Kate’s official site now has a Little Shrew T-shirt available to pre-order, featuring an image of Little Shrew on the front and the following lyrics on the back: “THE WORLD IS SO LOUD, KEEP FALLING, I’LL FIND YOU”
Also available to buy now are packs of 5 Snowflake Christmas cards featuring the artwork from the back of The Polar Edition illustrated reissue of 50 Words for Snow and including a decorative envelope.
Wishing Kate a very happy 66th birthday today! Hope you have a wonderful day, Kate. Xxx
UPDATE AUGUST 15TH: Kate has thanked fans on her official site for their birthday wishes:
Thanks for the Birthday wishes
Hope you’re all enjoying the summer although it seemed rather reluctant to arrive. I really loved all that rain!
Thank you so much to everyone who sent through birthday wishes. They’re very much appreciated.
It’s really lovely to know that you’re out there with your positive messages amongst all the negativity in the world right now.I also want to say a big thank you to Shepherd’s Bush railway station.
Some friends sent me the notice board above.
It’s such a lovely gesture and I’m very touched.Best wishes,
Kate
Kate has posted a very thoughtful and reflective Christmas message on her official site, attempting to find the Christmas spirit in a troubled world! Lovely to hear from her, as always. Happy Christmas, Kate!
I hope you’re all looking forward to Christmas – just around the corner now. I wasn’t much looking forward to it, but in the last few days, I really am.
I was very excited to see the positive feedback about the reissues and the redesign of the website. It’s been a lot of work, but when you see such lovely comments, it all makes it worthwhile. It really does. Thank you so much.
What a year it’s been. I’d always hoped that the human race would become more spiritual, gentle creatures as we moved into the future but it has proved to be the absolute antithesis.
The world is at war while the planet burns…. What is going on?I‘m among a group of friends who don’t watch the news any more. It now seems to be a global trend. Of course we want to stay informed but sometimes elements of the visual reporting feel horrifically voyeuristic.
I’ve tried to write this piece three times so far, looking for something positive to focus on, but that’s been hard to find.
I stand in awe of running water. Especially hot, running water. It is a miracle. You turn on the tap and hot, clean water gushes out of the tap. A miracle! Yes, but then I think about the people caught in the many wars that are raging right now and at the very heart of these are the children caught up in the wars. They don’t always have clean water and they really need a miracle. Christmas is a time for little children: a time of wonder and the promise of magic… looking towards a new year, to a future.
It makes me feel so lucky that we can celebrate Christmas in the way we do, but also so sad. The effect of war on all people is massive, but on children…
It’s so incredibly important that charities like War Child, UNICEF and the NSPCC are there to support and help children. Their incredible work might be more important than it’s ever been when the modern world seems to make few concessions for children at the hands of evil created by adults.
I hope you all have a really wonderful Christmas, with the promise of magic, and let’s all pray for a year ahead that brings us some opportunities to talk about happy things.
Best wishes,
Kate
As was promised earlier this year when Kate moved her distribution to The State51 Conspiracy, special presentations of Hounds of Love have just been announced on Kate’s newly re-launched official Fish People site. And they are quite extraordinary. They include an “illustrated vinyl” 12″ edition (known as the Baskerville Edition) as well as the album being presented on two boxes (called The Boxes of Lost at Sea). Additionally, the coloured vinyl we reported on last month is available to pre-order. Elsewhere, the new site features new notes and specially chosen footage by Kate on all of her albums as she reissues her full album catalogue.
The 12″ vinyl Baskerville edition (available from December 1st, pre-order here) features new illustrations by Timorous Beasties on the front (shown above – two hounds!), centre gatefold (Kate, being hoisted by sea creatures, in her life jacket with flashing solar powered red LED light!) and back (including a solar panel to charge the light battery in daylight!). The inner sleeve features the Cloudbusting silhouette. The Baskerville Edition of Hounds of Love is intended to be the first in a series of illustrated editions of Kate’s albums. The Dreaming will be the second in the series of illustrated editions, also illustrated by Timorous Beasties. This will be released in time for Valentine’s Day, 2024. More details will be available nearer the time.
