"Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" by Kate Bush - The Music of Stranger Things

0:18 Music. Hey y'all, and welcome back to another episode of Camp Nowhere, a Stranger Things podcast. My name is Joel. And my name is Lauren. We are so thankful you're here to listen to US process all things Stranger Things. We are in a miniseries we're calling the Music of Stranger Things where for the next couple episodes we are taking a deep dive into some key songs that are featured in the show. For this episode, we are focusing on one of my all time favorite songs, Running Up That Hill, A Deal With God by Kate Bush.

0:55 Oh yeah. We'll also reference the respective orchestral and piano arrangements by Rob Simonson and Rolf Meyer that were also used in Stranger Things. We'll also discuss the epic version of the song that's remixed with the Stranger Themes theme. And when we say deep dive, we mean a thorough song analysis and sharing lots of research we've done about the song itself, why it was written, as well as looking into the specific moments the song is used throughout the series. Exactly why was it chosen for those specific moments?

1:29 What kinds of different emotional implications does it have in resonating with the audience, and how does it affect or advance the overall plot of the series with that in mind? Spoiler alert. If you haven't yet watched Stranger Things in its entirety seasons one through 5, be warned. We will be discussing significant spoilers, so you need to go run up that hill to watch Stranger Things and then you can come come back and join us here. I'm never bored, y'all. OK, now that you've been warned, if you're a completely caught up on Stranger Things, go give a listen to Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, as well as the orchestral and piano arrangements by Rob Simonson.

2:10 And Roth Meyer, don't forget. Roth can't, can't forgive him. In addition to the epic version from the Season 4 finale, which can only be found on YouTube or Netflix. Yes, we have each of them. LinkedIn our show notes. Yeah. So for the first segment here, we'll discuss who wrote the song, when they wrote it. What was the historical personal context of that. Lauren, I know you were eager to do some research since this is one of your all time favorite songs. What did you discover? Oh so much. I learned so much.

2:43 So I found a feature by a group called Teach Rock and they said this Katherine Bush, which is Kate Bush, was born to an English father and an Irish mother on July 30th, which is Joel's birthday. Except 1958 and raised in a farmhouse in a village outside of London. Both Kate and her brothers John and Patty were exposed to music at an early age, so her father was an amateur pianist and her mother was an Irish folk dancer and Celtic singer. Bush studied violin and piano at school and as a teenager began composing songs, many of which were recorded on a reel to reel tape machine.

3:27 Through a family friend. A few of the recordings Bush made of her, some 200 songs, somehow made their way to David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Impressed by her work, Gilmore helped facilitate a record contract with EMI for Bush, who was only 16 at the time. And yeah, in 1979, Bush undertook the one tour of her career, a massive theatrical spectacle that ended tragically in the accidental death of her lighting engineer Bill Duffield. At a benefit for Duffield, Bush met Peter Gabriel, who we focused a lot on in our last episode, who helped introduce her to early digital musical technology.

4:13 Bush embraced this technology, which included rolling drum machines and the early digital CMI Fairlight synthesizer. Bush's digital experimentations continued with 1982's The Dreaming Album, which was produced entirely by Bush herself. She would actually go on to self produce all subsequent albums. Three years later, she released The Hounds of Love, which is regarded by many not only as her best album, but one of the greatest albums of all time. The Hounds of Love was the first album to reach the US charts, and it knocked off Madonna's Like a Virgin to claim the number one spot in the UK.

4:54 Kate Bush wrote, composed and produced the iconic song Running Up That Hill, A Deal With God, releasing it on the 1985 album Hounds of Love, which we are stoked to actually own on vinyl. Yeah, big shout out to our friend Yusuf for such a rad wedding gift. Shout out Yusuf, I might have shed a tear. It's all good. The song explores themes of misunderstanding and relationships, imagining a man and woman making a deal with God to swap places in order to understand each other's perspectives. So here's a snippet from an old interview where Kate Bush discusses the inspiration for the song.

