Running Up That Hill

"Running Up That Hill" (also titled "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)") is a song by the English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. It was released in the UK as the lead single from Bush's fifth studio album, '' Hounds of Love'', on 5 August 1985 by EMI Records. Bush wrote and produced "Running Up That Hill" using a Fairlight CMI synthesiser and a LinnDrum drum machine. The lyrics imagine a man and a woman who make "a deal with God" to exchange places. The music video features Bush performing an interpretive dance.

Bush debuted "Running Up That Hill" in a performance on the BBC1 talk show ''Wogan''. On its first release, "Running Up That Hill" reached number three on the UK singles chart, Bush's highest position since her number-one 1978 single "Wuthering Heights". It was named among the year's best tracks by ''Melody Maker'' and was nominated for British Single of the Year at the 1986 Brit Awards. A remix used in the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony reached number six.

In 2022, after it was featured in the fourth season of the Netflix series ''Stranger Things,'' "Running Up That Hill" reached number one in eight countries, including the UK. It is Bush's only US top-40 hit, reaching number 30 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1985 and number three in 2022. In 2023, it reached a billion streams on Spotify.

"Running Up That Hill" has been covered by acts including Placebo, Within Temptation, St Vincent, Chromatics and Meg Myers. In 2021, ''Rolling Stone'' included it at number 60 in its updated list of the " 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

Music and lyrics

"Running Up That Hill" features synthesisers, guitar, bass, a driving drum beat and the balalaika, a Russian string instrument. It uses the key of C minor, with a vocal melody focusing on the minor seventh, creating a sense of pending resolution and "lingering harmonic tension and instability". On the word "could", Bush sings the major seventh of A-flat major, using dissonance to create more tension.

The drummer, Stuart Elliott, said: "The tension in that track is just remarkable. Every step of the way, there's a little twist and turn that's different from the previous verse — an extra line or one line less, or a repeat just in the perfect places. There's absolutely no dead space ... It's just so deceptively simple." Classic FM described its as "passionate and pleading", with uncertainty and a longing for emotional resolution.

Bush said the lyrics address the inability of men and women to understand each other. She imagined that by making "a deal with God", they could exchange places and reach a greater understanding. The song was originally titled "A Deal with God", but her record label, EMI Records, felt this was sensitive and could limit its radio play. Bush agreed to change it as she had not had a hit song in some time and wanted to "give the album a chance". On the album, it was titled "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)". Bush said in 2022 that she still thought of the song with that title.

Recording

In 1983, Bush moved from London to rural Sevenoaks, where she set up a songwriting room with a piano, a Fairlight CMI synthesiser and an eight-track recorder. "Running Up That Hill" was the first song Bush composed for her fifth album, '' Hounds of Love'' (1985). She wrote it in a single evening, and recorded a demo. According to Bush, the song began with the Fairlight riff. She sang a drum pattern to her boyfriend and recording engineer, Del Palmer, who programmed it into a LinnDrum drum machine. She said the lyrics for the first verse "came straight away".

In early 1984, Bush moved to her new studio at East Wickham Farm in her childhood home of Welling, Kent, where she recorded the final version of "Running Up That Hill". Bush and Palmer recorded the first version onto 8-track using the Fairlight, and used this to build the vocal. Palmer added a "pulsing" bassline. After transferring the song to 24-track, Bush, Palmer and the engineers Paul Hardiman and Haydn Bendall developed the final version, spending particular time on the Fairlight parts.

The main riff was played on the Fairlight using its sampled cello sound. This replaced an earlier harp sound, which Bush found too noisy. The drone part was developed by "freezing" a chord into a Quantec digital reverb. The drummer, Stuart Elliott, overdubbed a snare to strengthen the Linndrum, and added fills at the end combined with sounds from the Fairlight. Alan Murphy overdubbed guitar for the ending. Bush's brother, Paddy Bush, performed balalaika.

Music video

The music video was directed by David Garfath and choreographed by Diane Grey. It features Bush performing an interpretive dance with the dancer Misha Hervieu. Bush felt that dance in music videos was "being used quite trivially, it was being exploited: haphazard images, busy, lots of dances, without really the serious expression, and wonderful expression, that dance can give". Instead, she wanted to create a "serious piece of dance" comprising a simple routine between two people. In the video, Bush mimics an archer pulling a bow, an idea she reused for the single cover.