The site says that “the best way to charge this solar panel is in bright sunlight (but not with the vinyl LP, it might warp!) In that situation it will charge really quickly, within ten minutes. Smoked glass doesn’t work well at all and neither does a very cloudy day. LED indoor lightning won’t work at all, but halogen lightning should be good. Do not put the solar panel closer then 10 cm from an artificial light source as this could cause heat damage to the solar panel. We hope you will experiment and please be patient if it’s a little temperamental. This is an innovative idea and designed to be environmentally friendly.”
The Baskerville Edition is accompanied by a beautiful new Cloudbusting-themed video which depicts a young Peter Reich (actor Gus Turner) receiving the record and telling his story. Extremely touching! See it below.
On the official press release for the reissues Kate says:
It’s been great fun putting together these new versions, including coloured vinyls for independent record stores. They’ve been designed as a ‘set’. It’s very exciting to see the resurgence of appreciation for the physical presence of albums released on vinyl. It’s how it’s always been for me, especially when I was a teenager. The whole buzz of the record store was part of the experience. Buying an album was an event. There’s a special emotional connection that happens between the possessor of an album, the music and the artwork, when it exists in the real world. It’s something we can treasure in a unique way.
Kate Bush, November 2023
If that wasn’t enough Kate has created two pieces of wall art, The Boxes of Lost at Sea (available from December 1st, pre-order here), each consisting of two boxes, each containing one side of the Hounds of Love album. In a second accompanying video, Kate explains via on-screen text, that she was inspired to expand upon a piece of work she first created for a special War Child charity auction in 1994 (see our news item here on the original artworks). Kate was thrilled to find the ITV clip of her idol, David Bowie, admiring her original artworks.
The boxes, which can each be wall mounted, also feature flashing LED lights powered by two AAA batteries. A donation will be made to War Child with each box that’s bought.
Kate says: “The idea was to create a hybrid of an album and a piece of artwork you could hang on the wall. They’re based on something I designed for an auction for the charity War Child”
Inside The Boxes of Lost at Sea are two vinyl records, described as “UV print on a side without grooves, on white vinyl.”
Like the 1994 original piece, each has an inscribed plaque, with versions available for pre-order in a braille version also:
The boxes are also accompanied on Kate’s updated site with an unboxing video which features a voiceover by Sir Ian McKellan!
Fish People are also reissuing the regular vinyl and CD versions of Hounds of Love and believe it or not (Stranger Things fans, ahoy!) a newly reissued cassette version – all three out on November 20th as previously reported. Elsewhere on the site, you can pre-order something for “those cloudbusting kind of days…” ……a rather fetching umbrella!
A momentous milestone today, Kate has surpassed 1 Billion streams of her song Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) on Spotify! It is, of course, the first of her songs to do so in the modern streaming era. Kate becomes the first female artist to hit this milestone with a song released in the 1980s. In that crazy whirlwind of chart activity and success in 2022 that followed the song going viral and becoming her biggest career hit to date, it was often difficult here on the news site to get a satisfying snapshot of this truly global phenomenon that occurred. How could we illustrate how massive a brand new hit the song had become and the sheer number of people around the world who were now listening to it? What helped greatly to show this were two sources in particular, the Billboard Global 200 chart and also the daily/weekly Global charts on Spotify. In this article we’ll explore just how significant Kate’s achievment is.
Update: Kate has added a lovely post to her official site (appropriately accompanied by a NASA photograph of the Ganges river delta) clearly blown away by today’s news!
Why is Kate’s achievement such a big deal?
Reaching 1 billion streams with a song on Spotify really is a huge deal in 2023. So much so that only around 400 songs have managed this feat in Spotify’s history, the VAST majority of them, as you might expect from a service launched in the last decade, are songs recorded in the 2010s and 2020s – only 10 other songs from the 1980s have achieved it.
