Cloudbusting
original song written, composed, and performed by Kate Bush
"Cloudbusting" is a song written, produced and performed by English singer Kate Bush. It was released as a single in October 1985, and was the second single released from her fifth studio album Hounds of Love (1985). The single peaked at No. 20 and spent 8 weeks in the UK Singles Chart.
Taking inspiration from the 1973 Peter Reich memoir A Book of Dreams, which Bush read and found deeply moving, the song is about the very close relationship between psychiatrist 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 supposed rain-making process which involved using a machine designed and built by Reich – a machine called a cloudbuster – to point at the sky. The lyrics further describe the elder Reich's abrupt arrest and imprisonment, the pain of loss the young Peter felt, and his helplessness at being unable to protect his father.
In 2014, the song was performed live for the first time and was also chosen as the closing encore track in Bush's 2014 live residency, Before the Dawn.
Release
"Cloudbusting" was released as a single on 14 October 1985, with a new non-album track titled "Burning Bridge" as its B-side. The twelve-inch single also contained a remix of "Cloudbusting" carrying the subtitle of the "Organon Mix", and "My Lagan Love", which featured additional lyrics written by Bush.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cloudbusting” as original song written, composed, and performed by Kate Bush. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as original song written, composed, and performed by Kate Bush. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q56045259. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1985, 1973 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cloudbusting” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.