Hervieu said she was cast as she was not following the trends of dance in pop music at the time. As Hervieu was much taller than Bush, they discovered Bush could wrap around her body "like a snake" and incorporated this into the dance. To evade Equity union rules against moonlighting, Hervieu said she could not appear in the West End musical ''Barnum'' because of illness, for which she was fired from the play. In July 2022, the music video reached 100 million views on YouTube.

Release

Bush debuted "Running Up That Hill" in a performance on the BBC1 talk show ''Wogan,'' to an estimated audience of nine million. She performed from behind a lectern, backed by a band including Palmer and Paddy Bush. The performers wore coats similar to religious habits and were accompanied by standard-bearers waving "billowing" flags. ''Mojo'' wrote later: "Particularly in the context of a cosy mainstream show, there was something distinctly ritualistic about the whole affair, certainly in keeping with the song's magickal theme." Bush also performed it on the West German show ''Peter's Pop Show''. "Running Up That Hill" was released in the UK as the lead single from ''Hounds of Love'' on 5 August 1985, and reached number three on the UK singles chart.

2012 Olympics remix

A remix of "Running Up That Hill" was used during the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. The remix is included in the soundtrack album for the 2012 Olympics, '' A Symphony of British Music''. It reached number six on the UK singles chart on 19 August, becoming Bush's first top-ten single since " King of the Mountain" in 2005.

2022 revival and ''Stranger Things''

In May 2022, "Running Up That Hill" gained renewed attention after it featured in the fourth season of the Netflix series ''Stranger Things''. Winona Ryder, who plays Joyce Byers'','' said she had been a fan of Bush since childhood and had pushed to include the song. Bush rarely licenses her songs but agreed because she is a fan of the show. The composer, Rob Simonsen, created an orchestral remix recorded in Air Studios, London. To create the feeling of a lullaby, he added a choir, combined with the "juggernaut" of a full orchestra. The remix appears as a motif throughout the series and in a pivotal scene.

After it was used in ''Stranger Things'', "Running Up That Hill" became the most streamed song on Spotify in the UK and the US. It reached number one in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland. It became Bush's second UK number-one single after "Wuthering Heights" (1978), making Bush the solo artist with the longest gap between two number-one UK singles and the oldest female artist to achieve a UK number one. The 37 years it took to reach number one was also a record. On 1 September, "Running Up That Hill" was issued as a CD single for the first time. It sold 1,077,284 copies in the UK in 2022. The Official Charts Company described the success as an example of 1980s nostalgia.

In the US, "Running Up That Hill" reached number three on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart, bettering its 1985 peak of number 30, Bush's highest previous placement. It also charted on the ''Billboard'' rock and Alternative Airplay charts and reached number one on both Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. "Running Up That Hill" became popular with Generation Z, who were not born when the song was released, and it appeared in videos on the social media platform TikTok. Bush described the renewed interest as extraordinary and touching.

By 17 July 2022, views of the music video on YouTube had doubled. On 22 June 2023, "Running Up That Hill" reached one billion streams on Spotify. In response, Bush wrote: "I have an image of a river that suddenly floods and becomes many, many tributaries — a billion streams — on their way to the sea. Each one of these streams is one of you. Thank you so much for sending this song on such an impossibly astonishing journey. I'm blown away."

Critical response

In 1985, ''Smash Hits'' named "Running Up That Hill" its "single of the fortnight" and praised its "melodic strength" and "coolly restrained performance". It was described as "nice" in an otherwise negative review in the ''Record Mirror.'' Edwin Pouncey of '' Sounds'' said he was "seduced by the sheer strangeness of Ms Bush's dramatic return". It was named the year's second-best track by ''Melody Maker'' and the third-best by ''NME''. At the 1986 Brit Awards, "Running Up That Hill" was nominated for British Single of the Year.

In 2014, ''NME'' named "Running Up That Hill" the 108th-greatest song of all time. That year, ''NME'' included it at number 25 in its "Story of ''NME'' in 70 (mostly) seminal songs", with Mark Beaumont writing that Bush was "a totemic figure in sneaking left field ideas into the heart of the charts". Reviewing ''Hounds of Love'' in 2016, the ''Pitchfork'' critic Barry Walters wrote that "Running Up That Hill" had "brought to the mainstream gender-equality issues that female-led post-punk acts like Au Pairs had been thrashing out for years in the underground". He connected its lyrics, Bush's performance and the pitch-shifting effect on her vocals to gender issues: "As if trying to escape her body, sex, and consciousness ... Armed with equally advanced machines and melodies, Bush now creatively trumped nearly every mid-'80s rocker." The AllMusic journalist Amy Hanson wrote: "Always adept at emotion and beautifully able to manipulate even the most bitter of hearts, rarely has Bush penned such a brutally truthful, painfully sensual song."