5:35 You of course had the bigot singer running up that hill taken from the hands of Blav album. What inspired that song? That was the first song I wrote when we moved to the country. I think it was perhaps an expression of freedom from the things that I'd I'd felt before. But it's very much about love and the power of love and the frustration of misunderstanding with within relationships. And that if a man could become a woman and a woman a man within their relationship, that perhaps they'd understand a bit more about each other.

6:07 And that's the deal with God. Yes. It's crazy to think about how viral that song has become. Kate Bush posted on her own website on July 1st, 2022. After Stranger Things Season 4 was released, she posted this. Woohoo everybody. I just can't believe it. Number one, for the third week, we're all so excited. In fact, it's also starting to feel a bit surreal. I've just watched the last two episodes of Stranger Things and they're just through the roof. No spoilers here, I promise. I'd only seen the scenes that directly involve the use of the track, and so I didn't know how the story would evolve or build.

6:44 I was so delighted that the Duffer Brothers wanted to use Running Up That Hill for Max's Totem. But now, having seen the whole of this last series, I feel deeply honored that the song was chosen to become a part of their roller coaster journey. I can't imagine the amount of hard work that's gone into making something on this scale. I am in awe. They've made something really spectacular. Wow. Yeah, she's not wrong. Like we've mentioned in a previous episode, Season 4 is top tier. Yeah. Speaking of Season 4, let's dive into the particular seasons, episodes, and scenes where the song plays and maybe why we think they chose to use each specific version of the song during those specific moments.

7:28 I'll kick us off. Great. So running up that hill, a deal with God. It was first used in season 4 episode one. It's called Hellfire Club when Max is listening to it on her Walkman cassette player as she walks through the hallways of Hawkins High School. We'll dig into this more later on, but she definitely seems pretty detached, emotionally numb, clearly dealing with lots of grief. It's next used in Season 4, episode 4 called Dear Billy, which is, yeah, definitely one of the most iconic scenes in all of television.

8:02 A. 100%. Where Lucas, Steve and Dustin play the song in attempts to save Max from Beckna's curse, allowing her to escape his nightmare Red World thing. Rob Simonson's orchestral arrangement remix version of the song plays as Max has to run for her life to escape Beckna and when she finally snaps back to reality and falls back safely to Earth to be embraced by her friends. A slower piano dominant like orchestral version which is also by Simonson plays to end episode 4. We got to use a snippet of that scene here.

8:39 I thought we lost you.

8:57 I'm still here. I'm. Still here. I'm still.

9:10 Here, an epic remix which blends Running Up That Hill with the Stranger Things theme plays during the finale of Season 4 Episode 9, which is called The Piggyback as Hopper fights a Demogorgon in Russia while Steve, Nancy and Robin set Vecna on fire before Nancy shoots him out of the Creole house. Rough day for Vecna, yeah? This one's also too good not to share. You have already lost no?

9:44 You have. As for Season 5, the song returns as a critical musical motif and shows up again multiple times, essentially nearly every time that we see Max. So first, in Episode 1 entitled The Crawl, Lucas plays the song in the hospital as he's visiting Max in an attempt to awaken her from her coma. In Season 5, Episode 2 entitled The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler, Lucas plays the song again on the cassette tape for Max as he's updating her on how the final battle has begun and he's pleading with her to wake up while holding her hand.

10:33 So we'll play a clip of that now.

10:39 I've learned anything over the years.

10:43 It's never going to be that easy, Elsa. Amazing. She can't do this alone. She's going to need all the help she can get. She's going to need the party, the full party, which is why I'm here. The final battle, I feel like it started tonight. And Max can't win this without you. If my theory is right, we're running out of time, so if you're planning on resurrecting anytime soon, now, now is the time.

11:26 Even a sign would be enough to show me that you're still in there. Please Max, please wake up.

11:43 In episode 4 of season 5 entitled The Sorcerer, the song plays as Max is explaining to Holly how she heard Kate Bush playing while she was trying to find a way out of Henry Creel's memory loop. She says music has a way of finding you, even in the darkest of places. Max was forced to relive the memory of Vecna having killed her in Season 4, taking her prisoner. And then she found a gateway out running toward it as the song was playing. But then the cassette loop ended and Lucas dropped her hand, and so the gateway disappeared.

