# Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill
Kate Bush's 1985 single 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)' returned as a viral sound in mid-2022 after Stranger Things Season 4 made it the character Max's favorite song. TikTok and Twitter turned the track into meme audio, generational jokes, and remix material almost overnight.
## Overview
Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)' is a 1985 synth-pop track that got a full second life in mid-2022 as a meme sound and generational reference[1]. The song attached itself to a specific scene in Stranger Things Season 4 where the character Max is saved from the villain Vecna by listening to her favorite song through headphones, and that scene became the format people parodied everywhere[2].
The meme itself works in two main flavors. One is direct scene parody, usually a TikTok where someone acts out being rescued from a supernatural fate by whatever audio their friends stick in their ears[3]. The other is a running Twitter joke about Boomers, Gen Z, and the strange spectacle of a nearly 40-year-old Kate Bush track sitting at number one on iTunes in the same week Top Gun: Maverick opened[4].
## How It Spread
Within days of the season premiere the song was number one on the iTunes chart and hitting the top ten in the United States, Canada, and New Zealand for the first time[1]. Spotify streams of the track jumped 153 percent, and on June 9th, 2022 it became the most-searched song on Genius[1].
On TikTok the meme took off through scene parodies. On May 29th, 2022, TikToker @dantelij2 posted a version where a Spotify ad plays instead of the song during the rescue, racking up around 9.4 million plays[5]. Two days later, TikToker @baconwithsyruppp did the same bit with AirPods dying mid-rescue and pulled roughly 11.2 million plays[6]. A drill remix by @cswiff_music2 landed on June 3rd, 2022, and by June 9th, 2022, TikToker @adaamara had a meta joke about the sound's overuse that hit 2.9 million plays in a single day[7].
Twitter carried the generational side. On May 31st, 2022, @iMattClarke tied the Kate Bush revival to Top Gun: Maverick and the war in Ukraine as evidence that everyone had collectively decided to redo 1986[8]. On June 3rd, 2022, @cloudbusting posted an American Psycho edit of Patrick Bateman holding a Kate Bush CD, which earned around 15,000 likes[9].
## How to Use
The template typically borrows the Stranger Things rescue setup: someone is in mortal or emotional danger, a friend jams headphones on them, and the punchline is whatever audio comes out instead of Kate Bush. Common variants swap in Spotify ads, dying AirPods, or an unrelated song. On Twitter the format is usually text-only, pairing the song's chart resurgence with other 80s callbacks to joke that culture is running the decade back.
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill?
It is Kate Bush's 1985 single that turned into a meme sound and generational reference in 2022 after Stranger Things Season 4 featured it as Max's favorite song[2].
### Where did Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill come from?
The song was released on August 5th, 1985, from the album Hounds of Love, but its meme life started with the Netflix premiere of Stranger Things Season 4 on May 27th, 2022[3].
### What does Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill mean?
In the show it is the song that pulls Max back from Vecna, so the meme uses it as shorthand for 'the audio that saves you,' often swapped with something absurd like a Spotify ad[5].
### How do you use Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill?
People typically parody the headphones rescue scene on TikTok with a joke audio swap, or post Twitter jokes about the song's chart comeback alongside other 80s revivals[8].
### Is Kate Bushs Running Up That Hill still popular?
The song hit number one on iTunes and the top ten in the US, Canada, and New Zealand during its 2022 revival, and stays a classic reference tied to the Stranger Things scene[1].
## References
1. [https://deadline.com/2022/05/stranger-things-kate-bush-running-up-that-hill-no-1-itunes-1235035334/]()
2. [https://screenrant.com/stranger-things-max-kate-bush-song-meaning-explained/]()
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/running-up-that-hill]()
4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM]()
5. [https://www.tiktok.com/@dantelij2]()
6. [https://www.tiktok.com/@baconwithsyruppp]()
7. [https://www.tiktok.com/@adaamara]()
8. [https://twitter.com/iMattClarke]()
9. [https://twitter.com/cloudbusting]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/kate-bushs-running-up-that-hill
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