Kate Bush News

Kate’s now legendary single, Running Up That Hill, was released in the UK 40 years ago today on August 5th, 1985! It would herald the imminent release of her fifth studio album, Hounds of Love, and cement her place as one of the greatest music artists of all time.

The song, which she memorably performed on this day 40 years ago on the Wogan show on BBC1, became a massive global hit as recently as 2022 and we have extensively covered this song on our site and in several podcast episodes. Join us in September here at Kate Bush News as we celebrate the single and the Hounds of Love album on this 40th anniversary milestone!

As Kate turns 67 today, we all wish her a wonderful birthday full of magical things that make her happy. Sending our love and best wishes, Kate! You’re cherished by us all. xxx

In this new episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast, Paul and Darrell are back to talk about Kate’s prolific catalogue of videos. The Dreaming had one of her busiest periods of video output, although sadly most were not seen in their entirety until the Single File was released a year later. Sat In Your Lap, The Dreaming, There Goes A Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa are discussed in detail, and highlight how well they still stand on their own today. Kate and Paddy’s takes on the filming of each video are also quoted. Paul and Darrell, as always, go down memory lane, reminiscing about their first impressions of the singles and videos, and how they rushed to the record shops on each release date. They also talk a little bit about the release of ‘Little Shrew’ and other recent Kate news, with their own take of when they think Kate will release new work (with thanks to Kevin Hall for the photo collage).

You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes, Audible, Spotify or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Podcast Addict or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.

There will be exclusive screenings of cult-classic Comic Strip films plus a Q&A with writer and director Peter Richardson and guests as part of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe festival. Of particular interest to Kate Bush fans are the films GLC (soundtrack by Kate – as part of the 3rd August 1pm screening with guest Alexei Sayle, tickets here) and Les Dogs (starring Kate – as part of the 8th August 1pm screening with guest Steve O’Donnell, tickets here).

Here’s a bit of background on Kate’s involvement with the Comic Strip Presents TV films, in case you didn’t know about them. Kate had always long admired the new wave of alternative British comedians that rose to prominence in the UK in the 1980s, citing The Young Ones as one of her favourite shows.

This resulted in her duetting with Rowan Atkinson for Comic Relief in 1986, having Dawn French and Hugh Laurie star in her Experiment IV music video or later working on her own music and film projects with Lenny Henry (Why Should I Love You?), Stephen Fry (50 Words For Snow), Tim McInnerny (This Woman’s Work video), Robbie Coltrane (Waking the Witch and the Deeper Understanding video) and Noel Fielding (Deeper Understanding video).

By the time her Before the Dawn residency swung around in 2014, it was hardly surprising that guests attending included: Bill Bailey, Ricky Gervais, Dawn French, Frank Skinner, Stephen Fry, Jo Brand, Noel Fielding, Sharon Horgan, Stephen Merchant, Sir Lenny Henry, Sue Perkins, Steve Coogan, Stephen Mangan, Rick Grimshaw, David Walliams, Josie Lawrence, Simon Amstel, Sean Locke and even The Krankies! These were Kate’s people.

With Peter Richardson having directed Kate’s wonderful music video for The Sensual World the previous year, on February 15th 1990, BBC2 in the UK aired an episode of the comedy anthology series The Comic Strip Presents, called GLC: The Carnage Continues, written and directed by Peter Richardson. The 30 minute film parodied a Hollywood telling of the 1980s takeover of the Greater London Council (GLC) by Ken Livingstone (played by Robbie Coltrane) and the subsequent disbanding of that body by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, re-imagining the story as a Charles Bronson / Sylvester Stallone-style action movie.

Kate wrote and performed the instrumental score and theme song to the episode, called “Ken“. The lyrics include the line “Who’s the man we all need? Ken! Who’s a funky sex machine? Ken!” In 2014, Ken Livingstone said “I don’t know if you’ll be applying for tickets to go to Kate Bush’s new tour, but don’t forget, she did one great song – “Ken Is The Leader of the GLC” [sic] – which I’ve still got at home. It’s very good.”

The song appeared as an extra track on her 1990 single Love and Anger released 26th February, the week following the episode’s airing on the BBC, along with The Confrontation and One Last Look Around the House before We Go…, both from Kate’s instrumental score to the episode. The episode’s soundtrack also features other instrumental and choral pieces featuring Kate’s voice, Running Up That Hill, and an extract from Waking the Witch

Only a few weeks after the screening of GLC came another, even bigger, treat for Kate fans – on March 8th 1990, BBC2 screened the Comic Strip Presents episode, Les Dogs, again written and directed by Peter Richardson, which starred Kate in an acting role as a bride, Angela, in a surreal comedy film based around a wedding. “Les Dogs” are the band playing in a large marquee to celebrate the wedding of Geoffrey and Angela.

During the reception, the fathers of the groom and bride exchange insults and a gun battle ensues in which many guests, and Les Dogs, are casualties, though the happy couple escape. Victor (played by Peter Richardson), who wandered in on the scene, is asked to take wedding photographs and has a series of dreamlike fantasies all based around his infatuation with Angela. The film also stars Miranda Richardson, Alexei Sayle, Danny Peacock, Julie T Wallace, Tim McInnerny, Keith Allen, Adrian Edmondson and Steve O’Donnell.

