FEATURE:
Dreams of Orgonon
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of the video for Cloudbusting/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting
___________
I am going to do some anniversary…
features relating to Kate Bush, as two of her biggest albums, Never for Ever, and Hounds of Love are approaching big birthdays in September – I am looking at the latter today. I am interested in covering Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave, a bit before September, but this is the next feature looking at one of the songs from the first side. I love Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and the title track (in addition to Mother Stands for Comfort), but there is something about Cloudbusting that strikes me hard! Released as the second single from Hounds of Love (after Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), the song only made number-twenty in the U.K. I think it is a real shame that the song did not do better, as it not only is one of the standouts from Hounds of Love, but it has a truly amazing video – which I will talk about very soon. Bush took inspiration from the 1973 memoir, A Book of Dreams; she reads the book and was affected by it – it tells of the relationship between psychiatrist, Wilhelm Reich, and his son, Peter. The track describes the son’s memories of his life with his father at the family farm, Orgonon, where the two spent time constructing a device so that they could (they felt) make it rain – they were cloudbusting!
Bush expanded on the premise and, on Cloudbusting, documented the relationship between the two and the creation of a cloudbusting machine; the arrest of Wilhelm Reich as his son looks on. Cloudbusting was an obvious single, and I wonder why it did not soar as high as Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) – that single was released on 5th August, 1985 and reached number-three. On 14th October, 1985, Cloudbusting was released to the world, and I guess its B-side(s) - Burning Bridge was the B-side of the U.K. 7”; Burning Bridge, and My Lagan Love on the U.K. 12” -, were not as strong as Under the Ivy on Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Hounds of Love’s title track was the third single from the album and, whilst it managed to get to number-eighteen in the U.K., perhaps the fact Hounds of Love (album) was released on 16th September meant that many people already owned a copy of Cloudbusting – it is hard to say. What I do know is that Cloudbusting is one of the best songs of Kate Bush’s career, and it works brilliantly as the final track on the first side of Hounds of Love – it follows Mother Stands for Comfort; here we have two songs relating to the relationship between a parent and a child – Mother Stands for Comfort is eerier and colder, whilst Cloudbusting is lighter, even if it does have quite a sad end!
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for Hounds of Love’s The Ninth Wave/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Bush actually contacted Peter Reich to explain her motives in writing Cloudbusting, and to express the wish that she hoped he would approve of the song. She received his reply a while later, saying that he loved what she was doing. I love the whole of Hounds of Love, but there is something that really stands out about Cloudbusting. It perfectly ends a wonderful end of the album’s first half, and sort of prepares us for the thrill-ride and epic adventure that is The Ninth Wave. It is amazing that Bush, still in her twenties when she wrote and released Hounds of Love, sounded so accomplished and ambitious. Not just in terms of lyrics and sonics; her vocals reached new levels, and that is all evident in Cloudbusting. I want to bring in a couple of exerts where Bush discussed Cloudbusting. These are taken from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia:
“This was inspired by a book that I first found on a shelf nearly nine years ago. It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it I was very moved by the magic of it. It's about a special relationship between a young son and his father. The book was written from a child's point of view. His father is everything to him; he is the magic in his life, and he teaches him everything, teaching him to be open-minded and not to build up barriers. His father has built a machine that can make it rain, a 'cloudbuster'; and the son and his father go out together cloudbusting. They point big pipes up into the sky, and they make it rain. The song is very much taking a comparison with a yo-yo that glowed in the dark and which was given to the boy by a best friend.
It was really special to him; he loved it. But his father believed in things having positive and negative energy, and that fluorescent light was a very negative energy - as was the material they used to make glow-in-the-dark toys then - and his father told him he had to get rid of it, he wasn't allowed to keep it. But the boy, rather than throwing it away, buried it in the garden, so that he would placate his father but could also go and dig it up occasionally and play with it. It's a parallel in some ways between how much he loved the yo-yo - how special it was - and yet how dangerous it was considered to be. He loved his father (who was perhaps considered dangerous by some people); and he loved how he could bury his yo-yo and retrieve it whenever he wanted to play with it. But there's nothing he can do about his father being taken away, he is completely helpless. But it's very much more to do with how the son does begin to cope with the whole loneliness and pain of being without his father. It is the magic moments of a relationship through a child's eyes, but told by a sad adult. (Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985)
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a Hounds of Love album cover outtake/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
“If I've got this right, he believed that sexual energy was positive, usable energy that he tied in with his concept of orgone energy. He upset a lot of people selling orgone boxes, saying they could cure cancer and stuff. He ended up being arrested and put in prison. I knew nothing about Wilhelm when I read the book, which was his son's experience of all this, written from a child's point of view with a tremendous innocence and sadness. Years ago, I just went into a shop and picked it off the shelf, and really liked the title and the picture on the front. I'd never bought a book before which I hadn't known anything about; I just felt I'd found something really special. And nine, 10 years later, I re-read it and it turned into a song. When it was finished, I wrote a letter to Peter Reich saying what I'd done. It was important to me in some way to have a sense of his blessing because his book really moved me. He sent me back such a lovely letter. It was an incredible feeling of returning something he'd given to me. (Mat Snow, 'Follow That!'. Q/HMV special magazine, 1990)”.
Kate Bush was known for her stunning videos ever since her first, Wuthering Heights, arrived in 1978. Cloudbusting, in terms of its concept and set, was the biggest thing Bush tackled. She would direct her own videos on singles after Cloudbusting, but Julian Doyle did a fantastic job on Cloudbusting! Although Kate Bush, playing Wilhelm Reich’s son, is not the most convincing young boy in terms of looks, the emotion and affection she displays in the video is genuine and heartfelt.
