Back in the university days, myself and a few friends came home in the early hours after a big night out. One of those friends and I decided, in our sozzled wisdom, that the perfect thing to play through the speakers was not some soft ambient music to soothe our aching brains before we shuffled off to bed, but rather, Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. We were delighted in our choice — who doesn’t want to belt out an emotionally charged Eighties classic at 4am, right? — but it elicited groans of dismay from the rest of the group, and I’m not even sure we made it to the first mention of a potential deal with God before threats of physical violence forced us to switch it off.
I mention this as an act of solidarity with Rita Ora: you are not the only one to foist Kate Bush onto unsuspecting listeners when the situation simply did not call for it. Poor Rita has been on the receiving end of a social media slating after footage emerged of the London-raised artist — how can we put this? — over-singing a section of the Bush song during a performance at a Brazilian music festival.
