Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) Meaning

In this article, we’ll explore the meaning of Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) by Kate Bush. As of this writing, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) is ranked 32.

Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” is about wishing to swap places with someone you love so you can truly understand each other’s pain and feelings.

This song feels mysterious, like a stormy sky before the rain starts. The main idea is about wanting to fix things between two people who care about each other but don’t always understand what the other person feels.

In the chorus, we hear Kate imagine making a deal with God—if only she could trade places with her partner, maybe then all the problems would disappear. She sings about running up roads, hills, even buildings, as if love itself is some wild race we’re all trying to win or survive. Those words—“if I only could”—make us feel that longing for empathy, for knowing what it’s really like in someone else’s shoes, and maybe we’ve all wished for that magic switch at least once.

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What sticks is this: relationships are hard because we can never fully step inside another person’s heart or mind. The real power of the song is how it makes us wonder what would happen if we really could swap places—maybe then, finally, there’d be no problems left to run from.