This is why Kate is in very rarified company in terms of music released by artists from the 1960s-2000s – Spotify’s user base skews younger, and much more contemporary – the “Billions Club” is full of the likes of Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Post Malone, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Drake, Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa. In fact other established, huge-selling acts from previous decades like Madonna, Whitney Houston, U2, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, ABBA, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and many more have yet to achieve the “billion” with a song as Kate has done. The Beatles only achieved their first billion streaming song last year with Here Comes The Sun.
Spotify also has all 400+ songs included in their popular Billions Club playlist below and fittingly they have revamped the cover photo of the playlist this evening!
How did Running Up That Hill do it?
Since hitting just over 8 million streams a day at its peak last June, Kate’s song has continued to reach almost 1 million streams daily ever since, and a year later this has now nudged her total streams past the 1 billion mark. Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming platform with over 80 million songs and updated streaming numbers are made available each day. When the Netflix show Stranger Things first catapulted Kate’s 1985 hit back into the charts in early June 2022, it represented an 8,700% increase globally in streams of the song on Spotify. The day Stranger Things launched on May 28th the song achieved a whopping 1 million+ streams – but that was just the tip of the iceberg! The following week saw the song rise to the number 1 position in the Spotify chart globally, with 57 million+ streams in one week alone and averaging over 8 million streams a day. Kate’s achievement that week has put her firmly in the All Time Top 20 most streamed songs ever in a single week on Spotify, and only 13 other No.1 songs on Spotify have achieved more average weekly plays.
Kate would reach the weekly summit of the Spotify weekly chart twice more in July, AND a staggering 17 individual days on top of the daily global chart in June and July. By the end of September she had racked up over 600 million streams since May. Kate remained in the Spotify Top 100 well into December, even receiving a considerable boost again around Halloween when the song was clearly being used in all manner of Stranger Things themed parties. Running Up That Hill continues to achieve almost 1 million daily streams to this day.
Does she get an award or something?
Yes, Spotify will send Kate out a special plaque celebrating her 1 billion streams success. As the Spotify logo on the plaque takes the form of a silver bowl shape, several artists have celebrated their achievement on social media by posting photos of them eating out of it. Others, like the singer Shakira above, are happy to simply pose with the award and thank their fans etc.
Was the Spotify success mirrored on the Billboard Global 200 chart?
Resoundingly, yes! Kate achieved a jaw-dropping chart run on this truly World chart-of-charts, which each week ranks the top songs globally and is based on digital sales and online streaming from over 200 territories worldwide. Kate had the biggest song in the entire world for three weeks!
(Many thanks to Brian Cloughley for creating the graphic at the top of this feature!)
Well, it’s a case of fourth time lucky for Kate as she is officially announced today to be one of the seven music acts to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the USA along with Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow, George Michael and the Spinners. Congratulations to Kate!
UPDATE: Kate has responded to the news on her official site:
I have to admit I’m completely shocked at the news of being inducted into the Hall of Fame! It’s something I just never thought would happen.
Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me. It means a great deal that you would think of me. It’s such a huge honour.
Now as part of the initiation ceremony I get to find out about the secret handshake… there is one, right?
Kate
Eligible for nomination since 2004 (nominated artists must be at least 25 years into their careers), Kate had previously been nominated in 2018, 2021 and 2022 before finally being inducted this year, her massive US chart success last year perhaps making this inevitable.
These honorees will be celebrated in an induction ceremony and concert to take place November 3rd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Obviously there is no word as of yet if Kate wishes to attend or perform at the ceremony. Hall of Fame president and chief executive Joel Peresman told Rolling Stone that he hoped Kate would perform at the induction ceremony: “We open that door. It’s up to her.” If she did perform, it would be her first live performance since her 2014 London concert residency, Before the Dawn. More about the Hall of Fame inductees here.
There are six more inductees beyond that list, with the distinction of being selected by a select Hall of Fame committee to join the seven performers who were voted in via general balloting. These are singer Chaka Khan, instrumentalist-producer Al Kooper and lyricist Bernie Taupin, all in the “musical excellence” category; pioneering rock guitarist Link Wray and hip-hop originator DJ Kool Herc in the “musical influence” division; and “Soul Train” TV host Don Cornelius as the recipient of the annual Ahmet Ertegun Award.