12:19 Before she could successfully escape. Henry found her, and so she had to retreat to a cave that he was too afraid to enter in in order to keep herself safe. Wowza. The song really is featured quite a bit in season 5 and we'll keep going. In Episode 6, entitled Escape from Camisots, Lucas is play. Lucas is playing the song again in the hospital next to comatose Max. Meanwhile, Max and Holly are trying to escape from The Cave in Henry's mindscape. Lucas then has to Sprint while holding the real Max and the cassette tape playing the song.

12:55 What a man. Yeah, yeah. While he, Robin, and Vicki are trying to hide from three Demogorgans, Robin thought he should turn the song off so the Demogorgans wouldn't be able to find where they're hiding, but he was unwilling as he was convinced Max was about to return to her physical body. Again, what a man. Yeah. The same piano dominant instrumental version of the song that was used at the very end of Dear Billy Episode 4 Season 4 that then plays as Max and Holly basically record their own podcast in the red world of Henry's mindscape before walking and then eventually running toward their own gateways back to their physical bodies.

13:36 It was definitely a call back to Season 4's Dear Billy episode. And then in Episode 7, called The Bridge, the song is playing in the cold open as Max finally awakens from her coma, surrounded by Lucas and some of her friends, before fading into the song when it's called I'd Like to Die. Yes, so a song is used a lot, especially in season 5. An observation here. Kate Bush's song serves as what's known as a talismanic song for Max's survival throughout seasons 4 and 5A. Talismanic song refers to a song that embodies the concept of a Talisman, often associated with magical or protective qualities.

14:23 The term talismanic likely then relates to the songs themes of magic and protection, as a Talisman is believed to bring good fortune or overt evil. So Kate Bush, in a rare interview on Woman's Hour on the BBC back in June 2022, said this in an accent much cooler than mine. And I thought, what a lovely way for the song to be used in such a positive way, you know, as a kind of Talisman almost really for Max. What's cool about this is it reminded me of how in the epilogue and the finale episode of season 4, Lucas, if you all remember, was reading to Max Stephen King's book The Talisman while he's visiting her in the hospital while she's in her coma.

15:09 Perhaps there's a connection there. That book could have been foreshadowing how in season 5, Max would potentially need some kind of Talisman to help guide her safety, protecting her from the evil of Vecna. Even more beautiful than that, though, is what Max says to Lucas in tears after she finally wakes up. She says It turns out this whole time I didn't even need it. I just needed you. Just you. So this whole time, like the whole gang thought Max is only going to be able to wake up with the help of Kate Bush, but in reality, she just needed to realize how incredibly essential her close relationships are.

15:51 Like, was the song helpful? Absolutely. But it seems that her ultimate lifeline back to reality was actually the love she experienced from Lucas and her friends. So it wasn't the Talisman that saved her. I think it was love that saved her, Yeah. Yeah, that makes me think about the scene in Season 4's Dear Billy episode at the cemetery when Lucas says to Max. Max, you know you can talk to me, right? Why do you keep pushing me away? I don't want a letter. Just talk to me, to your friends. We're right here.

16:25 I'm right here. I'm here. And Max doesn't respond. She just walks away, essentially continuing to push him away and making her more vulnerable to Beckman curse. At that time, she didn't yet realize just how critical relationships are in our lives. Yeah, which goes to show likely why the Duffers chose Running Up That Hill to be Maxes song. It's about how a man and a woman are struggling relationally, and so they wish they could make a deal with God to swap places in order to understand one another better in hopes of ultimately improving their relationship.

17:05 Music is so powerful. I mean, Robin and Nancy were able to figure out how music reaches parts of the brain that words can't. And so in a sense, it can be a lifeline back to reality. Perhaps this particular Kate Bush song, whose lyrics are about the great lengths someone would go in order to make a relationship right, is just the one Max needed on repeat to connect the dots for her That we can't survive in this world if we're isolated and disconnected from community. Like, if you think about it, it wasn't until her friends started playing the song that she started having all these beautiful flashbacks of sweet memories with her friends.

