"What an honour!" Kate Bush celebrates her 2022 chart success in Christmas message

By Natasha Scharf
( Prog )
published

Kate Bush also shares support for nurses and hopes for an end to the war in Ukraine in her annual festive post

Kate Bush dressed in a black gown standing by the spiral staircase at the London Palladium in 2014
(Image credit: David M. Benett - Getty)

Kate Bush has thanked fans for their support in what she refers to a "crazy, roller coaster year" in the annual Christmas message posted on her official website, Fish People. In 2022, her 1985 hit single Running Up That Hill climbed back up the charts and broke three records in the process thanks to its inclusion in a key scene in the Netflix series Stranger Things.

"I still reel from the success of RUTH being the No. 1 track of this summer. What an honour!" she writes. "It was really exciting to see it doing so well globally, but especially here in the UK and Australia; and also to see it making it all the way to No. 3 in the US. It was such a great feeling to see so many of the younger generation enjoying the song. It seems that quite a lot of them thought I was a new artist! I love that!"

In her yearly address, she also pays tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and refers to the "bombardment" of "the horrific war in Ukraine, the famines, the droughts, the floods" that have dominated 2022. She also shares her support for nurses, who began industrial action in December, saying, "I hope [they] will be in a position where they are appreciated - they should be cherished."

Although she makes no hint of new material or the long-awaited follow-up to 2011's 50 Words For Snow in her post, she does end on a note of optimism:

"Let’s all hope that next year will be better than this one. I keep thinking about hope and how it was the last to fly out of Pandora’s box. Sometimes it’s all that seems to glow in the dark times we find ourselves in right now."

Natasha Scharf
Natasha Scharf
Deputy Editor, Prog

Contributing to Prog since the very first issue, writer and broadcaster Natasha Scharf was the magazine’s News Editor before she took up her current role of Deputy Editor, and has interviewed some of the best-known acts in the progressive music world from ELP, Yes and Marillion to Nightwish, Dream Theater and TesseracT. Starting young, she set up her first music fanzine in the late 80s and became a regular contributor to local newspapers and magazines over the next decade. The 00s would see her running the dark music magazine, Meltdown, as well as contributing to Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, Terrorizer and Artrocker. Author of music subculture books The Art Of Gothic and Worldwide Gothic, she’s since written album sleeve notes for Cherry Red, and also co-wrote Tarja Turunen’s memoirs, Singing In My Blood. Beyond the written word, Natasha has spent several decades as a club DJ, spinning tunes at aftershow parties for Metallica, Motörhead and Nine Inch Nails. She’s currently the only member of the Prog team to have appeared on the magazine’s cover.