"Army Dreamers" was the third and final song to be released from Never For Ever

Never for Ever

- Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...

by Kate Bush

Kate Bush

Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...

. It was a UK top 20 hit in October 1980.

Background

"Army Dreamers" was released on 22 September 1980 and peaked at number 16 in the UK Singles Chart

UK Singles Chart

The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...

. The song is about the effects of war and about a mother who grieves for her young adult son, who was killed on military maneuvers. Saddened by his unnecessary death, she wrestles with her guilt over what she could have done to prevent it. The song is a change to previous works in that it features a Waltz time tempo.

The single includes two B-sides

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

, "Delius" and "Passing Through Air". "Delius" is Bush’s tribute to English composer Frederick Delius

Frederick Delius

Frederick Theodore Albert Delius, CH was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family of German extraction, he resisted attempts to recruit him to commerce...

. The subtitle, "Song of Summer

A Song of Summer

A Song of Summer is a tone poem for orchestra by Frederick Delius, completed in 1931.A Song of Summer derived from an unpublished 1918 symphonic work, originally called Poem of Life and Love. In 1921, Delius told Peter Warlock that he had misplaced most of that score...

", comes from one of Delius’ works, and from a BBC film

Song of Summer

Song of Summer is a 1968 black-and-white film written, produced and directed by Ken Russell, who also plays a cameo role as a philandering priest. It portrays the final six years of the life of Frederick Delius, when he was blind and paralysed, and when Eric Fenby lived with the composer and his...

 Bush saw about the composer's life. "Passing Through Air" is one of Bush's earliest works — originally recorded in 1973 at David Gilmour

David Gilmour

David Jon Gilmour, CBE, D.M. is an English rock musician and multi-instrumentalist who is best known as the guitarist, one of the lead singers and main songwriters in the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. In addition to his work with Pink Floyd, Gilmour has worked as a producer for a variety of...

's studio, a few weeks after her 15th birthday.

Promotional video

The music video opens on a closeup of Kate Bush, dressed in dark green camouflage, holding a child. She blinks in synchronisation with the song's sampled gun cocks. The camera pulls out and shows that Bush has a white-haired child on her lap. The child walks off and returns in military combat uniform. Bush and several soldiers (one of whom has "KT8" or "KTB" stencilled on the butt of his rifle: "KTB" was a monogram used by Bush early in her career) make their way through woodland, amid explosions. As the song progresses, Bush reaches out for the child soldier, but he disappears. Finally, one of the soldiers is blown up.

Bush has stated that this video is one of the few examples of her work that completely satisfies her.

For me that's the closest that I've got to a little bit of film. And it was very pleasing for me to watch the ideas I'd thought of actually working beautifully. Watching it on the screen. It really was a treat, that one. I think that's the first time ever with anything I've done I can actually sit back and say "I liked that". That's the only thing. Everything else I can sit there going "Oh look at that, that's out of place". So I'm very pleased with that one, artistically.

Charts

Chart (1980)	Peak position
Dutch Single Top 100	25
Irish Singles Chart Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on behalf of the IRMA by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured...	14
UK Singles Chart UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...	16