“Army Dreamers” by Kate Bush

Kate Bush wrote "Army Dreamers" for Never for Ever, her 1980 album, and it became the third and last single lifted from it. It looks at war from the kitchen rather than the battlefield: a mother grieving a son barely grown, killed on army manoeuvres for nothing, and torturing herself over what she might have done to save him. Bush set it as a waltz, a real swerve from the singles she'd put out before.

She produced it with Jon Kelly, and the backing has a folk lilt, with Brian Bath on acoustic guitar, Paddy Bush on mandolin, Stuart Elliott on bodhrán, Alan Murphy on bass and Duncan Mackay on synthesizer; Bath, Paddy Bush and Murphy sing backup. It reached 16 in the UK, and the single ran longer than the album cut, stopping dead where the album version fades.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.