Meaning of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)

by Kate Bush · 2024

The song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” by Kate Bush is about longing to swap places with a loved one to overcome misunderstandings and emotional pain in a relationship, wishing for deeper empathy and connection.

This song has been Shazamed over 10,153,620 times. As of this writing, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) is ranked 32

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ by Kate Bush is a song from the 1980s that talks about wishing to truly understand another person’s feelings and struggles. In this post, we’ll explore what makes this song so powerful and why people still listen to it today. ⬇️

The song creates a dreamy, urgent world, swirling with longing and emotional electricity. Its soundscape feels like running in slow motion through rain—aching, dramatic, yet full of hope.

At the heart of the song lies the chorus, where Kate Bush yearns to “make a deal with God” and swap places with her lover. This isn’t just a wish—it’s a desperate plea for empathy, for dissolving the invisible wall that keeps two hearts from ever truly merging. We’ve all felt that ache: if only we could step into someone else’s skin, maybe the distance between us would disappear, and the pain would finally make sense.

⚡ In the verses, the lyrics cut deeper—“see how deep the bullet lies” and “there is thunder in our hearts”—painting a picture of love’s turmoil, where even those closest to us can hurt us the most, often without meaning to. The song asks, “Is there so much hate for the ones we love?”—a line that lingers, poking at the paradox of intimacy and hurt. Bush’s voice trembles between vulnerability and defiance, as if she’s trying to shake the truth out of the universe itself.

The bridge floats above the chaos for just a moment, urging us to “exchange the experience,” to steal even a fleeting second of true understanding. It’s an invitation—pleading, almost magical—for lovers to break free from their own stories and live inside each other’s hearts, if only for a heartbeat.

Kate Bush’s message glimmers through the synth haze: to really love is to wish, impossibly, for perfect understanding—even if it means running uphill forever.

Writer(s) of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God):