After coming back into prominence due to its inclusion in the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things, Kate Bush‘s 1985 hit “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” has hit one billion streams on Spotify. Bush shared a celebratory statement on her official website, expressing her appreciation for her fans.
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On her website, Bush shared a NASA image accompanied by a message that reads, “A billion streams! I have an image of a river that suddenly floods and becomes many, many tributaries — a billion streams — on their way to the sea.”
Bush continued, “Each one of these streams is one of you… Thank you! Thank you so much for sending this song on such an impossibly astonishing journey. I’m blown away.”
“Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” was a huge success when it was first released as a single off the album Hounds of Love in the mid-80s. Upon initial release, the song hit No. 30 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, as well as taking the number three spot on the U.K. singles chart.
Last year, the iconic song was made even more recognizable, especially to the younger generations, when it was depicted in multiple episodes of Stranger Things‘ most recent season. In the show, Max (Sadie Sink) is targeted by the otherworldly villain Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) and saves herself from death by listening to her favorite song, which is Bush’s classic tune.
In a rare interview last year with BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Bush expressed her excitement over her song being featured in the massively successful Netflix series. She said, “It’s just extraordinary. It’s such a great series, so 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 — the whole world’s gone mad.”
In the same interview, Bush continued, “What’s really wonderful is that this is a whole new audience, who in a lot of cases, they’d never heard of me, and I love that. The thought of all these really young people hearing this song for the very first time and discovering it — I think it’s very special.”
When asked what the song was originally about, Bush said, “Well, I really like people to hear a song and take from it what they want. But originally it was written about a man and a woman swapping places with each other just to feel what it was like from the other side.”
(Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage)