Kate would work with the Comic Strip again by writing the song Home For Christmas for the episode Wild Turkey, written and directed by Peter Richardson, which was broadcast on December 24th 1992, Christmas Eve. The song featured in a scene between Ruby Wax and Phil Cornwell (the turkey!) and it also played over the end credits. The song surfaced on the 12″ single of Moments of Pleasure the following year and was remastered for inclusion on the compilation CD album The Other Sides in 2018. Peter Richardson would also have a cameo as a mad professor in Kate’s 1993 film, The Line, The Cross and The Curve.

Peter Richardson’s Edinburgh fringe screenings tickets: GLC (soundtrack by Kate – as part of the 3rd August 1pm screening with guest Alexei Sayle, tickets here) and Les Dogs (starring Kate – as part of the 8th August 1pm screening with guest Steve O’Donnell, tickets here). Thanks to Lisa Oliver for letting me know!

We’ve certainly been keeping an eye on streaming and digital services since Kate’s global smash hit with Running Up that Hill in 2022. And later this Summer something quite unexpected is likely to take place on the world’s biggest music streaming platform, Spotify. While none of Kate’s songs are now ever likely to overtake Running Up That Hill as her most streamed track, if daily streams continue as they currently are, Army Dreamers will supplant Kate’s signature hit single, Wuthering Heights, on the 15th August as her second most-streamed song on Spotify. We project it to reach in excess of 230 million streams in or around that date.

This milestone is significant for a couple of reasons. Firstly, of all of Kate’s well-known hits, even just a few years ago it would have been expected that only Cloudbusting, This Woman’s Work, Babooshka, The Man With The Child In His Eyes or Hounds of Love would be among the songs that could possibly challenge Wuthering Heights in global popularity, even on streaming services which traditionally skew to a younger demographic. Army Dreamers, while well-loved, never seemed to have the same traction as those huge hit songs.

Secondly, as we reported last year, Army Dreamers has captured the imagination of young people the world over and has become a viral sensation on TikTok and Instagram, with that demographic latching on to the beautiful sentiments in the song as they grapple with at least two dreadful major world conflicts happening on the news in Ukraine and Gaza. Kate is not unknown in the wider world anymore (thank you, Stranger Things) and here she is spelling out the futility of war in perhaps the most effecting way possible, through this achingly timeless song.

The Army Dreamers phenomenon has not, we imagine, been lost on Kate herself. We have reported in March that Kate has helped raise over £500,000 for the charity War Child in just the last year alone, with the release of her animated film Little Shrew, and the money raised from her signed Soundwaves art prints and Boxes of Lost at Sea vinyl presentations. And, if you visit Kate’s official Fish People website landing page today, you will notice that the Army Dreamers music video is presented in all its glory (in a good quality Vimeo stream) for fans old and new to enjoy. We’re also very fond of the “Mrs Mop” performance above that Kate did on Rock Pop in Germany in 1980, along with Paddy Bush, Del Palmer and Andy Bryant as her performing soldier pals.

The sequel to the hit 2022 sci-fi/horror film M3GAN has been released in cinemas worldwide. M3GAN 2.0 continues the story of an artificially intelligent doll (a model 3 generative android, hence “M3GAN”) who develops self-awareness and becomes hostile toward anyone who comes between her and her human companion. The first film grossed over $181 million worldwide against a budget of $12 million and received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its campy blend of horror and humor.

A pivotal moment in M3GAN 2.0 involves Kate’s classic song This Woman’s Work. According to writer-director Gerard Johnstone, a fan of Kate’s, he had designs on using the song for a while. Speaking to Forbes.com, he says “It was in the script, but in an earlier draft, it was another song because the situation was different and called for a different song. I wanted M3gan to sing This Woman’s Work over the titles of the first film, but we didn’t have enough time to seek out the rights. That was a fun idea I had that I didn’t get to do anything with. Once I realized the context of the scene in the sequel had changed and it was about motherhood, it felt like the most natural song choice.”

Johnstone, who wrote a letter to Kate personally, continues, “I’m a massive fan of Kate Bush, and in all honesty, we shot that scene not knowing if we would get the rights; we just had to hope and pray that we did. It took a little bit of convincing, and she had to see the scene to approve it, but she did. Kate didn’t take any money for it either. We gave her all we could afford, and she gave it to charity. That made me an even bigger fan.”

USA Today have talked about the scene in question: “It wouldn’t be a “M3GAN” movie without a killer needle drop. In the 2023 viral sensation, acerbic android M3GAN serenades the orphaned Cady (Violet McGraw) with a wispy rendition of “Titanium” by David Guetta and Sia. The trailers for its big-screen follow-up, “M3GAN 2.0,” have similarly deployed Chappell Roan and Britney Spears earworms.

But none can compare to the demented brilliance of a pivotal new sequel scene, in which M3GAN launches into “This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush. The jarringly hilarious performance comes after a rare earnest conversation between M3GAN and Cady’s roboticist aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), who worries about her shortcomings as a parent to her young niece. M3GAN uses the tranquil pop ballad to ostensibly console her, in her own disconcerting way.” M3GAN 2.0 is in cinemas worldwide now.