100 singles chart in January 1986.