Kate Bush has voiced her support for nurses and reflected on the death of the Queen in her annual Christmas message.
The British singer-songwriter, who enjoyed renewed popularity this year after her song Running Up That Hill featured in the Netflix show Stranger Things, shared a message with fans via her website.
Posting a photo of a robin perched on a branch, the 64-year-old admitted she did not think “any of us have ever known a year like this one”.
The Hounds Of Love singer added: “Life became incredibly frightening in the pandemic, but just as we think it might be over soon, it seems to keep going.
“It’s a bombardment – the horrific war in Ukraine, the famines, the droughts, the floods… and we lost our Queen.
“Many of my friends were surprised at how upset they were at her death especially as we aren’t royalists, but I think her passing became a focus for grief, for unexpressed loss that so many people had felt during the pandemic.”
Bush described 2022 as a “crazy, rollercoaster year” after Running Up That Hill went to number one and became the UK’s biggest song of the summer nearly 40 years after its release.
“It was such a great feeling to see so many of the younger generation enjoying the song,” she said.
“It seems that quite a lot of them thought I was a new artist! I love that!”
Wondering “where on earth we’ll all be at the end of next year” Bush added: “I hope the war will end.
“I hope that the nurses will be in a position where they are appreciated – they should be cherished.
“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.”
Bush shared the message alongside an image of a robin which she also used on some of her Christmas gifts to friends this year.
She added: “I felt that this humble little bird, which symbolises Christmas, could also symbolise hope in the context of Emily Dickinson’s beautiful words: ‘Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.’”
In September the Official Charts Company announced Running Up That Hill had become the UK’s biggest song of the summer.
Originally released in 1985 as the lead track on her Hounds Of Love album, the song had a global resurgence in popularity after it was featured in the fourth series of Stranger Things.
The song recorded 762,000 chart units over the summer period from the first week of June to the last week of August.