It was very sad to hear today that the wonderful Scottish guitarist, Ian Bairnson, has passed away after a long battle with dementia. The news was confirmed by a post on his wife Leila’s Facebook page. Ian played guitar on many tracks on Kate’s first two albums and also backing vocals on Oh To Be In Love and beer bottles on Room For The Life. Later he recorded bass voices on the song Delius and went on to play guitar on Leave it Open from The Dreaming album. He is probably best known to fans for his iconic guitar solo on Wuthering Heights which closes out Kate’s hit single. His stunning work on these songs will forever have a place in our hearts.
Update 21st April: Kate has added her thoughts on Ian’s passing on her official site:
I was very sad to hear the news about the death of Ian Bairnson. He was a very sweet man.
He was a huge talent and had a fabulous voice with an extraordinary vocal range but he was mainly known for his guitar work.
We lost touch after we worked together on my early albums but I remember he had a lovely, warm smile and he played the inspired solo on Wuthering Heights with a broken arm. He was still wearing the cast! He was in a lot of pain but soldiered on and like all great artists, he truly suffered for his art.
Making my first album was pretty daunting and I was working with people I’d never met before. Ian was kind and supportive and that meant such a lot. Thank you, Ian.
Kate
He was a session guitarist before joining up in 1973 with former Bay City Rollers musicians David Paton and Billy Lyall in the band Pilot, and contributed the harmony guitar parts to their hit single, ‘Magic’. Ian was best known for being one of the core members of The Alan Parsons Project. A glittering career included work on over one hundred albums and a huge amount of live work with artists such as Al Stewart, Joe Cocker, Jon Anderson, Chris DeBurgh, Mick Fleetwood, Neil Diamond, Sting, Eric Clapton, Beverley Craven and many more.
Sending our sincere thoughts and condolences to his wife, family, friends and loved ones today.
Interesting news this lunchtime, Kate’s official Fish People site and social media channels have been updated with a brand new logo design. The logo has been designed by Timorous Beasties who previously designed the Between Two Worlds sea/sky artwork for the Before The Dawn concert programme which later also featured on the Remastered CD box sets. (UPDATE: her site now also features some wonderfully hidden fishy secrets – see bottom of this post!) The updates come as she announces via her official site that from March 1st 2023 she is moving her album catalogue from Warner Music Group over to The state51 Conspiracy with the following albums:
The Dreaming
Hounds of Love
The Sensual World
The Red Shoes
Aerial
Directors Cut
50 Words For Snow
The Kick Inside (USA only)
Lionheart (USA only)
Never For Ever (USA only)
Kate will be re-releasing the Hounds of Love album in special presentations of vinyl and CD later in the year. A brand new range of Fish People merchandise featuring the new logo design has also been launched, including a soon to be released jigsaw, vinyl slipmats and aprons! The news item finishes with this note: “Fish People continue to have an ongoing positive relationship with WMG.” You can read more about The state51 Conspiracy here. Update July 2024: An additional Fish People logo beach towel has been added to the range.
UPDATE: Kate is clearly having a lot of fun with this business refresh! Be sure to click on the “O” of the word PEOPLE on the new logo on the landing page of www.katebush.com – it will reveal some wonderful, cryptic Fish People secrets! FISHY SPOILERS BELOW
From the hidden section behind Kate’s new logo :
Fish People were a civilisation which became lost around 900 BC. Little is known about them other than they walked out from the seas onto the land one day when no-one was looking. It is believed that they were centuries ahead of their time. Their culture was not defined by wealth or social status and they abolished all violence as they believed in the harmony of nature and the equality of all oceans.
Their mystical language was thought to originate from The Tethys Trench. They could speak simultaneously to all aquatic creatures and to most of the humans in the Western Hemisphere. There were certain frequencies in their language that could only be understood by small crustaceans and very young children.
The full meaning of where their distinctive letterforms came from, has been lost. Many believe that these originated from the complex migrational paths of birds and a cellular-level understanding of the underwater mammals that had moved around them.
