5 August 1985, London: Kate Bush releases the single “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” on EMI Records as the lead single from the album Hounds of Love. By end of August - #3 UK Singles Chart, #30 Billboard Hot 100, #6 Ireland. The single held the UK top 10 for almost two months, then went into historical dormancy for 37 years. Then - June 2022: the fourth season of Netflix's Stranger Things uses the track in a pivotal scene in episode 4. Five weeks after the season's release “Running Up That Hill” hits #1 UK Singles Chart (July 2022, three weeks). That made Bush the oldest female artist ever to have a UK #1 (she was 63) and set the record for the longest gap between a single's release and its #1 - 37 years. Total Spotify streams of “Running Up That Hill” by 2024 - over 2.8 billion. More than any other Kate Bush track across a 46-year career.
The 1985 original
Kate Bush wrote “Running Up That Hill” in November 1984 at her home studio Wickham Farm in Kent. The central idea - a thought experiment: what if a man and a woman could trade bodies for a moment, to understand each other? The original title was “A Deal with God”, but EMI asked for a change over “risk of conflict with religious radio”. Bush added “Running Up That Hill” as the main title, keeping the original in parentheses.
Recording ran January-April 1985 at Wickham Farm with collaborators:
- Kate Bush - vocals, Fairlight CMI Series II, Yamaha CS-80, Bösendorfer grand piano
- Del Palmer - bass, engineer, Bush's partner at the time
- Stuart Elliott - drums, LinnDrum LM-2
- Alan Murphy - guitar
The Fairlight stabs in the chorus are the track's main sonic signature. Bush was one of the first artists to buy a Fairlight CMI Series II (see the Fairlight deep dive). This track is one of the most intricately architected album recordings of 1985: 34 separate instrumental layers, including Fairlight samples of birds and church bells.
The 1985 reception
The single came out 5 August 1985, three weeks later - #3 UK. The album Hounds of Love (16 September 1985) took #1 UK Albums Chart, 3.5M global copies. The second single - “Cloudbusting” (October 1985) - #20 UK. Contemporary critics praised Hounds of Love as “Bush's peak”: NME ranked it #5 album of 1985, Rolling Stone later rated it #14 among 80s retrospectives.
In the US “Running Up That Hill” fared worse: #30 Billboard Hot 100, #48 Dance Chart. American stations in 1985 still considered Bush “too artistic” for mainstream. That didn't stop MTV putting the video into rotation - its visual construction (Bush and partner Michael Hughes in a dance ritual) was so unusual MTV aired it as an “art piece”.
Detail: in 1986 “Running Up That Hill” was reissued in the US in an Arif Mardin remix as an attempt to push it higher in the charts. Result: #58 Billboard - worse than the original.
1985-2022: the waiting sleep
From 1986 to 2021 “Running Up That Hill” held stable mid-tier Kate Bush status: regular play on classic radio stations, inclusion on Bush best-of collections, use in a few art films. By 2021 the track had around 45 million Spotify streams - solid, but not outstanding among 80s classics.
In December 2021 Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer (creators of Stranger Things) were working on the season 4 script. They were looking for a track for a pivotal scene - the rescue of Max Mayfield from psychological captivity. Their music supervisor Nora Felder put “Running Up That Hill” on a shortlist of 15 potential 1980s tracks. The Duffer brothers picked it unanimously on the first day of playback.
The licensing process
Netflix approached Kate Bush directly in January 2022 through their rights agent. Bush asked for US$500,000 for the use in season 4 (standard rate for classic tracks on Netflix was US$100,000-200,000). Netflix agreed without negotiation. Bush additionally insisted on the right to approve the scenes where the track would be used.
The Duffer brothers sent Bush the full scene with the song (4 minutes 22 seconds). Bush approved with two minor adjustments - she asked for the vocal to be raised 3 dB and asked them to shorten one sound effect (whistling wind) that interrupted the melodic line.
“I watched the scene six times. First time - I didn't understand what was happening. Fourth time - I cried. Sixth time - I sent the Duffers approval. They used my song not as background, but as part of the story”, - Kate Bush in an open letter on her website, 17 June 2022.
Stranger Things 4 and the renaissance
Season 4 of Stranger Things premiered on 27 May 2022 on Netflix. The “Running Up That Hill” scene - episode 4 (“Dear Billy”). Three days after the release the track was trending on TikTok: the #RunningUpThatHill hashtag hit 5.2 billion views in its first week. Young people who had never heard Kate Bush started discovering her music.
Charts:
- 16 June 2022: #1 Spotify Global Top 50 (held for 9 weeks)
- 17 June 2022: #1 UK Singles Chart (Kate Bush for the first time in 37 years, her second ever UK #1)
- 30 June 2022: #3 Billboard Hot 100 (Bush's first Billboard top 10 in her entire career)
- 10 July 2022: #1 iTunes in 39 countries simultaneously
- September 2022: peak - Kate Bush's estimated royalties for the first half of 2022: US$2.3 million
Billboard named Kate Bush “Top Rock Artist of the Year” for 2022. She was 63. She lives in Britain, rarely appears publicly, has not toured since 2014.
The streaming effect on her whole career
The “Running Up That Hill” revival boosted overall Kate Bush Spotify listening by +740% across 2022. Her monthly listeners grew from 3 million in May 2022 to 25 million in June. By 2024 they stabilised at 18-22 million monthly listeners - six times her pre-Stranger Things level.
Records set by “Running Up That Hill” in 2022:
- Oldest female artist with a UK #1 Singles Chart in history (63)
- Longest gap between a track's initial release and hitting #1 in any chart (37 years)
- Oldest track to hit UK #1 (also 37 years)
- First Kate Bush track on Spotify Global Top 50 #1
What Stranger Things showed the industry
The “Running Up That Hill” renaissance proved that classic tracks can “resurrect” through the right visual context. The streaming era, TikTok, and cinematic use multiply reach tenfold. After Kate Bush similar revivals were lived by: Fleetwood Mac's “Dreams” (2020, TikTok), Journey's “Don't Stop Believin'” (2007, The Sopranos), Toto's “Africa” (2018, meme-culture), New Order's “Blue Monday” (2023, Netflix).
Related: “Wuthering Heights” Kate Bush (1978), Fairlight CMI, “Fade to Grey” Visage. “Running Up That Hill” is a rare case in pop-music history: a track whose true commercial life began 37 years after its first release. A reminder that a hit is not the moment of hitting #1 but the moment when the next generation finds it. For Kate Bush that happened in June 2022, when a 37-year-old recording played in a Stranger Things episode and sounded new.