When Stranger Things dropped the first installment of its final season, it offered a resolution to the series’ otherworldly adventures. Set in the 1980s, the show also offered many fans an introduction to Kate Bush, whose haunting electropop track “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” was used to score a pivotal scene. The placement clearly provided more than a quick hit of “remember the 80s” nostalgia. Since the series’ season premiere on May 27, the 1985 single had an 8,700 percent increase in global streams, making it No. 2 on Spotify’s Top 50 U.S. chart and No. 4 on its Top 200 global chart.
To those who might just be starting their journey into Kate Bush’s twisted world, welcome! Her cultural impact hasn’t been as pronounced as, say, David Bowie’s (whom she called a friend) or Prince’s (whom she collaborated with). But for fans, she’s been the high priestess of cool long before Eleven and the gang entered the Upside Down. Let’s put it this way — if you’ve ever enjoyed Tori Amos, Florence and the Machine, Fiona Apple, or Adele, you have Bush to thank for showing them the way.
While it’s impossible to boil down a 44-year career into perfect, bite-size highlights, we’ve done our best to make diving into her 10-album career slightly less intimidating. From artsy Christmas specials to the power that compelled Big Boi to cross the ocean, here are just a few reasons to love Kate Bush. To paraphrase Stranger Things, will she ever lose her power? Never.
Gaining her first fan in Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour
No one molded Kate Bush. She wrote “The Man With the Child in His Eyes” with a hot-pink pen when she was 13 years old, a haunting track about a relationship between a young girl and an older man (who may or may not exist) that solidified her status as a child prodigy. However, it wasn’t until Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour offered a recording assist to the then-16-year-old that her demo tape caught the attention of EMI Records. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, was released three years later.
“The Wedding List,” 1979 Christmas special
Shortly before the release of her first album, Bush enrolled in interpretive dance classes and mime training, which contributed to her expressive, wide-eyed performances. By 1979, she had enough creative capital to put all her skills spectacularly to use during her BBC Christmas special. Traditional? No — try a fever dream that featured staged fights, multiple appearances from Peter Gabriel, and “The Wedding List,” a gorgeously deranged sequence that starts with a reference to Francois Truffaut’s The Bride Wore Black and ends with death, destruction, and some truly superlative emoting.
Hounds of Love, 1985
Mentally wrecked after recording and promoting The Dreaming, Bush moved to Kent, England, and embraced life in the countryside. It was that retreat that inspired her fifth album, Hounds of Love, a self-produced release that featured horror-film quotes, rain machines, and Bush at her most bewitching. (Reportedly, she claimed to have never heard Madonna and cited famous philosophers and Bach as inspirations.) “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” the story of a man and woman wanting to gain empathy by swapping places (“Is there so much hate for the ones we love?/Tell me we both matter, don’t we?”), dropped the deity-referencing parenthetical in its title for the single release in order not to stifle radio play in heavily Catholic countries.
Literary inspirations
Bush left school shortly after doing mock A-levels (the equivalent of getting a high school diploma in the United States), but her work has graduate levels of literary references. Reportedly, Bush was so inspired by Emily Brontë’s work that she began writing and recording “Wuthering Heights” before she finished reading Brontë’s iconic novel. The 1989 track “The Sensual World” was based on James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses. Bush reached out to Joyce’s estate for permission to use his words, and when she was denied, wrote her own. (Eventually, she was granted permission and rerecorded the song with new lyrics for her 2011 album, Director’s Cut.)
In 2007, The Golden Compass filmmakers approached Bush about creating a new song for the closing credits — she responded with the celestial-sounding “Lyra,” which she recorded in under 10 days.
With a little help from her friends
Kate Bush’s Rolodex is as deep as you’d expect. In 1993, she invited Prince to collaborate on the Red Shoes track “Why Should I Love You?” (As a discerning collaborator, he obviously agreed.) Elton John appeared on the track “Snowed in at Wheeler Street.” Meanwhile, Donald Sutherland appeared in the “Cloudbusting” music video, and mega-fan Stephen Fry joined her for a spoken-word interlude on “50 Words for Snow.” The parade of names will continue — last year, Big Boi, who met Bush in 2014, teased a “monster” collaboration.
Finding space between The Red Shoes and Aerial
After recording and releasing The Red Shoes, Bush took a 12-year hiatus before dropping Aerial in 2005. Alas, the story that she showed a record executive a row of cakes in response to being asked what she was working on isn’t true. However, given Bush’s policy of letting her work speak for itself, it’s an urban legend that’s easy to believe. Even today, her social media is rarely updated, tours are sporadic or nonexistent, and she’d probably rather bake a cake than speak with a journalist. Is Bush a witch, goddess, or alien? Believe whatever you want — she’s not in the business of correcting misconceptions.
Family life
While Bush has experienced the kind of career that can certainly stand on its own, there’s no discounting the role her family has played. While she didn’t announce the birth of her son until two years after the fact (and even then, it was Peter Gabriel who spilled the beans), her son, Bertie, has become a major player in her career, singing backup and encouraging her to perform live. Likewise, her husband, Dan McIntosh, is a member of her backing band.
Bush’s role as a mother and wife has also inspired her music. In 2018, she rerecorded the Sensual World single “This Woman’s Work,” creating a sparse, heartbreaking alternative version informed by her own lived experiences.
Her brief return to the stage
In 2014, Bush announced a residency at the Hammersmith Apollo in London — her first time performing live in more than 35 years, due to stage fright. (Yup, three and a half decades — that’s not a typo.) Over the course of a month, she thrilled fans with a combination of puppetry, video projections, dance, and, of course, the kind of vocals that have inspired 6 million hits for the Google search “Is Kate Bush a witch?” And while there are no plans for her to perform again or even release footage from the residency (even if she does occasionally drop a message to fans), here’s hoping Stranger Things can summon another musical miracle.
Laura Studarus is a Los Angeles-based travel writer with bylines at Fast Company, BBC Travel, and Thrillist. Sometimes she can go several hours without a cup of tea.
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