To be fair, he’s talking about his own feeling about the song, and precicting that might do well. He doesnt mention its having been played o. XRT.
I’m a big proponent of calling out anecdotal evidence as ascientific, but with that caveat in mind, getting Kate played on XRT was a personal mission of mine in those days. Looking back, kind of an obsession. I’m remembering a conversation i had with Terri Hemmert at a Betty show (or was it Phranc? Possible conflation), in which she told me about the computer-proogram that programmed their playlist, which I think i mentioned above, was in response to my asking (obsessively) why they still won’t play Kate Bush. At some point in the convo she said “We’ve found our audience and we’re happy to grow old with them.”
It’s crazy that all those names are still well known at XRT, decades on. I believe they’re both still there, though Terri stopped her mid-day show last year. And I’m pretty sure I hear Lin’s distinctive voice and “Lin’s bin” is still around, though I don’t listen to XRT as much as I used to, because their playlist is so thin these days (if I hear Tom Petty one more time, I’ll scream.) I have to stream BBC Radio 6 to get anything interesting.
If this were a ‘cower mortals’ thread, Kate Bush would be up there for me.
This is one of my fave songs. What’s funny is it sounds like something Prince would write. Who actually appears on the same album, but not this song. It’s heartbreaking, especially for those who have broken up with a lover who is also your best friend.
i like that station … do they have a live website/streaming?
Actually running up that hill is her only song I knew of hers until you tube because when AOL/time warner back in the early 00s was still a thing they had a radio player that was akin something to Sirius XM but it was all warner owned music and they had an "80s alternative station " (I wish I could get their parody commercials like “goth in a box” or the “universal valley girl translator”)
they played the usual smiths cure Ramones and the like but they played running up that hill every 3 hours right after they played something by Siouxie (usually her duet w morrisey or cities in the dust)
Today I heard “Running Up That Hill” on the bog standard iHeart “hits of the 80s, 90s and today!” local radio station. I can’t begin to describe how remarkable this is: In the 80s I only heard it on the alternative/college stations, never on the mainstream pop stations.
Anyone mentioned my favourite yet, ‘Woman’s Work’?
Kate Bush has always been a huge star in the UK since Wuthering Heights, despite her retreating from public performances decades ago. She had a major segment at the closing ceremony of the London Olympics (well, her music did, she didn’t actually perform live)- it didn’t occur to me that overseas viewers might be puzzled as to who she is.
I think the second part of that line is the important part; the G is just a placeholder for someone she knows showing up just as she wss thinking of them. If it mattered who it was, she would have offered more clues.
KT has apparently said it’s someone she calls Mr G. Fan theories include Dave Gilmour, God and periods.
The latter apparently based off the other period reference in the song and an English colloquialism of “George” for periods, which is apparently a thing (at least, Grandma George is - so’s George Michael=Menstrual cycle, but I think that construction would postdate the song by quite a bit).