17:49 Whether that's going to the mall with Elle as their friendship was blooming, dancing with Lucas at the snowball dance. You know, hanging out with her friends at the movies or Trick or treating, hugging them as she's saying goodbye before some of them had to move to California. It's almost as if the song itself didn't save her, but rather the emotional significance and connection to her friends that the song represented did. When she finishes her her Sprint and breaks free from the trance that Vecna had her under, her friends immediately embrace her.

18:28 And Lucas says, I thought we lost you. Her responses. I'm still here, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it finally clicked for her, and it's as though she's responding to Lucas statement earlier that he and her friends are right here. It's like she not only escaped back Now's curse in that moment, but that she also broke free from the relational fog and distance that she had been putting between herself and her closest friends while she was still grieving over losing Billy. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, we're led to believe the reason that she's even under Vecna's curse to begin with is because he intentionally seems to select victims who have different trauma in their lives, right?

19:13 Like when she ran up that hill away from him, away from the darkness and toward the light, she was, in a sense, tearing down the walls of division and vulnerability that she had been hiding behind. That scene is pretty much one of the most powerful scenes in television history. It's my personal favorite scene in all of Stranger Things. And like, no matter how many times I've seen it, I, yeah, it brings me to tears every single time. Yeah, and we were talking about it the other day and I was just reflecting on Vecna's victims because Max was one of them.

19:53 And like you mentioned earlier, Max didn't need the song. She just needed Lucas. She needed close friendship. And yeah. And it just makes me wonder about Vecna's other victims because Vecna's other victims didn't escape, like from in Season 4, because you have like, first Chrissy and then you have Fred and Patrick. And it just makes me wonder like. You know, if if the song isn't what saved Max, but it's the relationships and the love that she that she had and that she opened herself up to receive, then why were Chrissy, Fred and Patrick not able to escape?

20:40 Yeah, well, I mean, to your point, Chrissy didn't seem to have any close friends. Like, we know she's dating Jason, but she obviously didn't feel like she could go to him to share about these different terrifying hallucinations she was having. Rather, she seemed to try to deal with those on her own. And Vecna, he lured Fred to the woods alone before killing him, and so Fred didn't really have any support system around him either. We don't really know much about Patrick other than like he's one of the jocks on the basketball team, which clearly wasn't the healthiest support system and his dad was harsh with him and would beat him.

21:24 He also lied to his team about where he had gotten a black eye from. So that leads us to believe that he wasn't really opening up to anyone about the trauma that he was experiencing in his home life. Yeah, yeah. So a common denominator is that all four Vegna's victims, they were all dealing with some sort of trauma, right? But Max was the only one who pieced together that she had to let her friends in on what she was going through. Definitely don't want to downplay the power of Kate Bush and running out that hill, but just wondering, does this mean there's something to be said about having strong relationships in our lives?

22:02 100% And then another common denominator is that all four victims, if you remember, they had been seeing the school guidance counselor, I think her name was Miss Kelly. And although we aren't exactly sure how much they were disclosing to Miss Kelly, Max seemed pretty closed off to her. You know, I, I can't entirely blame her. Miss Kelly seemed kind of suss. She was. Sketch. Yeah, and fans have pointed out that this is just interesting, that the key necklace that Miss Kelly was wearing had a clock on it and appeared to match the keyhole that's in Vecna's infamous grandfather clock.

22:42 So yet another plot hole unaddressed. I guess we'll never know if Miss Kelly had some kind of connection to Vecna somehow. But anyway, I I brought her up because apparently even if all four of them had been disclosing these different scary hallucinations they'd been having, that wasn't enough to save them. They don't feel a sense of close connection to Miss Kelly. Really. They all needed to be opening up to their closest family and friends about what? What they were dealing with internally. Yeah.

23:15 That's a good point. We definitely advocate for therapy and or biblical counseling, but also recognize that we need to have close relationships outside of that where we can bring our sin, our fears, our guilt into the light because that's where we find real freedom and healing. Oh yeah. And OK, so Joel, shifting gears slightly, I'm so curious what song would save you from Vecna? But a caveat, you can't pick a song that was played in any part of Stranger Things just to make it a little bit more of a challenge.

