Donald Sutherland is 85

Movie actor Donald Sutherland talks about the Cloudbusting video in the latest issue of London’s Time Out magazine. The article reads: “He was staying in London when he heard that Kate Bush was trying to track him down. ‘I didn’t know who she was, so I refused. Next thing I knew, there was this knock at the door, and it was her.’ Sutherland swiftly thawed – ‘she was so funny’ – especially when he learned that the reclusive songstress wanted him to play Wilhelm Reich”.

If you’ve seen the video for “Cloudbusting”, released 30 years ago this month, you’ll know that it’s a cinematic, oddly moving tale of a young boy, played by Kate Bush in a ragamuffin wig, and his idyllic adventures with his dad, played by Donald Sutherland, who is working on a giant ray-gun contraption that can shoot at clouds to make it rain. At some point in the video, a group of men in suits arrive to snatch the boy’s father away, but not before the boy can reach into his dad’s jacket pocket and pull out a slim volume called “A Book of Dreams”.

The song is about the very close relationship between psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and his young son, Peter, told from the point of view of the son. It describes the boy's memories of his life with Reich on their family farm, called Orgonon where the two spent time "cloudbusting", a rain-making process which involved pointing at the sky a machine designed and built by Reich, called a cloudbuster. The lyric further describes Wilhelm Reich's abrupt arrest and imprisonment, the pain of loss the young Peter felt, and his helplessness at being unable to protect his father. The song was inspired by Peter Reich's 1973 memoir, A Book of Dreams, which Bush read and found deeply moving.

Kate actually contacted Peter Reich to explain her motives in writing 'Cloudbusting' and to express the wish that she hoped he would approve of the song. She received his reply a while later, saying that he loved what she was doing.