Running Up That Hill

50 Visions of Kate Bush

Tom Doyle

"Praiseworthy."—The Guardian

The most comprehensive book on Kate Bush to date, featuring exclusive interview content with Kate herself, close friends, and collaborators

Kate Bush: the subject of murmured legend and one of the most distinctive musicians of the modern era. Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush is a multi-faceted biography of this famously elusive figure, viewing her life and work from fresh and illuminating angles. Featuring details from the author’s one-on-one conversations with Kate—as well as vignettes of her key songs, albums, videos, and concerts—this artful, candid, and often brutally funny portrait introduces a refreshingly real Kate Bush. Tom Doyle also intertwines vivid reconstructions of transformative moments in her career and insights from the friends and collaborators closest to her, including her photographer brother John Carder Bush and fellow artists David Gilmour, John Lydon, and Youth.

With Netflix’s Stranger Things inspiring a new generation of fans, Kate Bush has made an incredible resurgence in popularity and has broken new records. Running Up That Hill is a vibrant and comprehensive re-examination of the artist and her many creative landmarks.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 368 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-8116-4 • Hardback • July 2023 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-5381-8117-1 • eBook • July 2023 • $30.00 • (£22.99) (coming soon)

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Music, Music / Genres & Styles / Pop Vocal, Music / Genres & Styles / Rock

Running Up That Hill

50 Visions of Kate Bush

Hardback

Summary

"Praiseworthy."—The Guardian
The most comprehensive book on Kate Bush to date, featuring exclusive interview content with Kate herself, close friends, and collaborators
Kate Bush: the subject of murmured legend and one of the most distinctive musicians of the modern era. Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush is a multi-faceted biography of this famously elusive figure, viewing her life and work from fresh and illuminating angles. Featuring details from the author’s one-on-one conversations with Kate—as well as vignettes of her key songs, albums, videos, and concerts—this artful, candid, and often brutally funny portrait introduces a refreshingly real Kate Bush. Tom Doyle also intertwines vivid reconstructions of transformative moments in her career and insights from the friends and collaborators closest to her, including her photographer brother John Carder Bush and fellow artists David Gilmour, John Lydon, and Youth.
With Netflix’s Stranger Things inspiring a new generation of fans, Kate Bush has made an incredible resurgence in popularity and has broken new records. Running Up That Hill is a vibrant and comprehensive re-examination of the artist and her many creative landmarks.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 368 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-5381-8116-4 • Hardback • July 2023 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-5381-8117-1 • eBook • July 2023 • $30.00 • (£22.99) (coming soon)

Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Music, Music / Genres & Styles / Pop Vocal, Music / Genres & Styles / Rock

Author

Tom Doyle is a highly acclaimed music journalist and author of three books: The Glamour Chase: The Maverick Life of Billy MacKenzie, Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s, and Captain Fantastic: Elton John's Stellar Trip Through The '70s. He is a long-standing contributing editor to Q, and his work has appeared in Mojo, Billboard, Sound On Sound, The Guardian, and The Times. He has been responsible for key magazine profiles of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Yoko Ono, Keith Richards, U2, Madonna, Kate Bush, and R.E.M. among many other artists. He lives in London, England.

Table of Contents

1. Moving Back into the Light
2. Through the Back Door
3. The Sister in the Photographs
4. The Artful Bushes
5. The Girl at the Piano
6. A Songbird in the Garden of a Starman
7. Guest Testimony
8. ‘The Man That Started It All’
9. Round the Pubs
10. Live in the Studio
11. ‘A Bag o’ Cats!’
12. Public Image Limited
13. Lost in France
14. ‘Your Hair Looks Really Nice’
15. ‘The Fear and Sparkle’
16. Smash!
17. A Right Royal Mishap and Blunder
18. Echoes in the Walls
19. Guest Testimony
20. Let the Weirdness In
21. ‘Pull Out the Pin’
22. Back in the Lens
23. An ‘Uncommercial Record’
24. The Hardest Sell
25. Retreat, Rethink
26. A Night at the Laserium
27. ‘The Ninth Wave’
28. Making Rain
29. ‘I Used to Be Kate Bush’
30. ‘Under the Ivy’
31. ‘Something Good’
32. Change the Past and Future
33. A Remote Connection
34. ‘Moments of Pleasure’
35. The Line, the Cross and the Curve
36. Public Image (Further) Limited
37. An Inimitable Artist?
38. ‘Ooh, I’ve just come!’
39. A Sea and Sky of Honey
40. ‘A Coral Room’
41. Guest Testimony
42. ‘I Obviously Have a Very Recognisable Nose’
43. ‘Among Angels’
44. Before and Beyond the Dawn
45. ‘Bigger Fucking Waves’
46. Tory Furore
47. The Ultimate Kate Bush Experience . . .
48. ‘KT’
49. The End of the Day
50. Strange Phenomena
Acknowledgments

Reviews

Long-term Kate Bush devotees and new teenage fans won over by Stranger Things will both find enlightenment in Tom Doyle’s prismastic portrait of the elusive artist.

— The Times (UK)

Praiseworthy.

— The Guardian

Approaching its subject from inspired angles...probably the best [Kate] Bush book to date.

— Record Collector

The best book ever written about Bush.

— Louder Sound

Running Up That Hill offers a range of new ways to appreciate the single-minded inspiration that it springs from.

— Uncut

Funny and illuminating. A refreshing take on one of our most complex, gifted artists.

— MOJO

A very beautiful book.

— Chris Hawkins, BBC Radio 6

Until the artist puts her own pen to paper […] this is the closest we’ve ever come to understanding the enigmatic, uncompromising Bush on page.

— James McMahon, Virgin Radio UK

Running Up That Hill

50 Visions of Kate Bush

Tom Doyle

Running Up That Hill

50 Visions of Kate Bush

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