The power of television compels you.
Kate Bush has now broken three UK chart records by reaching number 1 (in the US it’s number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart).
In the UK, Bush is the oldest woman to top the singles chart and her performance at 37 years is the longest time it has taken a song to reach number one. It beats Wham!, whose “Last Christmas” made it in January 2021. The song also ranks as the longest gap between number-one singles, having passed 44 years since their debut “Wuthering Heights.”
“Running Up That Hill peaked at number 3 when it was originally released.”
One of the strange things to note from the Netflix premiere of Stranger Things 4 last month was a renewed interest in Kate Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill,” which features in the new season. Today, the revitalized track returned to the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number 30 some 37 years ago.
The new success is credited to the season premiere of Stranger Things on May 27th. .
The song – originally titled “A Deal with God” before her label reconsidered it – was Brit Bush’s biggest pop hit in the States and her second biggest in the UK. “Running Up That Hill” was also featured in 2019 episodes of HBO’s Big Little Lies, Showtime’s On Becoming a God in Central Florida and ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder, and in the 2018 pilot of FX’s Pose.
Watch the original 1985 video for Running Up That Hill here:
Erik Pedersen contributed to this report.