WHAM! ~ Wake Me Up Before You Go Go 1984 Disco Purrfection Version

Details

Description

This song is sooo Motown! It is so catchy and bright, it is no wonder it became so popular, but the big shining smiles from George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley is what really got it over to the young women and men who were entranced by their charisma.

George and Andrew were friends who started clubbing around the time "Saturday Night Fever" was popular and they frequented the clubs because they loved to party! The story goes that George stopped by Andrew's home one night, and while waiting for him to be ready noticed a sign on the wall above his bed that said "wake me up up before you go go". Andrew explained that when he was writing the sign he accidentally wrote the word up twice, so he compounded the error by repeating go twice and George realized that it would be a great line or title of a song.

The boys left school to form a ska band called the Executives. The music was not so good, but the boys tried their hands at writing songs. From their club experiences, they came up with "Wham Rap" and "Careless Whisper" and those two songs got them signed to Inner Vision records who rushed out "Wham Rap" which had no chart action in the UK which was followed by "Young Guns (Go For It) that peaked at #3 UK. "Wham Rap" was reissued and this time it peaked at #8 UK. "Bad Boys" then peaked at #2 UK, followed by Club Tropicana that went to #4 UK.

All these singles made some waves on local radio, but not enough to break them in the US. That is when it was time to record another album so George added a little Motown magic to his friends bedroom wall lyric and completed the song.

It was released September 8, 1984 and ten weeks later it was #1 where it held on to the top spot for three weeks! It was such a strong single that it prevented the Prince juggernaut "Purple Rain" from topping the chart. Yes the boys had arrived, but we really knew George Michael was the star.