"The Dreaming"
Single by Kate Bush
from the album The Dreaming
B-side"Dreamtime"
Released26 July 1982 (1982-07-26)
Recorded1981
Genre
Length4:09 (single version)
4:43 (album version)
LabelEMI
Songwriter(s)Kate Bush
Producer(s)Kate Bush
Kate Bush singles chronology
"Sat in Your Lap"
(1981)		 "The Dreaming"
(1982)		 "There Goes a Tenner"
(1982)
Music video
"The Dreaming" on YouTube

"The Dreaming" is the title song from Kate Bush's fourth studio album The Dreaming and was released a single on 26 July 1982. "The Dreaming" made it to No. 48 on the UK Singles Chart.

The song is about the destruction of Aboriginal Australians' traditional lands by white Australians in their quest for weapons-grade uranium. Musical guest Rolf Harris plays the didgeridoo on the recording, and bird impersonator Percy Edwards provided sheep noises.[1] The title is based on The Dreaming, a concept in Aboriginal mythology.

The original title for the track was "The Abo Song", which unwittingly made use of a racial slur; promotional 7-inch copies were circulated before being recalled.[2] A 12-inch version of the single was also mooted but ultimately rejected by EMI for "not being commercially viable".

An alternative version of "The Dreaming", entitled "Dreamtime", was used as the UK single B-side. It is usually referred to as an instrumental version of "The Dreaming". This is not strictly true, in that while the track omits all the sung lead vocal lyrics, it still retains most of the backing vocals, such as the stretched dreamtime harmonies heard during the chorus. It is also of note that "Dreamtime" contains both an extended intro and outro. It starts with approximately 4 bars of double-tracked didgeridoo drone before the original arrangement comes in and finishes with approximately 30 seconds of the same following a breakdown of the original arrangement. At the very end, Harris can be heard saying "...and stuff like that".

The cover art is by Del Palmer, Bush's partner at the time and sometime bass player. It features a depiction of the Wandjina, a sky spirit in Western Australian traditions. Wandjinas brought the law, culture and language.

Personnel

Charts

Chart (1982) Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[3] 91
UK Singles Chart[4] 48

See also

References

  1. ↑ Percy Edwards Showdown BBC4 4 march, 2009
  2. ↑ "Kate Bush - Abo Song". Discogs. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  3. ↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 50. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  4. ↑ "Kate Bush | full Official Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 11 July 2020.
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