The Meaning Behind “Cloudbusting” by Kate Bush and the Father/Son Story that Inspired It

If you’ve listened closely to Kate Bush’s 1985 hit “Cloudbusting,” you know the song’s first line makes a reference to something or somewhere called Orgonon. Look up that term and you could find yourself deep in a rabbit hole within minutes.

But hold off on that exploration for just a bit. Learning about Orgonon will help you to understand the meaning of “Cloudbusting,” and provide a much wider-ranging history lesson. However, just focusing on Orgonon’s relevance to Bush’s song reveals a fascinating story. Let’s take a moment to see how Bush used Orgonon to explore the close bond between a son and father.

OK, So What the Heck is Orgonon?

Orgonon was a farm in Western Maine that was the home of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and his family. Reich believed in the existence of ethereal matter called orgone energy, and he thought that it had medical uses, particularly for cancer patients. Reich developed Orgonon as an orgone research center.

It’s admittedly a strange setting for a hit single. Bush learned of Reich and Orgonon from A Book of Dreams, a memoir written by Reich’s son Peter. In the book, the younger Reich wrote about his close relationship with his father. Wilhelm Reich became a target of the U.S. federal government, as the Food and Drug Administration deemed Reich’s orgone accumulators to be fraudulent. He was ultimately imprisoned for violating an injunction against the shipment of the devices, severing him from his devoted son.

After moving his operations to Orgonon, Reich developed another one of his inventions—the cloudbuster. It was a device that would harness orgone energy to “bust clouds” and create rain.

Special and Dangerous

Bush’s song makes several references to cloudbusting, but orgone accumulators play a much more central role to the story of “Cloudbusting” than the cloudbusters themselves. The song focuses on the relationship between Wilhelm and Peter Reich as told from Peter’s perspective. Bush introduces us to Peter in the first verse, and we find him waking up from a dream that returned him to his childhood.

I still dream of Orgonon
I wake up crying
You’re making rain
And you’re just in reach
When you and sleep escape me

For the rest of “Cloudbusting,” Bush tells the story from the perspective of the young Peter—or more precisely, the adult Peter flashing back to his youth. In the pre-chorus, Bush introduces two words that capture young Peter’s feelings about his father: “special” and “dangerous.” Because Wilhelm was viewed as “dangerous,” he was taken away. His “specialness” made the separation unbearable, but young Peter had to find a way to cope.

You’re like my yo-yo that glowed in the dark
What made it special made it dangerous
So I bury it and forget

So Peter tried to put his beloved father out of mind. Bush makes an analogy between one of Peter’s favorite toys and his father. Peter loved his yo-yo because it glowed in the dark, but Wilhelm thought the toy radiated negative energy. Similarly, Wilhelm’s unorthodox theories and inventions made him fascinating to his young son, but they led to his incarceration.

A Son Helpless to Save His Father

Though Peter tries to forget his father, he acknowledges that he is always with him. In the chorus, Peter tells us that he is reminded of his father whenever it rains.

But every time it rains, you’re here in my head
Like the sun coming out
Ooh, I just know that something good is gonna happen
I don’t know when
But just saying it could even make it happen

Bush also uses the word “sun” to underline the connection between father and son. In a later iteration of the chorus, Bush changes “like the sun coming out” to “Look, your son’s coming out.”

Bush foreshadows Wilhelm’s arrest in the second verse with the lines, You looked too small in their big black car / To be a threat to the men in power. We can’t be sure if Bush is voicing some wishful thinking on Peter’s part or if these lines reference a preliminary visit from authorities that did not result in Wilhelm’s arrest. In either case, by the time Bush gets to the second pre-chorus, Wilhelm’s fate is sealed.

I hid my yo-yo in the garden
I can’t hide you from the government
Oh God, Daddy, I won’t forget

The Impact of “Cloudbusting”

“Cloudbusting” was the second of four singles released from Hounds of Love. It did not chart in the U.S. upon its release, but it went to No. 22 on Billboard’s Alternative Digital Song Sales chart in 2019. Probably not coincidentally, the song was featured in an episode from Season 3 of the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, just a few weeks before it charted. “Cloudbusting” was a Top 20 hit in the UK, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands. “Cloudbusting” is Bush’s fourth most-popular song on Spotify, receiving more than 66 million streams. Hounds of Love peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard 200, making it Bush’s highest-charting album in the U.S.

Bush’s line I just know that something good is gonna happen was sampled by Utah Saints for their 1992 dance hit “Something Good.” The track went to No. 7 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks and Dance Club Play charts. “Cloudbusting” has been covered numerous times, including by indie rock artist Wild Nothing and folk rocker Matthew Good (featuring Holly McNarland).

Bush packs a lot of story into “Cloudbusting,” but that doesn’t mean it’s obtuse or hard to follow. She took a complicated narrative and stripped it down to its essential elements. The bigger story of Wilhelm Reich is fascinating, and it’s one that fewer people would know about if not for Bush telling just one part of it.

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Photo by David Redfern/Redferns