23:51 So yeah, what song would save you from Vecna? OK, so I thought long and hard about this, especially because this song would in theory have to be played on a constant loop until I've been broken free from Vegna's curse. Right, so then you better really enjoy the song. So I have to go with Escape from the City from a childhood video game of mine called Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. I know it's super nerdy. It's crazy. Yeah, I don't, I don't know what that is. Yeah, but but that's OK. You can find it on YouTube.

24:26 We'll have a link. For it. Yeah, but yeah, I I picked it because it's definitely one of the songs from my childhood. It's a fun, and it's also just like a fun 2000's rock song that would just really pump me up to run all the way up that hill. Yeah, I love that. Great choice. I'm going to have to check out that song. Awesome. Well, I'm a 90s kid, so I thought about it and I would have to go with the song 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins. And also I'll give a shout out to the Roma Symphony Orchestra because they have a really red orchestral arrangement of that song that I really enjoy too.

25:12 Yeah. So yeah. I mean, it's not necessarily from my childhood, but it the song just makes me think of autumn. And I love, I love that season. My dad is the one who introduced me to the song. And so that's like, we bond over music. Yeah. If you all haven't heard that song, it's a great one. Go check it out. Yeah, yeah, it's a great choice, dear. Thank you you've. Got a good choice in music. Yeah. OK. But back to Max's song. I think it's time we move into our next segment, OK, which is just talking about what was it like to hear Running Up That hill for the first time in Stranger Things?

25:53 Why do you think this song resonates with Max and with the audience to such a viral degree? Yeah, OK, honest confession. I genuinely hadn't ever heard the song prior to first watching Stranger Things, which for me was March of 2023. Not sure how I somehow avoided hearing it on the radio. I know it was viral at one point, but you know, I've never had tick tock or anything. And so when we first see Max in Season 4, Episode 1, like you mentioned earlier, she's listening to the song while walking through the high school hallways.

26:34 You can see how completely, like, dejected that she is. She walks right past Lucas. So it's clearly like they're not together anymore. They broke up off screen prior to the season. He even tells her it's like she's a ghost or something. So props to the Duffers and their music manager Nora Felder for choosing this song. I personally feel it fits perfectly. Not even just musically, but lyrically. It's so intricately tied to the overall plot narrative of the show. Honestly, I think that might be why they chose to blend the Kate Bush version with the theme song of Stranger Things in the epic version they used during the season 4 finale, because it just reiterates how intricately tied Kate Bush's song is to the whole heartbeat of Stranger Things.

27:25 And then hearing the orchestral mix of the song when Max is running away from Vecna. I mentioned it earlier, but it just, yeah, I mean, it's gripping. It brings me to tears every single time. I I think to your other question, one of the reasons this is Max's song is because she knows what it's like to go through relational struggles, distance and misunderstanding and relationships. Particularly I'm thinking about in her relationship with Lucas. Like we mentioned earlier, the lyrics are are about wanting God to cause you to swap places with someone so you can better understand them and vice versa.

28:04 I think we can all relate to that on some level. I think about the relational struggle that is it has existed before between me and different male Co workers who where we failed to see eye to eye on things. I can relate to wishing that God would help us to better understand the other person's perspective. I don't know what about you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I've experienced that just with female Co workers. Yeah, so maybe there's something to that. I mean, I remember in my communications course I took back in college, we learned just how differently men and women tend to operate and process things.

28:41 It goes to show how important empathy is, and not just listening to someone but genuinely seeking to understand where they're coming from. I think this was really important to Kate Bush as well. Apparently, I found out in my research, she originally wanted the song to just be entitled A Deal with God, but her record label had concerns that the the religious connotations wouldn't be received well by listeners. And so the compromise, because she didn't want to take it entirely out of the title. So the compromise was, it would be called running up That hill in parentheses, A Deal with God.

