Songfacts®:

• This track was inspired by a TV documentary Bush saw about the Vietnam war, which viewed the conflict from a Viet Cong perspective. She recalled to Keyboard (July 1985): "There was this fantastic TV documentary about a cameraman who was on the front lines. He was a brilliant cameraman and he was so well-trained a technician that he kept filming things no matter how he was feeling about it at the time. Some of the stuff he was shooting was really disturbing. Some of these Vietnamese guys would just come in and they were sort of dying in mid-air. And he'd just keep on filming."
• Bush's viewing of the documentary stimulated an act of sonic visualization in the studio. "We sat in front of the speakers trying to focus on the picture - a green forest, humid and pulsating with life," she recalled. "We are looking at the Americans from the Vietnamese point of view and almost like a camera we start in wide shot."
  
  "Right in the distance you can see the trees moving, smoke and sounds drifting our way... sounds like a radio," Bush continued. "Closer in with the camera and you can catch glimpses of their pink skin. We can smell them for miles with their sickly cologne, American tobacco and their stale sweat."
• The song features backing vocals from Bush's mentor, Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour.
• Kate learned that Vietnamese soldiers popped little silver Buddhas in their mouth before going into battle, which inspired the lyrics, "With my silver Buddha and my silver bullet (I pull the pin)." She explained in a 1982 interview: "I thought that was quite beautiful. Grotesque beauty attracts me. Negative images are often so interesting."
• Drummer Preston Heyman supplied the sound of chirping insects. He'd recorded them in an Indonesian jungle.