Synopsis

Kate Bush appears to fall from the sky into a stark, prehistoric landscape resembling an alien Stonehenge. Wearing a spacesuit, she begins working at the rocks as if rediscovering humanity from the beginning. A brilliant laser-like beam cuts across the terrain, drawing Bush and painted tribal figures together. Their ritualistic movements build toward a violent storm, as light, earth, and bodies merge. The strange, symbolic imagery reflects the song's concern with Aboriginal land, cultural destruction, and the clash between ancient spiritual life and modern technology.

Factoids & Trivia

• Released in July 1982, the video accompanied the title track from Bush's fourth studio album, *The Dreaming*.

• The landscape was designed to feel like a dreamlike Stonehenge on another planet rather than a recognizable Australian location.

• A prominent visual effect is the rope-like beam of light cutting through the landscape. Bush reaches toward it before the figures and the natural world appear to draw the light into a ritual confrontation.

• The video's visual language echoes the song's subject: the destruction of Aboriginal homelands by white Australians searching for uranium suitable for weapons production.

• Bush made *The Dreaming* her first album as sole producer, and the song's unusually dense, experimental production was closely tied to her growing use of the Fairlight CMI sampler.

• Percy Edwards, a well-known British animal impersonator, supplied the sheep noises heard on the recording.

• The song was initially given the working title "The Abo Song." Promotional copies using that title were produced, then recalled after the offensive term was recognized as inappropriate.

• "The Dreaming" was released as a single on July 26, 1982, but reached only No. 48 on the UK singles chart, despite later becoming one of Bush's most distinctive and influential experimental tracks.