Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (12" Extended Version)

Kate Bush - Running Up That Hill (Extended Version) / 12 Inch Extended Remix (HQ Audio)

Running Up That Hill was Kate Bush's 19th UK single, and her most successful since her 1978 debut Wuthering Heights.

She wrote the track – and the whole Hounds of Love album, from which it is taken – in the wake of her disappointment at the performance of her previous album, The Dreaming.

Although the album it had reached number 3 in the UK chart, it hadn't sold as well as her three previous albums, and three of the singles she released from it had failed to even make the top 40.

Bush decided to convert a barn at her farm in Kent into a recording studio, so she could take full creative control of the recording process.

She describes quickly writing Running Up That Hill in an evening in 1983:

“Lyrically, I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman just can't understand each other because we are a man and a woman. And if we could actually swap each other's roles, if we could actually be in each other's place for a while, I think we’d both be very surprised! And I think it would lead to a greater understanding,” she told the BBC in 1992.

Bush named the track A Deal with God but the record company were concerned, feeling the title may lead to less airplay in some countries. Reluctantly, she agreed to rename it, with A Deal with God remaining in brackets on some releases.

With four top ten albums already under her belt, Bush was able to kit her studio out with the latest equipment, including a Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer and a LinnDrum machine - the same kit Trevor Horn had just bought for his studio, which became to some extent, the sound of the early and mid 1980s.

Buch actually describes her initial time in her farm studio as quite unhealthy, working long hours and being cut off from other people. Most of the tracks on Hounds of Love were written in this environment, using her new equipment.

But by 1984 she was ready to record, and the atmosphere at the farm became very different.

Five people were involved in the recording of what came to be known as Running Up That Hill, including her longtime collaborator Del Palmer, who worked as bassist, engineer and studio technician on most of Bush's albums.

Bush and Palmer were also romantically involved for almost 20 years.

Drummer Stuart Elliott also plays on the album, and the track. He'd been the drummer for Cockney Rebel and played on their biggest hits including Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), and was a core member of The Alan Parsons Project.

He also worked as a session musician with Al Stewart (playing on Year of the Cat), Paul McCartney, Toyah Wilcox and Roger Daltrey. Elliott is very highly respected in the industry and known for combining live playing with sequenced electronic drums, as was the case on this track.

Guitarist Alan Murphy was also in Bush's studio for the Hounds of Love sessions, and we hear his contribution in particular from 3'13" onwards in this extended mix. Murphy was also lead guitarist for Go West, featuring on their 1985 hits We Close Our Eyes and Call Me, before joining Level 42 in 1988.

Murphy died in 1989, at the age of 35, due to complications from AIDS-related pneumonia.

The fifth and final member of the session was Kate's brother Paddy Bush, who plays the balalaika – a Russian string instrument, which we hear in the background of the choruses.

Of course, Running Up That Hill has now become Kate Bush's signature track. Its popularity, influence and legacy have only grown as the decades have passed.

Having reached number 3 on its original release in 1985, a slightly refreshed remix was used in the 2012 London Olympics closing ceremony, which led to the track re-entering the charts and climbing to number 6.

In 2022 it enjoyed renewed attention again after featuring in the fourth season of the Netflix series Stranger Things.

As a result of this exposure, it became the most streamed track on Spotify in the UK and US, and finally went to number one in the UK, 37 years after its initial release, setting a record for the longest period of time between a track's release and its reaching number one. Kate Bush also became the oldest female artist to top the US charts, at the age of 63.

Featured here is the Extended Version from the UK 12" single, which also includes an instrumental version, and a further track, Under the Ivy, which Bush wrote quickly so the single could have a B-side.

Bush performed the B-side live on Channel 4's The Tube in 1985, solo, at the piano in Abbey Road Studios.

She describes her opportunities to work at Abbey Road Studios as quite fun times:

"The studio has a vertiginously high ceiling," she says. "Sometimes when I was working there a technician, who was a good friend, would take me up above the ceiling. We'd climb through a hatch and watch the orchestras working away, completely unaware of the couple of devils hovering in the clouds, way above their heads! I used to love doing this. The acoustics were heavenly at that scary height. We used to toy with the idea of bungee jumping from the hatch."

Year: 1985 Label: EMI Cat no: 12KB 1