‘Wuthering Heights’ is a song by English singer Kate Bush, released as her debut single on 20 January 1978. Inspired by the 1847 Emily Brontë novel of the same name, the song was released as the lead single from Bush's debut studio album, The Kick Inside (1978). It peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart for four weeks, making Bush the first female artist to achieve a number-one single with an entirely self-penned song. It also reached the top of the charts in Australia, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, and Portugal. The song received widespread critical acclaim and continues to be highly regarded; in 2016, Pitchfork named it the fifth-greatest song of the 1970s, and in 2020, The Guardian ranked it as the 14th-best UK number-one single. The song has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), for sales and streams of over 600,000 units in the United Kingdom.
Bush wrote the song aged 18, within a few hours late at night on 5 March 1977. She was inspired after seeing the 1967 BBC adaptation of the 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. She then read the book and also discovered that she shared her birthday with author Emily Brontë. ‘Wuthering Heights’ is sung from the perspective of the Wuthering Heights character Catherine Earnshaw, pleading at Heathcliff's window to be allowed in. It quotes Catherine's dialogue, including the lyrics "I'm so cold", "let me in", and "bad dreams in the night". Cathy is in fact a ghost, which the listener may only realise upon reading the novel. Critic Simon Reynolds described it as "Gothic romance distilled into four-and-a-half minutes of gaseous rhapsody".
Bush recorded her vocal in a single take. The guitar solo is played by Ian Bairnson, who said that he initially disliked the tone for many years due to "purely guitarist reasons". He played the inspired solo with a broken arm. Engineer Jon Kelly said he regretted not placing the solo louder in the mix. The production team, with Bush, began mixing at midnight and stayed until "five or six in the morning".
Two music videos with similar choreography were created to accompany ‘Wuthering Heights’. Bush created the choreography and dance moves to suggest her character is a ghost (as in this scene in the novel), without explicitly stating as much. In the first version, known as the indoor version, made for the UK and European release, Bush is shown performing the song in a dark room filled with white mist while wearing a white dress. Critics have described this video as a milestone in the history of music videos before the MTV era, with Pitchfork putting it on number three on the list of greatest music videos from the 70s.
‘Wuthering Heights’ was a huge hit everywhere except the US, where Bush couldn't break through on radio and there were no outlets that would air her videos. Unlike the many British acts that set out to conquer America, Bush had no interest in putting in the promotional effort needed to do so. Most Americans found out about her music through the cadre of fans, music journalists, and record store employees who championed her, but it didn't add up to mass appeal, at least until 2022 when her song ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ was used in an episode of the Netflix series Stranger Things. It was a "how have I never heard of this amazing singer" moment for many young viewers who started devouring her catalog on streaming services. The song ran up to #8, her highest charting US entry by far.
Label – EMI
Songwriter – Kate Bush
Producer – Andrew Powell
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]Out on the wily, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy
How could you leave me
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you, I loved you too
[Pre-Chorus]
Bad dreams in the night
They told me I was going to lose the fight
Leave behind my wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
[Chorus]
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
[Verse 2]
Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you
I'm coming back, love, cruel Heathcliff
My one dream, my only master
[Pre-Chorus]
Too long I roam in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wuthering, wuthering
Wuthering Heights
[Chorus]
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
[Bridge]
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your soul away
You know it's me, Cathy
[Chorus]
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in-a-your window
Heathcliff, it's me, I'm Cathy
I've come home, I'm so cold
[Outro]