1998Released
3:58

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me). By Songfacts®.

When John Landis was asked how he got Aretha Franklin to appear in his 1980 film The Blues Brothers, he replied: "I asked her." The point being that the Queen of Soul had fallen out of favor and was looking for work (many other music legends - Ray Charles, Tina Turner and Roy Orbison among them - were also at career nadirs). Her fortunes were revived by her 1985 album Who's Zoomin' Who, which contained two US Top 10 hits: the title track and "Freeway of Love." It took this duet with George Michael, however, to return her to the top of the chart, where she had not been for 20 years (with "Respect"). Michael was coming off a string of hits with his group Wham!, but had not yet released his first solo album, Faith, which came out later in 1987.

This was was written by Simon Climie and Dennis Morgan; the pair met in 1983 after Morgan attended an Everly Brothers concert. It was the third song they wrote together. Morgan explained in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits: "That was one of those songs that came out of mid air – a gift from above, if you will."

The song was not originally written as a duet. Climie and Morgan pitched the song to Tina Turner as well to Aretha Franklin and Arista Records head Clive Davis. It was Davis' idea to get Franklin and George Michael to record the song as a duet. It appeared on Franklin's 1986 album Aretha.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).
EKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
108BPM

Album

The album I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me) is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me).
Epic
This compilation (P) 2011 Sony Music Entertainment UK Limited

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