I think the fact that Donald Sutherland played her dad was one reason why Bush’s acting performance was so genuine. She was a big fan of Sutherland’s work, and she was not expecting him to say yes when he was asked. Sutherland was in London at the time shooting a film at the time and, not having the best experience, I think the idea of filming a music video, whilst different, would have offered a small distraction! Sutherland only had a small window of time available, so the scene at the end of the video where he (as Reich) is driven away after his arrest is actually the Canadian actor departing the video set! The gravitas of having someone as esteemed as Sutherland on set was a big coup, and Bush learned a lot about acting and performance whilst working alongside Sutherland – something she took into subsequent videos and her role as a director. Sutherland and Bush work wonderfully alongside one another, and the relationship between the two is so sweet and touching! The concept is amazing: the two of them working on this rain-maker, as government officials bust their lab and take Reich (Sutherland away); the father being driven off as he sees his son (Bush) making it rain with their contraption – he is delighted but, of course, knows that his future is quite bleak. The setting – the video was filmed at The Vale of White Horse and Dragon Hill in Oxfordshire -is idyllic, and one witnesses a wonderful meteorological event unfold – even if the effect was created by using technology.
Before concluding, I want to bring in an article from DAZED of 2015, where they were commemorating Cloudbusting’s thirtieth anniversary. I wanted to bring in some interesting parts of the article – they spoke with Donald Sutherland, director Julian Doyle and editor Terry Gilliam, with additional insights from Peter Reich:
“Kate Bush (excerpt from a Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1985): “I was inspired by a book that I first found on a shelf nearly nine years ago. It was just calling me from the shelf, and when I read it I was very moved by the magic of it. It’s about a special relationship between a young son and his father. The book was written from a child’s point of view. His father is everything to him; he is the magic in his life, and he teaches him everything, teaching him to be open-minded and not to build up barriers... But there’s nothing he can do about his father being taken away, he is completely helpless. But it’s very much more to do with how the son does begin to cope with the whole loneliness and pain of being without his father. It is the magic moments of a relationship through a child's eyes, but told by a sad adult.”
Terry Gilliam: “Kate called me to direct the video and I said, ‘No, how about Julian (Doyle)?’ They had a great time shooting, but somewhere in the editing a conflict developed and I became the mediator. Kate knows exactly what she’s doing, she knows what she wants. She’s the sweetest person on the planet but she’s absolute steel inside!”
IN THIS PHOTO: Director Julian Doyle
Julian Doyle: “Kate came to me with a storyboard, which I remember had the sun coming up with a face on it. She was a lovely lady, with a great smile that she gave generously. I understood her influences – like, I knew immediately where ‘It’s coming through the trees’ (film sample on ‘The Hounds of Love’) came from and things like that. I also knew about Wilhelm Reich, because there was interest in him among the new women’s movement which was exploring the female orgasm and I was close to the women involved.
Donald Sutherland: “Barry Richardson, who was the hairdresser on Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, asked me if I’d do a music video with Kate Bush. I told him no and we went on to other conversations. A couple of days later there was a knock on my door. I lived in the Savoy Hotel (in London). On the river. Suite 312. I loved it there. So cosseted. So private. Only the floor butler rang the door. I opened it. There was no one there. I heard a voice saying hello and I looked down. Standing down there was a very small Kate Bush. Barry had told her where I lived. What can you do? She wanted to explain what her video was about. I let her in. She sat down, said some stuff. All I heard was ‘Wilhelm Reich’. I’d taken an underground copy of his The Mass Psychology of Fascism with me when I went to film (Bernardo) Bertolucci’s Novecento in Parma. Reich’s work informed the psychological foundations of Attila Mellanchini, the character Bernardo had cast me to play.
IN THIS PHOTO: Donald Sutherland
Everything about Reich echoed through me. He was there then and now he was here. Sitting across from me in the person of the very eloquent Kate Bush. Synchronicity. Perfect. She talked some more. I said OK and we made ‘Cloudbusting’. She’s wonderful, Kate Bush. Wonderful. I love that I did it. (What do I remember) about doing it? I remember being in the car and the hill and them taking me, taking Reich, away and looking back through the back window of the car and seeing her, seeing Reich’s son Peter, standing there. And I remember the first morning on set seeing her coming out of her trailer smoking a joint and I cautioned her, saying she shouldn’t smoke that, it’d affect her work, and she looked at me for a second and said she hadn’t been straight for nine years and I loved her”.
Ahead of Hounds of Love’s thirty-fifth anniversary next month, I wanted to spend some time spotlighting individual tracks and aspects of the album. Cloudbusting is one of the finest tracks from the album and, despite its modest chart position, I really love it. Kudos to the musicians who helped Bush create this masterpiece - Drums: Stuart Elliott, Charlie Morgan/Strings: The Medicci Sextet/Arranged for strings by Dave Lawson/Backing vocals: Brian Bath, Paddy Bush, John Carder Bush and Del Palmer -, and, of course, Bush herself for the wonderful production! The video is amazing and, nearly thirty-five years after its release, one still feels a pang of emotion watching it unfold! How can one not be impacted and moved by the obvious chemistry and realism of Kate Bush and Donald Sutherland playing son and father – even if Bush looks too old and beautiful to play a younger male. All in all, Cloudbusting is a magnificent song, and one that, through this, I hope people have a deeper understanding of. Strangely, in these hard times, some of Cloudbusting’s most-memorable lyrics seem to sum up the song itself: “But every time it rains/You're here in my head/Like the sun coming out/Ooh, I just know that…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a shot from the Cloudbusting video/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
GOOD is going to happen”.