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The stories behind the people who make the music

Music Folks

Running Up That Hill: The Story Behind Kate Bush’s Deal With God

October 14, 2026 · by Music Folks

“Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” is the song Kate Bush wrote first for Hounds of Love, and it became one of the great second lives in pop. A UK Top 5 hit in 1985, it returned 37 years later through Netflix’s Stranger Things and went all the way to No. 1, breaking chart records along the way.

Quick Facts

  • Song: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)”
  • Artist: Kate Bush
  • Album: Hounds of Love (1985)
  • Written and produced by: Kate Bush
  • Released: August 5, 1985 (EMI)
  • Peaks: UK No. 3 (1985) and No. 1 (2022); US No. 30 (1985) and No. 3 (2022)

Written in One Evening

After moving to the countryside near Sevenoaks in Kent in 1983, Bush set up a writing room with a piano, a Fairlight CMI synthesizer and an eight-track recorder. She reportedly wrote the song in a single evening, starting from the Fairlight riff. Early in 1984 she moved into her own studio at East Wickham Farm in Welling, where the demo was built up. A Fairlight cello sound carries the main riff, and a LinnDrum machine supplies the beat.

A Deal With God

The song was originally called “A Deal with God.” EMI worried that a title like that could keep it off the radio, and since Bush had not had a hit for a while, she agreed to put “Running Up That Hill” first. She has never quite let go of the original: in a 2022 interview with BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour she said, “I think for me this is still called ‘A Deal With God’.”

Bush has explained that the song is about men and women failing to understand each other. If they could make a deal with God to swap places, she suggested, each might finally see the other’s side. The video, directed by David Garfath, turned that tension into an interpretive dance between Bush and Misha Hervieu.

The First Run

Released on August 5, 1985, as the lead single from Hounds of Love, the song reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. A 2012 remix was played at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics and sent it back to No. 6 in Britain.

The Stranger Things Revival

In May 2022 the song featured heavily in the fourth season of Stranger Things, and a new generation found it. On June 17, 2022, it went to No. 1 in the UK, staying there for three weeks. The Official Charts Company counted three records: the longest gap between No. 1 singles (44 years, back to “Wuthering Heights” in 1978), the longest time for a single to reach No. 1 (37 years), and the oldest female artist to top the UK chart. In the US it became her first Top 10 hit and peaked at No. 3.

Where Kate Bush Is Now

Bush was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, though she did not attend the ceremony. In 2024 she told the BBC she was keen to start work on a new album, and in 2025 she released the compilation Best of the Other Sides. As of October 2026, no new album has been announced.

Sources

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