running up that hill lyrics kate bush meaning

Or something that is not worth reporting on. I wait with bated breath for the rest of the series in July.IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush and Michael (now Misha) Hervieu in the video for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)/ PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song. I love it too!”īush added, “Because of this, ‘Running Up That Hill’ is charting around the world and has entered the UK chart at No. “It features the song, ‘Running Up That Hill’ which is being given a whole new lease of life by the young fans who love the show. “You might’ve heard that the first part of the fantastic, gripping new series of Stranger Things has recently been released on Netflix,” shared Bush in a rare public statement on her website. Bush’s original 1985 video for the song has also been viewed nearly 60 million times on YouTube. 1 on the iTunes chart over the Memorial Day weekend. For the first time in 37 years, the song also topped the charts, reaching No. Featured in the first episode of the fourth season of Stranger Things around the character of Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) as she copes with the death of her family and plays the song on her Walkman, the song also makes a return in the fourth episode.Īfter the song was featured on Stranger Things, “Running Up That Hill” saw a spike in streams on Spotify with millions of new streams within the U.S., while Bush’s entire music catalog has also seen an uptick of 1,600 percent in global streams, according to Spotify. Most recently “Running Up That Hill” had rebirth on the fourth season of the Netflix sci-fi horror series Stranger Things. 1, and artists like Tori Amos, John Forté, Tiffany, Placebo, and Car Seat Headrest have also covered the Bush classic throughout the years. It was also featured in the 2009 film Daybreakers, The Chocolate War in 1988, and as the theme song to the BBC drama Running Scared.Ī recent cover by Meg Myers in 2019 gave the artist her first No.

Dutch DJ Ben Liebrand also remixed a version of the song in 1985, but it was never officially released.īush also released a remixed version of “Running Up That Hill” and added a new vocal to the track for her album A Symphony of British Music: Music for the Closing Ceremony of London 2012.įor nearly 40 years the song has been featured in television and film from The O.C., The Vampire Diaries, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Bones. To date, there are four different versions of “Running Up That Hill” that exist, including the Hounds of Love album version, an extended version, an instrumental, and an edited version (3:24 minutes) released on a promotional 7″ single in the U.S. And normally I always regret any compromises that I make.” I felt I had to be grown-up about this, so we changed it to ‘Running Up That Hill.’ But it’s always something I’ve regretted doing, I must say.

I’d just spent two, three years making an album, and we weren’t gonna get this record played on the radio if I was stubborn. Of the title switch, Bush said, “Nonetheless, although I was very unhappy about it, I felt unless I compromised that I was going to be cutting my own throat. I couldn’t believe this, this seemed completely ridiculous to me and the title was such a part of the song’s entity. Ireland wouldn’t play it, and that generally we might get it blocked purely because it had ‘God’ in the title. France wouldn’t play it, and Australia wouldn’t play it. “For me, it is still called ‘Deal With God’-that was its title-but we were told that if we kept this title that it wouldn’t be played in any of the religious countries,” shared Bush.

Initially, Bush’s working title for the song was “A Deal With God,” a phrase she also incorporated into the lyrics.

And I thought, ‘Well, no, why not a deal with God,’ because in a way it’s so much more powerful, the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you.” “And I think it would be led to a greater understanding … really the only way I could think it could be done was either … a deal with the devil. “I was trying to say that a man and a woman, can’t understand each other because we are a man and a woman, and if we could actually swap each other’s roles, if we could actually be in each other’s place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised,” said Bush, elaborating on its meaning and connection to God. The lyrics of the song also hover around how a man and a woman might view their relationship if they were given the chance to trade places by God.

Running up that hill lyrics kate bush meaning