Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ Problem

Is the British queen of art rock destined to be a one-hit wonder in the US?

“Problem” might be a too-strong word. As belated smash singles go, the delayed Top 5 US success of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” due to its prominent inclusion in the fourth season of the Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things, 37 years after it peaked at No. 30, is pretty damn spectacular.

Though she’s enjoyed a number of U.K. hits over the course of her nearly 45-year chart career (“Hill” initially peaked at No. 3 across the pond and recently resurged to No. 1, breaking three Guinness world records along the way), Bush, despite three Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations (her latest snub was just this year), is largely unknown in mainstream music circles in the US. If interest in her wanes after “Running Up That Hill” runs its chart course, Bush easily could continue to be what she’s been here for nearly four decades: a one-hit wonder.

I want so much more for her.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard Kate Bush sing. It was 1983, and my brother Jeff and I were staying up after midnight to watch a late late show called Friday Night Videos. I wanted my MTV, but we had basic cable, so Friday Night Videos was the only way I could binge on music videos all through the night, if only once a week. “Thank God it’s Friday” really resonated with me in those days.

The Friday night I first laid eyes on Bush, she was singing a song called “Babooshka.” It slayed, but to be honest, I was more enamored by the woman singing it. Bush looked like a Valkyrie goddess, all suited up in midriff-baring armor, and the video made me wonder where she’d been all life.

I wouldn’t hear another Kate Bush song until the autumn of 1985 when American Top 40 radio host Casey Kasem announced her latest single, “Running Up That Hill,” as a new debut at No. 39. This time, I was 100 percent enthralled by the music, which was more unique than anything I’d heard since, well, “Babooshka.” The two songs sounded nothing alike, but they were cut from similar musical cloth. What was such an unconventional single doing in a Top 40 (for the Billboard Hot 100 week ending November 9) bookended by Jan Hammer’s “Miami Vice Theme” (at No. 1) and Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me” (at No. 40)?

The next year, I bought my first Kate Bush album. It was a compilation called The Whole Story, and the cassette changed my life from the moment the opening track, “Wuthering Heights,” started playing. I’d have to wait three years for a new studio album, 1989’s The Sensual World, which I bought at Hyde & Zeke Records in Gainesville, Florida, on the day it came out. I’d never again not rush to buy a new studio album of all original material by Bush. Unfortunately, she’s released only three more in the 33 years since.

In 1990, I was working at Spec’s Music & Video in Gainesville, and I overheard a woman telling my colleague Alex how much she loved that Enya song, “Orinoco Flow (Sail Away).” She wanted something that sounded like Enya, so Alex suggested she try Kate Bush.

“I’m not so sure about that,” I interrupted.

The only thing Kate Bush and Enya had in common was that they were both women making music that didn’t sound like anything else on the charts.

“What about Clannad,” I suggested, directing her to the C section of the cassette wall. “They’re an Irish group made up of members of Enya’s family. In fact, Enya used to be a member.”

Sold.

I may have denied Bush royalties that day, but by then, I’d become too protective of her as an artist to allow her to be lumped in with Enya — whom, by the way, I also loved, though for entirely different reasons. If someone was about to discover Bush’s genius, I wanted it to be based on her own musical merit, not because they were looking for something that sounded like something else.

It would take another 32 years for the American masses to finally appreciate Bush on her own merit. She’s had a few near-misses in the US over the decades: “Don’t Give Up,” her duet with Peter Gabriel from his 1986 album So, made it to the lower reaches of Billboard’s Hot 100 (No. 72), and her reggae-tinged cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” (from the 1991 tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin) went to No. 11 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart. Bush, meanwhile, remained the epitome of underrated.

Her music (if only just one song… for now) may have taken forever to work its way into the consciousness of the masses, but in this case, it’s truly better late than never. Thor: Love and Thunder director Taika Waititi recently revealed that he’d planned on using “a bunch of Kate Bush songs,” including the 1989 non-hit “This Woman’s Work,” in the new film — and then the 2022 Stranger Things-fueled Kate Bush renaissance happened. Change of plan.

