KATE BUSH - HOUNDS OF LOVE

Released: February 17, 1986

Charts:  UK: #18 

With “Hounds of Love,” the title track of her 1985 masterpiece album, Kate Bush transformed raw human fear into one of the most exhilarating pop singles of the decade. Released in February 1986 and peaking at No. 18 on the UK charts, the song is a pulse-pounding meditation on vulnerability—particularly the terror and surrender that accompany falling in love.

At its core, “Hounds of Love” explores the instinct to flee intimacy. Bush frames love not as a soft, romantic force but as a pack of hunting dogs—relentless, powerful, and impossible to outrun. Yet the song complicates the metaphor, acknowledging that fear itself may be the problem. “I’ve always been a coward / And never know what’s good for me,” she confesses, turning the chase into an internal struggle between desire and self-protection.

The track’s cinematic flair owes much to a cult classic cherished by the Bush family: the 1957 supernatural thriller “Night of the Demon”. Its chilling line, “It’s coming! It’s in the trees!” is sampled at the song’s opening, setting a tone of heightened suspense. What follows is a thrilling collision of orchestral drama, thundering percussion, and Bush’s urgent vocals.

That elemental quality emerged in part from the album’s location. Recorded in the converted barn studio Bush built near her parents’ home in rural East Wickham, “Hounds of Love” reflects the natural world she saw outside her window. “Fields and trees, the elements doing their stuff,” she later said, describing the landscape that seeped into the album’s atmosphere. The result was her most commercially successful work: a record divided between five standalone singles on Side One and the ambitious conceptual suite “The Ninth Wave” on Side Two.

Visually, “Hounds of Love” is equally distinctive. The single’s video—directed by Bush herself—pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”, complete with a Hitchcock lookalike in a playful nod to the director’s signature cameos. The album cover, captured by her brother John Carder Bush, meanwhile, features Bush cradled by her two dogs, Bonnie and Clyde, who reportedly took an entire day to calm down enough for the shot; one even fell asleep on her mid-pose. 

While Bush’s version remains definitive, “Hounds of Love” has taken on a second life through reinterpretation. The Futureheads’ 2005 indie-rock cover brought the song to No. 8 on the UK charts and earning NME’s Single of the Year.