Nora Felder, the musical supervisor for “Stranger Things,” won an Emmy for Creative Arts Sunday, winning Outstanding Musical Supervision for the season four episode “Dear Billy,” the one that made the 40-year-old Kate Bush hit again. In her acceptance speech, Felder gave special thanks to Bush (and Metallica, whose music also appeared in season four).
The episode prominently features Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill”, which enables the character of Max (Sadie Sink) to fight evil. After the series’ fourth season dropped on Netflix in May, the track began charting around the world, driven in large part by gossip on social media. Arrived #1 on iTunes By July, the video for “Running Up That Hill” was out 100 million youtube views. (As of this writing, the number is now at 127 million.)
Felder chose the track because she felt the lyrics completely captured Max’s experience. as she said diverseIn the face of Max’s painful isolation and alienation, a heart-wrenching ‘deal with God’ can reflect Max’s tacit belief that only a miracle of improbable understanding and showing support can help her climb the hills of life before her. In Max’s case, the need can be understood to a “deal with God” metaphorically as a desperate cry for love – to show the extraordinary understanding and support Max needs during his agonizing loneliness.
Securing the song was a huge coup for Felder, who had previously been nominated three times for her work on Stranger Things. Bush is known for protecting her music and rarely grants permission for its use in films and television.
But it turns out the musician has been a Stranger Things fan from the start, so when Felder’s request came to her, she agreed. The decision ended by giving new life to the song, the first single from her 1985 album “Hounds of Love.” In an interview with BBC One In June, Bush said, “I thought the track was going to get some attention. But I never imagined it would be anything like that. It’s so exciting. But it’s really shocking, isn’t it? I mean, the whole world has gone crazy.”
“I think what’s really cool is that this is a completely new audience. In a lot of cases, they’ve never even heard of me. And I love it. The idea of all these guys hearing the song for the first time and discovering it, well, I think it’s very special.”
“And I thought, ‘What a great way to use the song in such a positive way,'” she added. “You know, almost as a kind of spell for Max. And yes, I think it’s very impressive, actually.”
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