It’s arguably on track to be the song of the year, and as Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ enjoys a fresh period of newfound popularity, The Wombats have taken on her iconic single for this week’s edition of triple j’s Like A Version.
Appearing on the weekly session this morning, the English outfit shared a heartfelt, acoustic-driven cover of Bush’s original (alongside a rendition of their original track, ‘This Car Dives All By Itself’), providing a lush experience to match the haunting isolation of the original.
“It’s such a great song. We’re all big Kate Bush fans,” explained The Wombats’ Dan Haggis. “And then obviously recently it’s had a real resurgence from Stranger Things.”
Indeed, the track’s appearance on the latest season of Stranger Things has led to massive and widespread popularity for the track. Originally released in 1985, ‘Running Up That Hill’ has exploded globally over recent weeks, with the song even managing to reach #1 on the Australian charts.
“What’s really wonderful, I think, is this is a whole new audience who, in a lot of cases, have never heard of me and I love that,” Bush explained in a rare interview with BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour this week. The thought of all these really young people hearing the song for the first time and discovering it is… well, I think it’s very special.”
Explaining their decision to make their cover version a little more acoustic than the original, Haggis noted that their initial plans were something akin to a faithful recreation of Bush’s track before changing focus entirely.
“If you’re a bit too close to it, then it sounds just like a worse version of her version,” he explained. “Which, when you’re doing a cover, is not exactly what we want to do.”
Notably, The Wombats’ appearance on triple j’s Like A Version series to cover such a popular song could result in a little bit of history for the station’s Hottest 100 countdown. Given the popularity of Like A Version performances in the countdown in recent years, the stars could align to see the track voted into this year’s countdown.
Considering that Placebo previously took the track to #72 in 2003 with their own cover, it could be the first time the same song has made it into the countdown twice via two different covers. Only time will tell.