In 2023, "Running Up That Hill" was named the third-best Bush song by ''Mojo'' and Bush's best UK single by ''The Guardian''. In 2021, ''Rolling Stone'' placed it at number 60 in its updated list of the " 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It was nominated for Favourite Rock Song at the American Music Awards of 2022. That year, ''Mojo'' described it as "timeless and unique ... barely a whiff of anachronism arises from its dated technology... Both lyrically and musically, it remains an outstanding example of how innovative, catchy and weird pop music can be." In 2024, the ''Rolling Stone'' journalist Rob Sheffield wrote: "Her classic synth-goth anthem sounded ahead of its time in the eighties. But only Kate Bush could make it a song that ''still'' sounds ahead of its time nearly 40 years later ... It became a timeless pop standard, without losing its spooky sense of dread."

Live performances

Bush performed "Running Up That Hill" in 1987 at the Secret Policeman's Third Ball, accompanied by the Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and Tony Franklin on fretless bass. ''Guitar World'' wrote in 2022 that the performance was "immaculate ... The material brings out the best in Gilmour. Bush's voice defies the cardiovascular reality of performing onstage. Tony Franklin ... is godlike." Bush performed "Running Up That Hill" at her Before the Dawn concerts in 2014.

Cover versions

The American singer-songwriter Tori Amos has occasionally incorporated "Running Up That Hill" into her performances since the 1990s, often as part of a medley. The English actor and comedian Steve Coogan, performing as the comedy character Alan Partridge, performed "Running Up That Hill" as part of a medley of Bush songs for the charity Comic Relief in 1999. On 20 August, 2022, Partridge joined the British rock band Coldplay to perform "Running Up That Hill" at Wembley Stadium, London. The American rock band Faith and the Muse included a goth-style cover of "Running Up That Hill" on the 2001 compilation album '' Vera Causa.''

The British rock band Placebo included a version of "Running Up That Hill" on their 2003 compilation album '' Covers'', which reached number 44 on the UK singles chart. ''Guitar World'' said Placebo's version is often credited as the "defining" cover, describing it as a "glistening ‘00s update" with a "pulsating heartbeat bassline" and "quivering vocal" that "evokes the sense of a protagonist on life support, bargaining with supernatural forces". In the same year, a cover by the Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation, featuring an orchestral section and choir, reached the top 10 of the Dutch Single Top 100 chart.

In 2007, the American electronic band Chromatics released a "menacing" version on their album ''Night Drive''. The Swedish band First Aid Kit performed an acoustic version at the 2018 Rock Werchter festival. A version by the American musician Meg Myers reached number one on the ''Billboard'' Rock Airplay chart and the Alternative Songs chart in January 2020. The American singer Emma Ruth Rundle and members of the bands Mastodon, Yob and Old Man Gloom performed a version on YouTube during the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. In 2021, the American rock band Car Seat Headrest released a "lower fi, measured" cover.

Bush described a version performed in 2022 by the Australian choir Pub Choir, arranged by Astrid Jorgensen, as "utterly wonderful". The German singer Kim Petras recorded a cover for Amazon Music's playlist for 2022 Pride Month, which reached number 100 on the UK singles chart. That year, the British singer Raye performed a stripped-back version for BBC Radio 1, and the American singer Halsey performed "Running Up That Hill" at the Governors Ball Music Festival in New York City, saying "truly wish I wrote this song more than anything in the world". The American musician St. Vincent performed "Running Up That Hill" at Bush's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, which Bush did not attend.

Track listing and formats

All tracks written and produced by Kate Bush.

Personnel

* Kate Bush – vocals, Fairlight CMI
* Alan Murphy – electric guitar
* Del Palmer – bass guitar, LinnDrum programming
* Stuart Elliott – drums
* Paddy Bush – balalaika

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

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1985 songs
1985 singles
2003 singles
2012 singles
2022 singles
Kate Bush songs
Within Temptation songs
Kim Petras songs
Fiction about body swapping
Songs written by Kate Bush
British new wave songs
British synth-pop songs
EMI Records singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in Belgium
Number-one singles in New Zealand
Number-one singles in Sweden
Number-one singles in Switzerland
Billboard Global 200 number-one singles
Billboard Global Excl. U.S. number-one singles
Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
UK singles chart number-one singles