Below is the write-up about George Michael and Aretha Franklin’s song “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” from the book “The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: The Inside Story Behind Every Number One Single on Billboard’s Hot 100 from 1955 to Present” by Fred Bronson.
Writers: Simon Climie / Dennis Morgan
Producer: Narada Michael Walden
April 18, 1987
2 weeks
Can a Nashville songwriter with more than 20 country number ones to his credit and a British pop star team up to write hit records? Ask Aretha Franklin, who scored her first number one single in 19 years and 10 months [see 225—“Respect”]. Or ask George Michael, who went to number one in America for the fourth time. Or ask producer Narada Michael Walden, who became the eighth producer in the rock era to have back-to-back
number one hits* [see 663— “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”].
Dennis Morgan was born in Tracy, Minnesota, and hitchhiked to Nashville when he was 16. He has had more than 600 of his songs recorded, and about 70 of them have been hits on the country chart.
On September 22, 1983, Morgan was at the Royal Albert Hall in London to see the long-awaited reunion of the Everly Brothers [see 68—“Cathy’s Clown”). He was also looking for someone new to write songs with. “I’d make two or three trips a year trying to find (someone),” he explains. “I was just experimenting. I had this instinct inside of me saying there’s more than just Nashville and the country market. I want to write all kinds of tunes.
After the Everly Brothers show, Morgan went to a popular London club called Stringfellows to hang out with his friends, including Phil Everly. There he met Simon Climie, a British songwriter who has since put together a pop duo, Climie Fisher, with Rob Fisher of Naked Eyes. “We started writing, and ‘I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)’ was the third song we wrote together,” Morgan reports. “That was one of those songs that came out of mid-air—a gift from above, if you will. I came up with the title and we were off and running. We pitched it to Tina Turner and also to Aretha Franklin and Clive Davis at the same time.”
The song was not written specifically as a duet, and Simon’s demo, recorded in London, was for one voice. Morgan first learned that Aretha would be recording the song with George Michael when Climie’s publisher in Los Angeles told him that Clive was interested in having these two artists perform it together.
Producer Narada Michael Walden had helped Aretha return to the top 10 (after an 11-year absence) with “Freeway of Love” (number three in August, 1985) and “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” (number seven in November of that same year). He cut the instrumental tracks for “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)” at his Tarpan Studios in San Rafael, California. “The lead vocals were cut in Detroit,” Walden recounts. “Aretha knocked her stuff out in a matter of hours and we went on and did some of her ad-libs just for the heck of it, and she was done.
“The next day George Michael flew in bright and early on the Concorde from England. He was very excited about singing with Aretha, the queen of soul. It was a lifelong ambition of his. I (can) understand him being a little nervous. He (sang) his heart out. I was very satisfied with what I was
getting—extremely satisfied—but George. . . wanted to go on….I said. . . . ‘I know you’re not used to being produced . . . but we should really stop.’ George (said), ‘I’m not used to+ someone really producing me. Only one guy’s ever produced me, and that was for “Do They Know It’s Christmas” (by Band Aid)’. . . so he looked at me with those innocent virgin eyes, like he’d never been told ‘you oughta stop, kid.’
“The next day Aretha and George came together for the big heavyweight championship fight . . . it was really a memorable moment. And fortunately .. a lot of that magic is in that record . . . they worked side by side kicking each other and just pushing it and made it happen.”
THE TOP FIVE
Week of April 18, 1987
- 1 I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) – Aretha Franklin and George Michael
- Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now – Starship
- Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
- Sign ‘O’ the Times – Prince
- Midnight Blue – Lou Gramm
2] *The other producers who had back-to-back number one songs prior to Walden are: Lee Gilette, who did it twice [see 5, 6, 8 and 9]; George Martin [see 143, Holland-Dozier-Holland [see 176 and 177]; Barry Gibb-Karl Richardson-Albhy Galuten [see 478, 479 and 480}; Mike Chapman see 490 and 491]; Quincy Jones [see 568 and 569]; and Phil Ramone [see 576 and 577.