Oh, well. Maybe next year. I don’t see the belated success of “Running Up That Hill” as a consolation prize for her being recently nominated and passed over a third time for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. With her visibility at an all-time high through absolutely no effort of her own, I have a feeling 2023 will finally be Bush’s time with the Rock Hall.

For those who are looking for something that sounds like “Running Up That Hill,” you’re out of luck. But fortunately, Bush has nine studio albums of original music from which we can cherry-pick other favorites. For starters, here’s a list of one essential highlight from each of them. Let the obsessive streaming begin!

“Wuthering Heights” from The Kick Inside (1978)

Inspired by the 1847 Emily Brontë novel that gave it its title, this — Bush’s debut single (released when she was 19) and only UK No. 1 until “Running” recently hit the sweet spot — is probably her best-known song other than “Running Up That Hill.” I introduced Bush (via the “Wuthering Heights” music video) to an Argentinian boyfriend in 2007 when I was living in Buenos Aires, and he was so entranced by the musical and visual spectacle, he spent the rest of the day watching it on repeat. That’s the Kate Bush Effect.

“Wow” from Lionheart (1978)

That killer soprano strikes again, offering an unflinching look at the demoralizing entertainment business. In the video (which I’m pretty sure inspired Stevie Nicks’ “Stand Back” five years later), Bush pats her butt while singing the line “He’s too busy hitting the vaseline.” The single made the UK Top 20, despite (or perhaps because of ) that video moment — presumably a nod to anal sex — getting censored by the BBC.

“Breathing” from Never for Ever” (1980)

From the album that gave us “Babooshka,” this song describes a prenatal nightmare from the foetus’s point of view. The nicotine from the cigarettes the mother smokes and the plutonium fallout from nuclear war represent the clear and present dangers that have never seemed to trouble so-called “pro-lifers.” Who other than David Bowie was doing stuff this out there in 1980 and still making the UK Top 20?

“The Dreaming” from The Dreaming (1982)

There’s no stranger thing in Bush’s entire catalogue than this, my all-time favorite track by her. I have no idea what it’s about, but if I ever find myself stuck on a remote, deserted island with only one of her songs to listen to until I’m rescued and whisked back to my music collection, it had better be this one.

“Under Ice” from Hounds of Love (1985)

This is the album that first introduced the world to “Running Up That Hill,” but “Under Ice” is the track I’ve been revisiting for decades. It’s a kind of duet between a narrator/observer and a woman who falls through the ice while skating over a frozen river, as foreboding strings and ghostly synth flourishes haunt the background.

“Rocket’s Tail” from The Sensual World (1989)

The title song, inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses, is a must-listen, but it’s the ninth track, which features Bulgaria’s Trio Bulgarka on accompanying vocals, that best showcases Bush’s talent for merging the strange and the sublime.

“The Song of Solomon” from The Red Shoes (1993)

Bush (with another vocal assist from Trio Bulgarka) makes “bullshit” sexy, and that’s really all you need to know.

“King of the Mountain” from Aerial (2005)

A song about the Elvis mythology with a touch of reggae and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” as its B-side, it arrived 12 years after Bush’s previous single. Despite the extended gap, she remained as uncompromising, unpredictable, and, yes, out-there as ever.

“Snowed In at Wheeler Street” from 50 Words for Snow (2011)

From the aforementioned Peter Gabriel to Prince (on The Red Shoes’ “Why Should I Love You?” — which also features Trio Bulgarka) to Elton John (on this, my favorite track on her most-recent studio album), Bush has excellent taste in superstar musical collaborators. “Snowed In” is epic romance that travels across continents and centuries, from a hilltop overlooking Rome as it burns to a winter evening on Wheeler Street in New York, with love, longing, and a pulsating synth motif tying it all together.