Kate Bush Has Finished ‘Stranger Things’ & Feels ‘Deeply Honored’ Show Used ‘Running Up That Hill’

July 2, 2022 E Jazz Reporter

“I am in awe,” the singer-songwriter wrote of the final season and how it used her 1985 song.

Kate Bush poses at The Dickens Inn, in June 1978 in London.
Anwar Hussein/Hulton Archive/GI

Kate Bush is beyond pleased. The British artist shared in a new post on her website that she has finished watching the final two episodes of Stranger Things season four, which arrived Friday (July 1), and couldn’t be happier about how this season has used her 1985 song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God).”

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“I’ve just watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things and they’re just through the roof,” she gushed, noting that previously, she had viewed only the scenes that used her song, so didn’t know the direction the story would go in. “I was so delighted that the Duffer Brothers wanted to use [“Running Up That Hill”] for Max’s totem but now having seen the whole of this last series, I feel deeply honoured that the song was chosen to become part of their roller coaster journey. … I am in awe. They’ve made something really spectacular.”

Bush rarely makes public statements, but the Netflix sci-fi thriller’s use of her song in the first batch of season four episodes — which premiered May 27 — has shined a spotlight back on her in recent weeks. She first addressed the renewed interest in “Running Up That Hill” in a post on her website. “It’s all really exciting!” she wrote of the tune’s new found success. “Thanks very much to everyone who has supported the song.”

And support is something the song has certainly received — in spades. Since the show’s new season dropped, “Running Up That Hill” has flown back up the charts, peaking at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 a week after it re-entered the chart at No. 8, significantly higher than the song’s original peak at No. 30.

“Running Up That Hill” has also sprinted up other Billboard charts, including topping the Digital Song Sales and Streaming Songs tallies.

“It’s just extraordinary,” Bush — who rarely gives interviews — told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour in June of the renewed interest in her song. “I thought the track would get some attention, but I never imagined that it would be anything like this. It’s so exciting. It’s quite shocking really, isn’t it? The whole world’s gone mad!”

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