Fish People were said to have walked back into the seas one night when everyone was having dinner and it was foretold that they would again return to land when their teachings would be needed to heal a wounded world.
Faber are publishing the paperback edition of ‘How To Be Invisible: Selected Lyrics’, by Kate, officially released 6th April in the UK and 9th May in the USA. The new paperback edition features a brand new introduction from Kate and a new cover design by Jim Kay. Can you spot the hidden KT symbol on the cover?
The book will be available to pre-order from today (18th January). A very limited number of signed copies will be released and can be pre-ordered from selected bookshops and record shops (including Waterstones and Rough Trade), from 9am on Friday 20th January (UK only).
Kate has also written a message in invisible ink in a very small number of the signed copies, which will be distributed at random: the notes will be revealed to the lucky recipients when they place the signature page under an ultraviolet light.
‘The greatest singer-songwriter of the past forty years, whose work is complex, ethereal and filled with so many secrets that one can listen to the albums for decades and still discover new delights every time [. . .] There’s not a spare word anywhere in Bush’s work. Everything means something.’ Irish Times
Update Thursday 12th Jan: Kate has written a tribute to Jeff Beck on her official site.
I’m heartbroken to hear the news. Jeff was a real one-off, He was so adorable and funny – incredibly lovable.
He was one of the greatest guitarists the world has ever known. We’ve lost one of our brightest stars and the heavens now have one of our heroes.
Kate
Jeff Beck, the celebrated guitarist who played with the Yardbirds and led the Jeff Beck Group, has died aged 78. Jeff played guitar on Kate’s song You’re The One from The Red Shoes album in 1993. Kate wrote in the fan club magazine at the time: “I love Jeff Beck’s guitar on this song – he is a big fan of The Trio (Bulgarka) and was very keen to work with their melodies in the song. The idea was for him to gradually “step into” the track and slowly make his presence felt, to end with an outspoken solo. I was really honoured to work with all the people on this album…”
In an interview with Del Palmer in Sound on Sound magazine in 1993, Del remembers the tech set up for the session: Jeff playing his signature Stratocaster for You’re The One in the control room with a tiny amp positioned underneath the front of the console and miked with a U87 positioned three inches away to the side and pointing in. “I was sitting at the console, Kate was to my right and Jeff was seated about four feet behind,” explains Palmer, “so she could talk to him and was able to both operate the deck and stand up to adjust the rack.” Kate had also previously worked with Max Middleton, a former member of Jeff Beck’s band on her album Never For Ever.
According to a Jeff Beck biography titled Hot Wired Guitar, Kate was somewhat surprised by Beck’s choice of guitar for the session, recoiling in horror at the sight of his Surf Green Strat! “She said it was the ugliest guitar she’d ever seen”, Jeff laughed. “She nearly vomited at the sight of it.” Mark Savage of the BBC summed up Jeff’s towering influence: “His tone, presence and, above all, volume redefined guitar music in the 1960s, and influenced movements like heavy metal, jazz-rock and even punk.” Our thoughts are with Jeff Beck’s family, friends and fans this evening.
Kate has posted a very thoughtful message on her official site this evening reflecting on a year of highs and lows and ending on a beautiful, hopeful note. Happy Christmas to you, Kate, an amazing year for your music around the world.
Every year seems to fly by a little faster. They say this happens as you get older, but there’s no doubt that the speed of life is accelerating at a greater rate than ever.
I don’t think any of us have ever known a year like this one. Life became incredibly frightening in the pandemic, but just as we think it might be over soon, it seems to keep going. It’s a bombardment – the horrific war in Ukraine, the famines, the droughts, the floods… and we lost our Queen. Many of my friends were surprised at how upset they were at her death especially as we aren’t royalists, but I think her passing became a focus for grief, for unexpressed loss that so many people had felt during the pandemic.
It’s been a crazy, roller coaster year for me. I still reel from the success of RUTH, being the No 1 track of this summer. What an honour! It was really exciting to see it doing so well globally, but especially here in the UK and Australia; and also to see it making it all the way to No 3 in the US. It was such a great feeling to see so many of the younger generation enjoying the song. It seems that quite a lot of them thought I was a new artist! I love that!
