Wham "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"

*****Number One, November, 1984*****


I started this blog many moons ago.  How many moons is that?  Um...hmm...many.  That's an official number!  Moon-counting has its own rules.  You'd know that if you counted moons.  Moon-hater.

Sorry, off-topic there.  Anyway, when I began this weekly companion to the Single File Pod, I did so with the intent of focusing on the lyrics of each number one song.  What I've learned so far in doing this, aside from how utterly randy Peter Gabriel was, is how much history I've had with most of these tunes.

It's been surprising, especially in terms of lyric recognition.  I've never owned, in tape or cd or download form, even one of the seven songs we've covered.  And yet, the percentage of verse-chorus-verse familiar to me has been pretty high.  By estimate, I'd say I know by heart;

• 75%+ of both "Sledgehammer" and "Money for Nothing"
• This is caused entirely by the pre-existing condition of having MTV at a time when that meant something.  These videos popped up anytime the channel was on, which was excessively.  Thanks to that, the bulk my childhood is zeroed out, but I could identify these crummy hits as well as all five original vj's in a half-second if I needed to.  Yeah, I know.  I'll never need to.
• 50% of "Light My Fire", "Jump", "Celebrity Skin", and "Gangsta's Paradise"
• These all swirled around me as popular songs are want to do, but I wouldn't say that I liked any of them.  I didn't gravitate towards rap nor 70's style organ rock nor Hole's polished version of alternative.  But still, in re-learning each of these, I've discovered at least half is already familiar to me, regardless of my musical preferences at the time.  How does that happen?  Osmosis?  Did I learn through my skin?  Gross.  
• 1% of "Tik Tok"
• I still don't feel like P Diddy.  Maybe I'm doing this wrong.

I'm definitely googling wrong

This weeks' spin on the NOPR points us to a top hit that fits in a different category than the allotment above.  While it was very popular during it's time on the charts, it didn't poke its way into my subconscious as so many tracks have since.  Perhaps the staying power lagged a bit due to the band's immediate success.  When you follow up with "Careless Whisper" and "Freedom", your initial hit might get lost a bit in the shuffle.  I guess that's what happens when your name is Wham. 

Sorry, Wham!

As of right now in this exact moment, I haven't looked up the words to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".  Before I do so, I thought I'd see what I can summon, brain-wise.  I can't grasp much from previous exposure, and by sheer memory power, here's all that I can currently recall, lyrically:

"Wake me up before you go-go / don't leave me hanging on a <something> yo yo"

"<Britishness>...Take me dancing tonight."

"<Mumble mumble mumble>.........high!!!!!!!!!"

"Yeah yeah!"

That's it.  I'm guessing that leaves a somewhat decent amount.  So, let's go take a look.  George Michael, what have ya got?

Don't tell me what to choose, Wham!

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go"
Verse 1
"You put the boom boom into my heart..."

And stop.  I just, no, I can't.  Please.  That's not, I mean, hang on, let me check something...

*****Number One, November, 1984*****

Yup, number one.  It's written right there, so it must be true.  Sigh, ok, let's try again.  How about the chorus? Any boom booms?  Sheesh, let's go slowly;

Chorus
"Wake me up before you go go / don't leave me hanging on like a yo-yo"
"Wake me up before you go go /  I don't want to miss it when you get that high"
"Wake me up before you go go /  Cause I'm not planning on going solo"
"Wake me up before you go go /  Take me dancing tonight"
"I want to hit that high"

So, ok, I remembered a significant portion of the main refrain.  That's not terribly surprising, given the repetition.  At least there's a complete lack of boom booms, as any reputable song should have.  I feel like this is a perfectly fine stanza for an energetic dance song. 

In fact, parsing through the rest of the tune, it seems to be a well crafted fun bit of pop (booms aside).  But, wait, there is something I find a little confusing.  Let's jump to two different groupings, one immediately before the last chorus, and one just after:

Verse before the last chorus
"C'mon baby / let's not fight"
"We'll go dancing / and everything will be alright"

Super, great!  Let's forget our troubles and hit the town and...

Verse after last chorus
"Cuddle up baby / move in tight"
"We'll go dancing tomorrow night"

Uh, mixed signals!  George, come on, what happened during the chorus?

So, oh, ohhhhhhhhhhhh.  Never mind.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Reading through the text of this tune, I'm thoroughly surprised how little I remembered of it.  At that time in my life, I wasn't terribly discerning (my preference for Canadian alterna-folk-country had yet to rear it's confused, poutine-stuffed head).  So, I'm sure I heard Wham! a lot.  And, this is an incredibly catchy, well written hit.  It's really impressive to have something so simple and cleanly produced, and not surprising at all that it helped propel half of this duo to stardom.

"Wake me up" is a silly pop song.  And, that's just fine.  It fits with several other of the tunes we've already seen, in that it is built for one, simple purpose; Getting you up.  It doesn't make you think and there's no deeper meaning.  We're just go-going.  I'm ok with that, in small measured doses.

Except the boom boom.  Seriously, don't put that into my heart.  I've got moons to count.