Kate Bush praises Brisbane choir on ‘Running Up That Hill’ cover
‘Running Up That Hill’ has been resurrected by hit Netflix series Stranger Things
Kate Bush has praised a choir from Brisbane for their “utterly wonderful” cover of ‘Running Up That Hill’.
Pub Choir performed ‘Running Up That Hill’ two weeks ago gathering a crowd of around 1,600 people who sang along to the hit.
Bush’s 1985-released track bounced back into the charts internationally after its resurgence in season four of Netflix’s Stranger Things.
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“Dear Brisbane Pub Choir,” starts Bush’s message (via The Guardian). “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!”
Brisbane’s Pub Choir founder and director Astrid Jorgensen told The Guardian about the experience of hearing Bush’s reaction.
“My manager called me and said, you’ve got to get home, Kate Bush has emailed. I ran straight back – I was literally running up that hill,” Jorgensen said.
“It is so wild. She is the biggest artist in the world right now, so to have her say she was moved by our performance, yeah, that is a peak.”
Jorgensen added that they had put in a licensing request with Bush’s publishers some time ago to cover the song. “The response we got back was pretty much, ‘Good luck – we’ll ask, but maybe plan for a different song,” Jorgensen said.
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Bush gave permission 10 days before the show. “Even that was a massive deal, the idea that she approved,” she said.
Jorgensen says that she can sometimes “feel a bit cursed by songs we cover, as I have had to think about it so much that I won’t want to hear it again for a bit”.
She continued: “But I just came to love ‘Running Up That Hill’ more and more, every time I dug in, it is so complex and unique. So it is very, very cool to have her permission to begin with, then validation that we did OK.”
Watch the choir's performance of ‘Running Up That Hill’ below.
Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter