Why Max's Song Was The Only Choice.

The Duffers discussed how Max's favorite song was chosen on TUDUM's Burning Questions.

Ross: Music wasn’t in the initial season outline, but we knew Max was going to get cursed, and we knew we needed some way for her to defeat this curse. We were looking, just medically, into people that have comas and all of this stuff, and I think that’s honestly what led to the music. Music has a power to reach people, even when they’re in these catatonic states. Matt: [“Running Up That Hill”] felt like the tone of the season. We locked in on it. It’s weird, Ross and I were looking on Spotify, we had our music supervisor, Nora [Felder], looking — she doesn’t really have to; she knows all these songs. And I’ll never forget, she sent an email that was like, “I think it’s ‘Running Up That Hill,’ Kate Bush.” And that was our [mine and Ross’] top choice, completely separately.

The song that symbolizes Max's loss, grief and numbness, that evoked the strong memories of love, happiness and friendship that helped her escape, was the one that inspired the production team long before that.