“Running Up That Hill” Served by Kate Bush, Placebo and Meg Myers

Some songs get covered. This one gets possessed.

Kate Bush built “Running Up That Hill” out of drum machines, synths and one wish: to trade places with someone you love, just for a minute, so you could finally understand each other. She wanted to call it “A Deal with God.” Her label worried radio wouldn't play a song with God in the title, so it went out as “Running Up That Hill” in 1985, the first taste of Hounds of Love.

It never really went away. Then in 2022 it soundtracked Stranger Things and a whole new generation found it and acted like it was brand new. In a way it was. The song hit No. 1 in the UK 37 years after it first came out.

Plenty of artists have tried to climb it in between. Here are three versions, three moods and one very steep hill.

• A1 · Kate Bushancient and futuristic at the same time

  That drum pattern starts like a heartbeat and never lets go. Bush stacks synths on top until it sounds both ancient and like it came from the future, and her voice does the rest: pleading, bargaining, almost scolding.

  The video is pure Kate, too. It's an interpretive dance duet, two bodies pulling and pushing at each other, which is the whole song in one picture.

• B2 · Placebothe after-midnight version

  Placebo slow everything down and take the bounce out. What's left is cold, hushed and a little haunted, with Brian Molko's voice floating over a hum of electronics.

  Where the original feels like running, this one feels like standing still in the dark and wishing. It's the version for headphones at 2 a.m.

• C3 · Meg Myersout of breath and furious

  Meg Myers goes the other way: big drums, big guitars and a voice that cracks open on purpose. She sings it like she's actually running up the hill and doesn't care who hears her breathing hard.

  It's the loudest of the three and the angriest, and it proves the song can take a beating and still stand up.

Three trips up the same hill. Which one gets you to the top?