Kate Bush / Hounds of Love / 1985
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
yearning, urgent, tender but anguished
A song about the gulf of misunderstanding between two lovers, imagined as a problem that could be solved by literally trading places with each other via divine intervention. The narrator proposes an impossible bargain with God not to escape the relationship but to fully inhabit the other person's experience, hoping that understanding would dissolve the pain each is causing without meaning to.
empathy and its limits gender and relational miscommunication bargaining with fate intimacy as exchange desire to escape one's own perspective
Who's speaking
A first-person narrator addresses a lover directly, using "you" throughout; the voice is intimate and pleading, not fully reliable in that it frames mutual hurt as something a magical swap could fix, glossing over the harder work of actual communication.
What happens
The song opens with the narrator insisting the pain doesn't register, immediately undercut by admission of a hidden wound. It moves into the central proposal — a deal with God to switch places with the beloved — repeated as refrain. A middle section acknowledges unintentional harm and asks whether both partners still matter to each other. The plea intensifies into invitations to seize the moment and trade experiences, before the song closes by looping the bargain obsessively, as if repetition itself could make it happen.
How it's built
Built on a spare verse structure that keeps circling back to the same chorus-like bargain rather than developing new musical or lyrical territory, reinforcing the idea of being stuck. The pre-chorus vocal ad-libs function almost as incantation, and the ending strips the song down to the bare wish, repeated and fading, as though the request outlasts the narrative itself.
Section by section
Opening lines
“it doesn't hurt me”
The denial that opens the song immediately reads as defensive, setting up the central tension between what is said and what is felt.
First chorus
“make a deal with God”
The bargain is introduced as a fantasy solution to relational distance, framing empathy itself as something that requires supernatural mediation rather than ordinary effort.
Second verse
“there is thunder in our hearts”
The imagery shifts to storm and weapon metaphors, suggesting the couple is causing each other harm despite genuine love, and questioning whether that love is enough to justify the damage.
Bridge
The plea becomes more physical and immediate, inviting the partner into a shared moment as if closeness alone could substitute for the impossible swap, showing the narrator settling for partial understanding.
Closing repetitions
The song strips back to just the wish itself, repeated until it fades, leaving the resolution unresolved and emphasizing that the deal was never actually made — only imagined.
Craft
- conceit
- The entire song hinges on one extended metaphor — bargaining with God to swap bodies or positions with a lover — used to dramatize the impossibility of truly understanding another person's inner life.
- anaphora
- The repeated conditional opening of each chorus keeps returning to the same hypothetical, mimicking obsessive rumination and the futility of the wish.
- synesthetic imagery
- Physical and emotional pain are merged, as when a bullet-like wound stands in for emotional damage, collapsing the line between bodily and psychological hurt.
- apostrophe
- Direct address to the beloved and to God blurs prayer and love song, framing the romantic plea as almost religious supplication.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats the song as being about the impossibility of full empathy between partners, especially across gendered experience, with the swap serving as a metaphor for wanting to feel exactly what the other feels rather than merely sympathizing. A common alternative reading, sometimes referenced by Bush herself, is that the song specifically addresses how men and women might understand each other's roles and burdens if they could inhabit them literally, making the plea partly about gender dynamics rather than a generic relationship problem. Both readings hinge on the same core mechanism: intimacy imagined as literal exchange rather than communication.
Context
Kate Bush has spoken about intending the song to explore what would happen if men and women could swap places, and the title was reportedly changed from a more direct reference to a deal with God to avoid religious controversy at the time, though I hold this historical detail with medium confidence rather than certainty. The song appears on Hounds of Love (1985), an album often noted for its ambitious production and thematic depth.
Listen for
- the tension between the vocal denial in the verses and the pleading urgency of the chorus
- the hypnotic, looping quality of the chorus melody mirroring the unanswerable nature of the wish
- the shift from accusation and hurt in the second verse to tenderness in the bridge
- the way the song ends by paring back to just the bare wish, unresolved
- the rhythmic, chant-like backing vocals that give the song an incantatory, prayer-like quality
About Kate Bush
Catherine Bush is an English singer, songwriter, musician, dancer and record producer. She is noted for her eclectic style, unconventional lyrics and innovative dance performances.
b. 1958 / England
Full biography and catalogue