Halsey Covers Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ After ‘Stranger Things’ Resurgence

The “Without Me” singer sang the 1985 hit at Governors Ball Music Festival. The song is currently topping charts thanks to the Netflix series.
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Halsey performs onstage during the 2022 Governors Ball Music Festival Saturday.
Kevin Mazur via Getty Images

We’d like to imagine that Halsey spotted Sadie Sink in the crowd.

The “Bad at Love” singer covered Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” to the festival stage as the Saturday headliner for New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival.

The song has had a cultural resurgence thanks to heavy play and plot relevance on Season 4 of Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”

Not to give too much away, but in the latest season of the sci-fi series, Max Mayfield (Sadie Sink) listens to Bush’s song on loop as she struggles to cope with the death of her brother, Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), who died in Season 3. The song later reveals a weakness in the season’s new villain.

Thanks to it playing numerous times on the show, “Running Up That Hill” has been sitting pretty at the top music charts since the show’s season premiered on May 27. It is currently number one on Spotify’s Top 50 U.S. charts, number two on Amazon, number four on iTunes and number eight on Billboard’s Hot 100.

So, it’s very much a thing. And it’s very cool that Bush’s song is resonating strongly with a new generation of fans.

But, when it comes to songs getting repopularized thanks to films and movies, stranger things have happened.

Queen’s 1975 song “Bohemian Rhapsody” became a huge hit in the 1990s when it was lip synced with gusto by a bunch of metal heads in 1992’s “Wayne’s World.” And thanks to a very sexy wheel-throwing scene (which feels like a strange sentence to write in and of itself) the Righteous Brothers’ 1965 song “Unchained Melody” also saw a surge due to 1990’s “Ghost.” 

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