‘Running Up That Hill’: Kate Bush’s reflective look at gender roles
Not even Kate Bush could predict the new meaning that would be applied to ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’ in the 21st century. With a resurgence heavily springboarded by Stranger Things, Bush’s sonic opus has transitioned into a thing of supernatural grandeur and the kind of mystique that heavily belies its original themes, which weren’t intended to venture out so heavily and into the otherworldly cinematic realm at all.
With a thumping intro and electro-synth on-beat, it’s a wonder how anyone’s ears wouldn’t prick up when the song starts playing, especially when its emotionality immediately presents itself in the ethereal arrangements before Bush’s haunting voice begins. And when she does arrive, it’s with the kind of heartfelt inevitable outburst that became her fortè: “It doesn’t hurt me,” she sings before asking the question that sets up the entire message: “Do you want to feel how it feels?”
Bush originally wrote the song to explore what it would be like for a man to swap with a woman in a strained relationship. In this pairing, the love and connection have already been there, likely for a long time, but different frustrations threaten to disavow everything they worked towards and overthrow their bond, mainly because of their inability to understand each other’s perspectives.
It’s a familiar setting: disagreements that once seemed like harmless tiffs soon become a basis for a fundamental relationship breakdown, with each side unable to see eye-to-eye because they physically can’t, not because they don’t want to. And if they could—even for a moment—step into the other’s shoes, they would understand, and their problems would dissipate. In the song, Bush presents this longing for a trade of places so that every challenge can start to be overcome.
This prophetic “deal” she makes centres around the core of the quest (“It’s you and me”) and handles a situation that could never really happen, giving rise to a yearning for empathy while utilising emotive language to hint at the possibility that they may have passed the point of no return. This tension reaches a heavier climax in the second verse when Bush acknowledges that the intention is not to hurt, but to view the world through the other’s eyes to appease the “thunder in our hearts.” The emotional intensity then deepens as she sings, “Is there so much hate for the ones we love? Tell me, we both matter, don’t we?”
While this doesn’t overtly point to stereotypical gender roles, the vulnerability and emotional depth subtly challenge the traditional expectations of strength and emotional restraint, reflecting on the struggle to reach a middle ground when two people develop such opposing experiences. Interestingly, knowing that the entire prospect of the “deal” could never happen in real life, Bush also chose to associate such a divine possibility with God rather than the devil, inverting the darkness in strained relationships to become closer to spirituality for good, rather than paralleling sinister lines.
This also enhances the theatrical feel of the track, veiling its entire feel in a mythical context while placing the struggle between a man and a woman in a biblical light rather than one that exists solely as an interpersonal conflict doomed to fail. While this heightens the stakes, it also connects their anguish with redemption rather than a simple breakdown of emotions and something that likely everybody has experienced in the past. As a result, it holds timelessness, forming the perfect ground for use in texts like Stranger Things, with its pre-existing grandeur allowing for almost any supernatural context, so long as it concerns intense emotional turmoil.
