Oh England My Lionheart - 2018 Remaster

The Kent-born Kate Bush pays homage to her home country in "Oh England, My Lionheart," which also inspired the album title. "It's really very much a song about the Old England that we all think about whenever we're away," she explained while promoting the album. "You know, 'ah, the wonderful England' and how beautiful it is amongst all the rubbish, you know. Like the old buildings we've got, the Old English attitudes that are always around. And this sort of very heavy emphasis on nostalgia that is very strong in England. People really do it a lot, you know, like 'I remember the war and...'' You know it's very much a part of our attitudes to life that we live in the past. And it's really just a sort of poetical play on the, if you like, the romantic visuals of England, and the second World War... Amazing revolution that happened when it was over and peaceful everything seemed, like the green fields. And it's really just an exploration of that."

According to the biography Under The Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush by Graeme Thomson, Kate later dismissed the song as embarrassing, but at the time of its release she defended its merit. She said in a 1978 Melody Maker interview: "A lot of people could easily say that the song is sloppy. It's very classically done. It's only got acoustic instruments on it and it's done... almost madrigally, you know. I dare say a lot of people will think that it's just a load of old slush but it's just an area that I think it's good to cover. Everything I do is very English and I think that's one reason I've broken through to a lot of countries. The English vibe is very appealing."