29:18 She wanted to emphasize that the man and the woman in the song wanted to take their relational struggles to God. And I love that. I think we have a lot we can learn from that, honestly. Yeah, yeah. And to your point earlier about why this song resonates for Max, and I wonder if it's not only because of the struggles with Lucas but also because of her lack of familial relationship with Billy. Oh, wow, yeah, I have intrigue. Could you expand on that a little bit? I hadn't thought about it in that way.

29:48 Yeah, yeah. So Max and Billy definitely didn't have a healthy brother or sister relationship. In her letter to Billy, Max said this.

30:01 I play that moment back in my head all the time.

30:06 Sometimes I imagine myself running to you, pulling you away. I imagine that if I had that you would still be here and everything would be everything would be right again. I imagine that we that we could have become friends, good friends. Like like a real brother and sister.

30:44 Yeah, I know. That's stupid. You hated me. I hated you.

30:53 But I thought that maybe, maybe we could try again.

31:03 But that's not what happened. I just, I stood there and I watched for a while. I tried to be happy, normal.

31:23 But I I think that maybe a part of me died that day too.

31:31 So admittedly, when I first watched season 4, I actually thought Running Up That Hill primarily as a Max and Billy song because of the guilt that Max wrestles with. And also like the timing of the Dear Billy scene because before that famous scene of Max escaping Vecna, Vecna taunts her by making hallucinations of Billy and blaming her for his death. She feels that Billy's death is her fault and that if she had been a better sister to him, then he may have not chosen the path of alcohol and just having bad influences.

32:09 And Max knew that Billy was hurting because she witnessed Billy's dad, which is her stepdad. She witnessed him physically and verbally abused Billy. And in situations like these where we feel powerless and she does what sometimes we'll do, which is where we just go down a should've spiral where she just blames herself for not trying to support him or be open with him. Wow, yeah, that's so true. She wishes, yeah. Like she wishes she could have better understood and supported Lucas and Billy. With Lucas, she she gets a second shot at that.

32:48 But with Billy, maybe part of the guilt and shame she's wrestling with stems from the fact that she didn't get to make things right with him before it was too late. Oh, man. Max really went through a lot. It. It breaks my heart. She's definitely my favorite character in the show. Yeah. And I think the love for Max is one of the reasons this song had the viral effect that it did. Oh yeah, You know, actually we we do have to touch a little bit on what's come to be known as the Kate Bush effect because it changed the music industry for artists in terms of going viral when their songs are used in in popular franchises like Stranger Things.

33:29 I actually found a clip from PBS that summarizes it pretty well. There's a very clear reason why this 1985 song is suddenly hugely popular, and it all has to do with the Netflix series Stranger Things. Running Up That Hill is kind of special in the world of the show because it has such an integral part of the show's plot. If you listen to your favorite song, then you can be protected by these evil monsters, and Running Up That Hill is the character Max's favorite song.

34:15 It not only acts as a music cube, it acts as this important plot device, and I think that's why anyone who watched the show immediately went out and streamed the song afterwards. And then from there it spread to people who had never seen the show. And all of a sudden, Running Up That Hill is one of the most popular songs in the world. Streaming data that illustrates just how much larger the pop was for this song than other songs that went viral. The phenomenon highlights how streaming and sync licensing can make legacy, non obscure songs become global chart toppers, introducing older music to new Gen.

34:54 Z and even Gen. Alpha audiences and generating millions in streaming revenue. And of course, social media. Yeah contributes to that. Oh absolutely. Virality as well. Yeah, the Duffers definitely strategically used Running up that Hill to drive the narrative of their show, and they recognize how unique the Kate Bush effect was and how it became an international phenomenon. In an interview with Soundtracking Extra with Edith Bowman, the Duffer said this. We don't want to just put in a song for fun.

35:27 We want it to. Sometimes we do, but mostly we try to make sure that it's it's either story driven or character driven. And I think those songs that have been most successful have fallen into that category. And can songs sometimes help with lead in something, whether it's, I don't know, kind of get into the core of a character sometimes or an internalization or something at times? Exactly, Yeah. And obviously sort of something that we, I mean, we started playing with really, I mean, on season 1 really with with Will singing the song to sort of comfort himself from the upside down.

