Running Up That Hill

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, She sang a drum pattern to her boyfriend and recording engineer, Del Palmer, who programmed it into a LinnDrum drum machine. Bush's brother, Paddy Bush, performed balalaika. == Music and lyrics ==

"Running Up That Hill" features synthesisers, guitar, bass, a driving drum beat and balalaika, a Russian string instrument. It uses the key of C minor, with a vocal melody focusing on the minor seventh, creating tension and a sense of pending resolution. Bush originally titled the song "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". In 2022, Bush said she still thought of the song with the original title. == Release and reception ==

Bush debuted "Running Up That Hill" in a performance on the BBC One chat show Wogan to an estimated audience of nine million. "Running Up That Hill" was released as the lead single from Hounds of Love on 5 August 1985, and reached number three on the UK singles chart. 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. ==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. == 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. == Legacy ==

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." In 2021, Rolling Stone placed "Running Up That Hill" 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." and her best UK single by The Guardian. 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." Winona Ryder, who plays Joyce Byers, said she had been a fan of Bush since childhood and had pushed to include the song. Bush, who rarely licenses her songs, agreed since she was a fan of the series. 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. After its use in Stranger Things, "Running Up That Hill" became the most streamed song on Spotify in the UK and the US. "Running Up That Hill" also reached number one in Australia, Belgium, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Sweden, and Switzerland. On 27 May 2022, the music video had 48.2 million views on YouTube; by 17 July, it had more than 100 million views. 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. In the US, "Running Up That Hill" reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, beating its 1985 peak of number 30, Bush's highest previous placement. It also entered the Billboard rock and Alternative Airplay charts and reached number one on the Hot Alternative Songs and Hot Rock & Alternative Songs charts. Stranger Things popularised "Running Up That Hill" with Generation Z, whose members were not born when it was released, and it appeared in videos on the social media platform TikTok. Bush said the renewed interest was extraordinary and touching. 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." After "Running Up That Hill" appeared in the fifth and final season of Stranger Things in 2025, it surpassed 1.5 billion streams on Spotify and reached number 14 on the UK singles chart in January 2026. ==Covers and remixes==

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 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". 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. The Swedish band First Aid Kit performed an acoustic version at the 2018 Rock Werchter festival. 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. 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". It received negative reviews; some accused Ora of oversinging or performing it because of its recent popularity from its use in Stranger Things. Ora's performance drew comparisons to Fergie's infamous rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game. ==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 Monthly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts ==Certifications==