S03E10 – Army Dreamers

After a short break, we’re back with another song episode! And almost in time for the 38th anniversary of this single being released! On September 22, 1980, the final single from Never For Ever was released: Army Dreamers. Compared to the previous two singles, Army Dreamers was quite a change of pace from Breathing (prog-rock, Kate’s “little symphony”) and Babooshka (upbeat piano rock). After the intensity of the previous two singles, what we have here is a quiet, folk sort of song in a waltz time (bum BUM BUM bum BUM BUM) with a sweet-sounding vocal delivery from Kate. But as we all know with Kate, not everything that sounds sweet actually is! Beneath the quiet atmosphere in this song, we have a tragic tale of a mother mourning the accidental death of her son. And to talk about the song this week, we have two fans: Christopher Kelley, who was featured on the Violin episode, and Gregory Chappell, a long-time fan from Virginia. With these two fans, we get into the history of the song, the folky instruments used in the song’s production, how well it did on the charts, our histories with this song, and, of course, the lyrics! What is a BFPO and, really, she’s saying “like a chicken with a fox”? After the episode proper, keep listening for an outtake from our discussion with Gregory about what it was like to be a Kate fan in the pre-Internet era. Song clips used: Army Dreamers album version