"The Dreaming" is the title song from 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...

's fourth studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 The Dreaming

The Dreaming (album)

-Personnel:*Stewart Arnold: vocals, background vocals*Jimmy Bain: bass*Ian Bairnson: acoustic guitar, vocals, background vocals*John Barrett: assistant engineer*Brian Bath: electric guitar*Haydn Bendall: engineer...

and was released a single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 on 26 July 1982. Bush hadn't released a single since "Sat in Your Lap

Sat in Your Lap

"Sat in Your Lap" is a song by the British singer Kate Bush. It was the first single to be released from her fourth album The Dreaming, though it was issued 15 months prior to the album which was nowhere near completion at that time...

" thirteen months earlier. "The Dreaming" made it to #48 on 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 destruction of Aboriginal

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 homelands by white Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

ns in their quest for weapons-grade uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

. Musical guest Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris

Rolf Harris, CBE, AM is an Australian musician, singer-songwriter, composer, painter and television personality.Born in Perth, Western Australia, Harris was a champion swimmer before studying art. He moved to England in 1952, where he started to appear on television programmes on which he drew the...

 plays the didgeridoo

Didgeridoo

The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...

 on the recording. Bird impersonator Percy Edwards

Percy Edwards

Percy Edwards MBE , was an English animal impersonator, ornithologist, and entertainer.-Biography:...

 provided sheep noises. The original title for the track was "The Abo Song", which unwittingly made use of a racial slur; promotional 12" copies were circulated before being recalled.

An alternate 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

Introduction (music)

In music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often abbreviated as 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.

Charts

Chart (1982)	Peak position
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 ...	48
Australian Singles Chart	91