36:02 We carried that forward into season 2 when they used the song in order to reach reach into actually and and talk to Will when he was possessed in a way by the mind flare. And then all that sort of culminated to the idea of Max and and the and the Kate Bush running up that hill scene. So I think for us, when it's most effective, it's when it's doing both the things that Matt was talking about, where it is, it is telling you something about this character and it's tied into, into the narrative as opposed to just going, you know, like sometimes we do, we'll have a scene and we'll like this, you know, a song can make this better and we'll just listen to 30 different songs over it and see what's the right vibe.

36:50 But generally that's not how we do it. Generally it's it's thinking about the character and the and the script and the narrative and, and trying to find the the perfect song for that moment. I imagine as well, kind of compared to then and now you've just got artists throwing their songs at you, whereas I imagine it's, you know, it's an expensive business getting, you know, kind of clearance on songs. And stuff. Yeah, it's gotten easier for sure, especially post Kate Bush, that that's when we started to have bands offering us some songs.

37:21 I love that the Duffers specifically chose the song because of their passion for the plot to be primarily character driven. I know we've discussed that before. With that in mind, let's dive into our last segment here, looking into the actual instrumentalization of the songs themselves so we can totally, like, compare and contrast the versions of the songs. Yeah. Yeah, so Kate Bush's version, We'll start with the OG. Kate Bush's version of the song features the Fairlight CMI Synthesizer Sampler. Notably, it's Cello 2 patch alongside the Lindrum machine, Yamaha CS-80 electric guitar, bass and balalaika.

38:05 I'm sorry, a balalaika, you lost me. What is that? I mean, other than being like a really fun word to say, yeah. Yeah, I yeah, I also had no idea. So I looked it up and apparently it is a traditional Russian stringed instrument with the distinct triangular wooden body. It's got a fretted neck and three strings. It originates from the 18th century, it's central to Russian folk music, and it's typically played with rapid strumming or plucking. Oh. Man, it's Russian. I wonder how Murray would feel if he knew that.

38:40 Yeah, I mean, he'd have to get over it and just become a Kate Bush fan because Max's life depends on it. And also, random fact for all of y'all out there, an episode of Gilmore Girls actually features a balalaika. Yes, and now the listeners know we've been watching Gilmore Girls. Yeah. OK, so then you have then you have Kate Bush's like layered, passionate, vocal performance. Yeah, yeah. Easily the best part of the song. The epic version, quote UN quote, of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, arranged by Rob Simonson for the Dear Billy episode, replaces a lot of the original instruments used with the full symphonic like cinematic sound.

39:22 It features sweeping orchestral arrangement performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra at Air Studios. It builds upon the original structure with dramatic strings. It's got some brass and woodwinds, percussion and cinematic soundscapes designed for a quote UN quote reverberant space. One thing to note about the chord progression is that for most of the song, the progression goes up. So like going from an A flat to AB flat to AC. So if you like, if you're on a piano and you play that, your fingers are going to move up, right?

40:05 And it's a pattern where the chords continually move upwards, which is really cool to me because it fits the idea of running up that hill. It's like the chords are painting the picture of. Moving upward and like you find that upward motion in the bridge, you find it in the chorus and for most of the verse, like most of the song. So Kate Bush is a genius, is what I'm hearing. I would say so, yeah. I also like how Kate Bush's vocals help give it a sort of mysticness, because the idea of making a deal with God and having people switch places like Freaky Friday, yeah, is weird.

40:48 Like it's a Mystic thing. And so I think the way that she sings communicates that, especially in certain parts of the verses where she'll sing like, certain things in the back of her throat, like where she's like, see how deep the bullet lies. Like she, she, she does. Yeah, she'll sing it that way. And I think it creates that, I don't know, kind of atmosphere. You got the background vocals in the verses. That you're also sung by her. Yeah, right. Yeah, Well, I think so. Yeah. It sounds like her, but yeah, you got her background vocals like yeah, yeah, yo.

