Kate Bush described Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), taken from her seminal 1985 album Hounds of Love, as a song about a man and a woman trying to understand each other. But the enduring power of the song goes far beyond romance and its era.
In this video essay, The Last Mixed Tape explores how Kate Bush used shifting narrative perspectives across Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting, and This Woman’s Work to examine gender fluidity, empathy, transformation, identity, and the challenge of truly understanding another person’s experience.
From the theatrical world of Hounds of Love to modern conversations around perspective and identity, this is an exploration of why Running Up That Hill still feels decades ahead of its time. Especisally in a moment where pop artists like Róisín Murphy cause controversy with their binary views on trans people and gender, Kate Bush still stands as an artist apart and important to the act of self expression.
The Last Mixed Tape is hosted by Stephen White, and is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
The Last Mixed Tape 
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