Again, thank you so much to everyone who supported the track and made it a hit.
I wonder where on earth we’ll all be at the end of next year? I hope the war will end. I hope that the nurses will be in a position where they are appreciated – they should be cherished. Let’s all hope that next year will be better than this one. I keep thinking about hope and how it was the last to fly out of Pandora’s box. Sometimes it’s all that seems to glow in the dark times we find ourselves in right now.
I used a little robin in some of my Christmas gifts to friends this year. I felt that this humble little bird, which symbolises Christmas could also symbolise hope in the context of Emily Dickinson’s beautiful words: Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
I‘d like to think that this Christmas when joy is so hard to find, hope will perch in all our souls. Merry Christmas!
All best wishes,
Kate
Kate has posted a message remembering her friend, the wonderful actor Robbie Coltrane, who died on Friday, aged 72. Robbie’s voice (“You must wake up!”) can be heard among those trying to rouse Kate from sleep in Waking The Witch. In 2011, he starred in the official music video for Deeper Understanding. He played the actor playing the subject matter of Kate’s song “Ken” in the Comic Strip Presents film, G.L.C. For millions around the world, of course, he’ll be known as the loveable giant Hagrid in the Harry Potter films as well as starring in the BAFTA-winning UK TV series, Cracker. Kate’s message from her official site:
I was very upset to hear the news about Robbie.
I’m really grateful that he agreed to star in a video that we made some years ago. It was incredibly exciting to watch him at work and to be in the presence of his deeply profound intelligence and earthy wit. He was so much fun. I’m really going to miss him.
I had so much respect for his many talents and his generosity of spirit. We’ve lost one of our great treasures…
Kate
Lovers of physical formats (and Kate collectors) rejoice! As Kate remains in the US Billboard Hot 100 Top 5 this week at No.5, with incredible radio airplay in the USA still, her US record label, Rhino, is releasing a two-track CD single version of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) on September 2nd! As with the original 7″ vinyl release, the single also includes Kate’s stunning, fan favourite song, Under The Ivy. It is almost three months since her 1985 hit was first heard on the Netflix TV show, Stranger Things, but the song shows no signs of losing its grip on the US public’s affections – it has been a phenomenon all summer. The direct order link from the Rhino Records site is here – this is a US release so shipping will be calculated based on being shipped from the USA. This is the first time the single has been issued on the CD format. So far there’s been no official comment from Kate on her website about this release.
From the shop description: “The first single from Kate Bush’s fifth studio album Hounds of Love, “Running Up That Hill” was originally released to critical acclaim in August of 1985. Available once again, this CD single stays true to the original, featuring period correct artwork and b-side “Under the Ivy.”
CD Tracklisting:
1.RUNNING UP THAT HILL
(A DEAL WITH GOD)
2.UNDER THE IVY
Well, it’s a fantastic, uplifting, moment captured on video that’s had almost 100,000 views on Facebook and it’s probably about to have a lot more. Brisbane Pub Choir, in Australia, have caught Kate’s attention! As they describe it themselves: “What happens when 1600 strangers have a few drinks, then learn to sing Running Up That Hill in three-part harmony? Turn up the volume and find out! Singing is for EVERYBODY! Thank you to Kate Bush for writing this timeless tune and for letting Pub Choir sing it. We hope we did you proud. Feel like having a sing with us? Join us at the pub some time!”
Kate has just written her response directly to them:
Dear Brisbane Pub Choir,
I’ve been so busy that I’ve only just had the chance to watch you all singing RUTH. It’s utterly, utterly wonderful! I love it so much! Thank you everyone. You sing it really beautifully. I’m incredibly touched by your warmth and all your smiling faces. Thank you!
With lots of love,
Kate
The choir organisers were quick to express their delight on their Facebook page:
KATE BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cancel all your plans. Quit your job. Throw all your books in the bin. Just sit down a minute and get a load of this. Life as we know it is over, and this email is all that remains.
We really did that, Brisbane.