41:26 And and especially the end of the second chorus, I love where she goes be running out that building Yo like she yes, I love that part and it and it also creates dissonance like that particular part of the yo that creates a dissonance against the chords that are underneath. I think that you should motion for you to record yourself singing that, and that can be our alarm in the morning from here on out. That'd be so fine. That would be amazing. I think I'm going to regret asking for that too late.

42:03 Yeah. So it's incredibly beautiful. It really does bring me to tears every time I watch that scene of Max running away from Vecna toward her friends, back to safety. And then she lands back down. She's she sees her friends, they're all crying. And then this softer, stripped down version of running up That Hill like instrumental starts playing this slower orchestral version, which was arranged by Rob Simonson and like Joel Said, performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra. It prominently features dramatic orchestral strings, a delicate piano solo, woodwinds.

42:42 There's a clarinet solo to create a slower, more emotional tone of the song. I found a similar cover on Spotify that's on my sleepy playlist and ooh baby, that'll just lullaby me right to sleep. Yeah, that scene when Max falls back to reality and Steve, Dustin and Lucas are there to comfort her is so gripping. What's cool too is that to mix things up, the Duffer's chose for the Kate Bush arrangement that plays when Max and Holly are running to escape in Season 5 Episode 6 to be a different arrangement than the Season 4 scene.

43:19 This Season 5 one is arranged and produced by Rolf Meyer. I wonder if they chose to do this so that each scene would have its own special moment. You actually hear less of Kate Bush thinking in this version, which makes sense because Max had just told Holly that it turns out she didn't actually need to have Kate Bush, she just needed something that would connect her to the real world. Like to her home. Yeah, which is good for Holly because I think Holly said something to the effect of, I don't even know, Kate Bush.

43:49 And then she also was like, I don't have a boyfriend. Yeah. I love how the example she that Max gave was that she could feel Lucas's hand holding her in the hospital. So their goals, for real. There have actually been different memes floating around social media that are like, if he ain't like Lucas and Claire, then I don't want him or pointing out how he's like a walking green flag. I'm very thankful I found me one of those. You're sweet, and so are Kate Bush's lyrics. Whoa, smooth transition. I try.

44:23 I try. So I know you briefly mentioned this earlier, but it's really beautiful to me that Kate Bush is focusing on wanting to make a deal with God rather than the devil. I'm it's very good that you're excited about her making a deal with God and not the devil. This marriage will last. Yeah, but seriously, there's been a long history in music about making a deal with the devil. Just a couple examples I thought of The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band, or even Poor Unfortunate Souls from The Little Mermaid.

44:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, that is the sad reality of the fallen world that we live in. And yet here Kate Bush emphatically, intentionally chose for the man and the woman in the narrative to take their struggles to God, almost pleading with him that he would help them to better understand one another. Yeah, that is very counter cultural, much like the upside down Kingdom of God, and definitely one of the main reasons I think we're so drawn to this song. Like that's beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. It's.

45:30 Is there anything else you wanted to mention regarding the lyrics? I mean, it would be pretty cool to see someone running up a building, right? Yeah, that seems a wee bit harder than running up that road or running up that hill. Man, we should have kept count of how many times we've said running up that hill during this episode. But in all seriousness, I think I just really appreciate the focus on empathy throughout the song. Like really seeking to walk, or I guess run in someone else's shoes is so important.

46:02 It's tough living in a sinful, broken world. And this song, though a secular song, does in some way model for us the importance of vertically seeking relationship with God so that horizontally we can have healthy, reconciled relationships with one another. Apart from Him, we can do nothing. True. Thankful to be running toward the cross with you, love. Always sweet. Well, I really hope and pray that we did Kate Bush justice in this episode. I think that about wraps it up for this one. Thank you all so much for listening.

46:36 If you enjoyed listening, please give us a review or rating on Spotify as this helps us reach other listeners out there in the ether. Totally. So our next episode will be a deep dive on the song Every Breath You Take by the Police. If you have any thoughts about that song or how it was utilized throughout Stranger Things, we would love to hear from you. You can contact us at [email protected] or on Instagram at our handle, Camp Nowhere Pod. Thank you all so much again, and we'll catch you on the next one.

47:09 See you all. Peace.