Wake Me Up Before You Go Go is a song by the English duo Wham!, first released as a single in the UK in May 1984. It became their first UK and US number one hit.
This song was written and produced by George Michael. The single was certified platinum in the US. The music video features Michael and Ridgeley wearing oversized message T- shirts ("CHOOSE LIFE") created by Katharine Hamnett, which starting a craze. Michael's inspiration for the song was a scribbled note that his bandmate Andrew Ridgeley had left for his parents, intended to read "wake me up before you go" but with "up" accidentally written twice, so Ridgeley wrote "go" twice on purpose. In 1984, George Michael had this to say on the development of the song: "I just wanted to make a really energetic pop record that had all the best elements of Fifties and Sixties records, combined with our attitude and our approach, which is obviously more uptempo and a lot younger than some of those records. It's one of those tracks that gets rid of a lot of your own personal influences; it reminds me of so many different records that I couldn't actually nail them down.....”
Wham were an English pop duo formed in Bushey in 1981. The duo consisted of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They became one of the most commercially successful pop acts of the 1980s, selling more than 30 million certified records worldwide between 1982 to 1986. Influenced by funk and soul music and presenting themselves as disaffected youth, Wham's 1983 debut album Fantastic addressed the UK's unemployment problem and teen angst over adulthood.
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou; June 1963 – December 2016) was an English singer- songwriter and record producer. He is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, with his sales estimated at between 100 million and 125 million records worldwide. Michael was known as a creative force in songwriting, vocal performance, and visual presentation. Born in East Finchley, Middlesex, Michael rose to fame as a member of the music duo Wham and later embarked on a solo career. Outside music, Michael was an active LGBT rights campaigner and HIV/AIDS charity fundraiser. His personal life, drug use, and legal troubles made headlines during the late 1990s and 2000s. The 2005 documentary A Different Story covered his career and personal life. Michael fell into a coma in 2011 during a bout with pneumonia, but later recovered. He performed his final concert at London's Earls Court in 2012. Michael died of heart disease on Christmas Day in 2016.