According to a report in The Brisbane Times choir maestro Astrid Jorgensen was about to go for a run on Thursday morning, “up that hill” as it happens, when she checked her email on her phone.
“There it was. A personal message from the zeitgeist-defining Bush. “I ran home pretty fast,” Jorgensen said. “When we sent off the request for the song, the response that we got back from the publishers was pretty much along the lines of ‘have a backup plan, because this is probably going to be a ‘no’ because she doesn’t approve requests very often for the use of her music’,” she said.
“Even getting the song felt like a massive deal, and I told the crowd that on the night. “I think everyone felt like that was really special for us, but yeah, this is obviously a pretty big icing on the cake.”
A brilliantly erratic chord structure and a chorus that comes out of nowhere makes Running Up That Hill a difficult song to master in 90 minutes, but that was exactly what the Brisbane crowd managed. “It is a really complex song and I think that’s why her music has been so interesting for so long,” Jorgensen said. “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea at all times, but it’s complex, it’s never boring.”
The song’s distinctive synth riff was replicated by a string section, courtesy of the Queensland chamber orchestra, Camerata. “The song itself is about a total breakdown of communication in a relationship and begging God to change places with the person so you can understand each other better, so I felt like that is a fairly big, heavy message,” Jorgensen said. “Strings are kind of similar to human voices in a spooky way, so it felt like a nice little extension of the choir.”
Kate is this week back at No.1 on the formidable Billboard Global 200 singles chart, the one that covers the combined chart performances from around the whole world! She has knocked Harry Styles off the global top spot, the second time Kate has achieved this staggering feat with her song, and once again basically has “the biggest song in the world” as Billboard describe it themselves. In the USA today, thanks to ever-increasing American radio airplay and formidable download sales and streaming figures, Kate has climbed back up the US Charts to No.4, returning to her highest ever placing in the Billboard Hot 100! Can she climb even higher? This is her SIXTH week in the US Top Ten. Anecdotally, we are hearing from fans in the US that Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) is being played everywhere.
Kate has also climbed back up several other national charts; to No.6 in The Netherlands, No.5 in Germany and No.2 in Switzerland. Tomorrow we will see if she has risen further in the Canadian charts and that incredible Billboard Global 200, where she is currently back up to No.3. See Friday’s news post for more current global chart news, including Kate at No.1 in Ireland and Australia for the 4th time in each country.
Spotify updates: The song is at No.1 globally on Spotify this week, and yet again on today’s Daily Global chart, her 13th time topping it! Also very significantly, Hounds of Love has climbed to No.7 on the Global Albums Weekly chart on the world’s largest streaming music platform! Spotify have launched a newly curated “This is Kate Bush” playlist (see it below) that features 50 tracks from throughout Kate’s career and could well help listeners explore other corners of Kate’s catalogue. Her monster hit just continues to astonish.
NB: Have you downloaded your FREE copy of HomeGround Magazine‘s EPIC 134-page 40th Anniversary issue yet? All details and download link at this post here!
On her official website, Kate has graciously congratulated LF System who take over the No.1 position in the UK charts after Kate had a three week run at the top. The ACR rule now applies again to Kate’s track, so Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) has to achieve twice as many streams as other songs to achieve the equivalent in converted sales, hence the drop to No.3 on the chart. Kate writes:
Many, many congratulations on the UK No. 1 single for LF SYSTEM.
So many of you have loved the last two episodes of Stranger Things, released last Friday. We’ve received an overwhelming number of messages. I just want to say again, how very proud I am that RUTH has been included in the shows in some small way.
Thank you everyone for supporting RUTH with such positivity. It’s lovely to see the song continuing to do so well around the world – it’s just boomeranged back to No 1 in Australia!
Hope you can get a chance to enjoy the arrival of summer.
Best wishes,
Kate
Finally, something we haven’t linked here before was this solid hour-plus Youtube discussion about Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) from the Produce Like a Pro Youtube channel. It includes chats with those involved in the song and Hounds of Love album, such as drummer Stuart Elliott, engineer Brian Tench and engineer Nick Launay (talking about his work on The Dreaming).
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