A Deal with God

By Ankita Singh Deo

Running up that Hill

Artist- Kate Bush

Album- Hounds of Love

Released- 5^th August, 1985

There are songs, and then, there is this. Powerful lyrics and breathtaking music. A song that you can’t stop listening to. A song that you can’t stop talking about.

Running up that hill, written by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush, was the first single from her 1985 album Hounds of Love, released in the UK on 5 August 1985. It was the most successful of Bush's 1980s releases, entering the UK chart at No. 9 and eventually peaking at No. 3. The single also had an impact in the US, giving Bush her first chart hit there since 1978, where it reached the top 30, and featured prominently within the Dance Charts.

The song has everything. It comes across as passionate, painful, sensuous and chilling, all at the same time. ‘Is there so much hate for the ones we love? Tell me, we both matter, don't we? It's you and me. You and me won't be unhappy.’ The lines exude the brutal truths of love, establishing the fragile ties between love and lust, loss and pain, understanding and sacrifice. How one is willing to bear another’s pain by getting God to swap their places.

Allmusic journalist Amy Hanson wrote: "Always adept at emotion and beautifully able to manipulate even the most bitter of hearts, rarely has Bush penned such a brutally truthful, painfully sensual song."

About the song, Kate herself has said-

“I was trying to say that, really, a man and a woman 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. And really the only way I could think it could be done was either... you know, I thought a deal with the devil, you know. And I thought, 'well, no, why not a deal with God!' You know, because in a way it's so much more powerful the whole idea of asking God to make a deal with you.”

Alternative rock band Placebo covered "Running Up that Hill", releasing it originally on the bonus disc of their 2003 album Sleeping with Ghosts, then featuring it on Covers and the US version of Meds in 2007. Placebo's take on the song is more downbeat than the original. 

The song also featured in many popular television series, The Vampire Diaries, The O.C. and Bones. 

The song has been lent an extraordinary feel by Placebo which haunts you in amazing ways and justifies the band’s incomparable brand of dark, licentious rock beautifully.