If you've spent any time on TikTok in the last week, no doubt you've heard the 1985 song Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush.

(Interesting side note: She actually wanted to call it A Deal With God, but the record label thought that would be too controversial.)

Anyway, Kate Bush rarely licences her music, but when the producers of the Netflix series Stranger Things asked her if they could use that song in a show, she agreed — apparently, she's a big fan.

The show aired, and a generation of young people heard the song for the first time, loved it, and soon — as these things do — it was going viral on TikTok. 

So you might think — wow, lucky Kate Bush! She must be getting serious royalties.

Well, she's probably not.

Nothing Funny About It

To explain why, I present another TikTok viral tune.

It's called Funny Song, and it's usually paired with video of cats running into walls, kids stumbling around, that sort of thing. 

The artist is Thomas Hewitt Jones from the U.K. He makes his living composing production music for stock music libraries. This one, he knocked off in about a half-hour. It was part of a collection of goofy songs called “Vintage Oddities Vol. 4” that his production music bosses wanted. He did it in one take.

Honestly, didn't think it would go anywhere. Then some YouTuber uploaded it, someone found it on TikTok, and it took off. It has more than a million plays on YouTube. More than a million on Spotify.

But on TikTok? It's closing in on 7 billion plays.

And so, like Kate Bush's sudden viral hit, you might think: Well, good for Mr. Jones, he's probably swimming in the royalties.

But no, in an interview with AdWeek, Jones says so far, he's made about $730 bucks. For 7 billion plays. He doesn't even get fame, since the song is credited on all these platforms to Cavendish Music, the production music publisher.

A Deal With God, Indeed.

Turns out, unlike the deals record labels have cut with streaming music providers like Spotify, TikTok royalties are paid based on how many videos use the song — not how many times the song has been streamed. 

So while Kate Bush may be enjoying some new attention, she's not reaping buckets of cash from it all. It's certainly an outlier in royalty arrangements, and perhaps one the labels will try to change when the music contracts renew.

A deal with God, indeed.