Kate Bush
(Picture: FISH PEOPLE/AFP via Getty Images)Kate Bush has said “the whole world’s gone mad” over her song in the fourth season of Stranger Things.
She said it was “very special” that a new young audience have discovered Running Up That Hill, which is at No 1 in the UK charts, 37 years after it was first released. It has also claimed top spot in Australia, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland, and achieved a new peak in the US charts at No 4.
Bush, 63, is the oldest female artist to have a single at the top of the UK charts and has the title for longest gap between number ones. Her other chart-topper was debut Wuthering Heights in 1978.
Speaking to Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Wednesday, Bush said: “It’s just extraordinary. I mean it’s such a great series, I thought that the track would get some attention. But I just never imagined that it would be anything like this. It’s so exciting. But it’s quite shocking really, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world’s gone mad.”
She added: “The thought of all these really young people hearing the song for the first time and discovering it is, well, I think it’s very special.”
Bush admitted she had not listened to the song for a “really long time” when the creators of Stranger Things asked if they could feature it. She also revealed she was already a fan of the Netflix show. In it, Max Mayfield, played by Sadie Sink, is heard listening to Running Up That Hill on her Walkman as way to ground herself to the real world. Bush said: “I thought what a lovely way for the song to be used in such a positive way, as a kind of talisman almost really for Max.”
She said the song is about a man and a woman who swap places to “feel what it was like from the other side”.
Woman’s Hour is on Radio 4 at 10am weekdays and on BBC Sounds.
