‘Be running up that road, be running up that hill’, I heard my daughter singing softly in the kitchen. Was she singing Kate Bush? I put my ear to listen subtly, for my children don’t like it when I watch them with hands clasped in delight.
‘Be running up that road’, she sang again. “Are you singing Kate Bush?” I asked her. She had no idea, she finished the song Stranger Things†
Stranger Things, for people who don’t have Netflix or kids, is a series about a slimy monster in an American town in the 1980s. I watched the series fanatically for a while, when it was still 70 percent American town in the eighties, and 30 percent slimy monster. Then it flipped to a 30-70 split and they lost me to Netflix, but they don’t care because my kids are still watching and so is the rest of the world.
There’s a lot of excitement in our house about the new season launching, and my kids already know there’s going to be a two-and-a-half hour episode. Then I say, ‘But that’s not an episode, is it? That’s a very long film.’ Then they look at me like I’m crazy.
Closer investigation revealed that Kate Bush is experiencing a massive revival due to Stranger Things, and that there are people of my generation who are excited that children are discovering her now. I read this on Twitter.
I know people get angry about a lot on Twitter, that’s what that medium was invented for, to squeeze all the poison out of people in short, poorly worded sentences, but how in the name of Kate Bush can you be angry that children with thin voices sing along to her eighties hit?
I briefly tried to get on the train that might be upset about this fact, and came up with, ‘I lived in the eighties, not you, and I was a hysterical Kate Bush fan back then, I had my hair hen seamed. and always a long nightgown on, you weren’t there because you weren’t even a cell yet, or maybe you were, don’t quote me on that, but your generation is always fan of stupid things like tiktok and youtubers who talk games , so how come you own Kate Bush, I already knew her when she recorded a special in the Efteling with bat sleeves, yes?’ This can be condensed into: ‘I knew her before.’
Sad. While, I know from personal experience, nothing makes you happier than hearing an eleven-year-old sing dreamily ‘Running up that road’.