The song 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' by Aretha Franklin and George Michael topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in April 1987.
'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' was written by Simon Climie and Dennis Morgan. In 'The Billboard Book of Number One Hits', Dennis Morgan recounted, "That was one of those songs that came out of mid air – a gift from above, if you will." Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou maintained, "I still believe that music is one of the greatest gifts that God gave to man."
'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' won the Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the Grammy Awards in 1987. The song reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart as well and made Narada Michael Walden the 8th producer in the Rock Era to score back-to-back No. 1 hits. 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' was also the last of Aretha Franklin's 18 Top 10 hits in the Billboard Hot 100.
In his biography 'Bare', George Michael made known, "I was nervous. I knew that Aretha would get the melody and then take it all over the place, which sounds great, but the thing also needed tying down. Nobody can emulate Aretha Franklin. It's stupid to try. I just tried to stay in character, keep it simple. It was very understated in comparison to what she did."
Speaking to 'Entertainment Weekly' in 2017, Aretha Franklin remembered the one-off project, "The first time I heard George was with Wham! and I liked it then. He had a very unique sound, very different from anything that was out there. When Clive (Davis) suggested we get together for 'I Knew You Were Waiting,' I was all ready. It reminded me of Jerry Wexler. We'd go in the studio and cut songs. If we were happy with what we recorded, Jerry would say, 'Let's wait until tomorrow. If we feel the same way that we do now, maybe we have a hit.' 'I Knew You Were Waiting' had that. Musically, it does not grow old."
In the interview with the BBC, George Michael told Kirsty Young, "I was too nervous to produce her or write the song, so we did someone else's song and Nerada Michael Walden produced. He's a lovely man. We sang (the choruses) together, which was phenomenal. She wanted to do it that way, but we sang them either side of the mic, the way they always pretend to in the videos. Can you imagine? I'm standing there, just freaking out, I'm singing the other side of a mic with Aretha Franklin and she's treating me like an equal, you know? Obviously, I'm not – but she was treating me with such respect."
As noted, "'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' is one of the 1980s most memorable songs and duets." At a concert in Charleston, South Carolina in 2017, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill performed the song. Cillea Houghton reported, "On their 2017 Soul2Soul Tour, the country couple delivered a duet from two of music's other biggest superstars: Aretha Franklin and George Michael.
"'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' is a perfect fit for the country singers, who do the legendary duo justice with their strong harmonies and enthusiastic delivery. Hill, dressed in a sheer, glittering dress, and McGraw, who looks sharp as always in an all-black outfit and his signature cowboy hat, demonstrate their unique passion throughout the performance, which concluded with thunderous applause from the crowd."
Sieraaj Ahmed of 'Huffington Post' shared with readers in 2017, "Funny, the way music affects us all in different ways; how one song can take on so many meanings to so many very different people. I was ten years old when Aretha Franklin and George Michael's 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' came out, in January 1987. George Michael had been a household name since around 1984, and with each single my little already-music-geeked brain would explode anew, thinking, 'This! This. Is. The. Best. Song. I Have Ever Heard!!!!'
"When 'I Knew You Were Waiting' came out, it quickly replaced 'Careless Whisper', which had replaced eight-year-old me's choice of 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' as my Best Song Ever Recorded. At the time, in Apartheid South Africa in the aftermath of the tumultuous 'State of Emergency' years of 1985/86 – years in which the simmering tensions simmered so high that the country teetered just on the edge of full-blown civil war – there was something delightfully transgressive about loving this song.
"Thirty years later, when I hear that heavenly chorus, my strongest association is not to a longed-for love in the form of a person. Instead I find myself remembering what the long-awaited arrival of 27 April 1994 felt like to my by then 17-year-old heart. My heart leaps unstoppably to the still-fresh memory of what freedom felt like when it finally arrived for the South Africans who’d lived to see the day: 'When the river was deep, I didn't falter. When the mountain was high, I still believed. When the valley was low, it didn’t stop me ... No, No: I knew you were waiting for me.'
"I don’t know if George Michael and Aretha Franklin realized the song might give hope to people in all sorts of situations – and not just those pining for romantic love – but, regardless, it did. To me this song was a promise sung from their hearts and injected into my ten-year-old brain; a promise that something better waited beyond the mess of what South Africa looked like in 1987."
'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' won the Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the Grammy Awards in 1987. The song reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart as well and made Narada Michael Walden the 8th producer in the Rock Era to score back-to-back No. 1 hits. 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' was also the last of Aretha Franklin's 18 Top 10 hits in the Billboard Hot 100.
In his biography 'Bare', George Michael made known, "I was nervous. I knew that Aretha would get the melody and then take it all over the place, which sounds great, but the thing also needed tying down. Nobody can emulate Aretha Franklin. It's stupid to try. I just tried to stay in character, keep it simple. It was very understated in comparison to what she did."
Speaking to 'Entertainment Weekly' in 2017, Aretha Franklin remembered the one-off project, "The first time I heard George was with Wham! and I liked it then. He had a very unique sound, very different from anything that was out there. When Clive (Davis) suggested we get together for 'I Knew You Were Waiting,' I was all ready. It reminded me of Jerry Wexler. We'd go in the studio and cut songs. If we were happy with what we recorded, Jerry would say, 'Let's wait until tomorrow. If we feel the same way that we do now, maybe we have a hit.' 'I Knew You Were Waiting' had that. Musically, it does not grow old."
In the interview with the BBC, George Michael told Kirsty Young, "I was too nervous to produce her or write the song, so we did someone else's song and Nerada Michael Walden produced. He's a lovely man. We sang (the choruses) together, which was phenomenal. She wanted to do it that way, but we sang them either side of the mic, the way they always pretend to in the videos. Can you imagine? I'm standing there, just freaking out, I'm singing the other side of a mic with Aretha Franklin and she's treating me like an equal, you know? Obviously, I'm not – but she was treating me with such respect."
As noted, "'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' is one of the 1980s most memorable songs and duets." At a concert in Charleston, South Carolina in 2017, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill performed the song. Cillea Houghton reported, "On their 2017 Soul2Soul Tour, the country couple delivered a duet from two of music's other biggest superstars: Aretha Franklin and George Michael.
"'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' is a perfect fit for the country singers, who do the legendary duo justice with their strong harmonies and enthusiastic delivery. Hill, dressed in a sheer, glittering dress, and McGraw, who looks sharp as always in an all-black outfit and his signature cowboy hat, demonstrate their unique passion throughout the performance, which concluded with thunderous applause from the crowd."
Sieraaj Ahmed of 'Huffington Post' shared with readers in 2017, "Funny, the way music affects us all in different ways; how one song can take on so many meanings to so many very different people. I was ten years old when Aretha Franklin and George Michael's 'I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)' came out, in January 1987. George Michael had been a household name since around 1984, and with each single my little already-music-geeked brain would explode anew, thinking, 'This! This. Is. The. Best. Song. I Have Ever Heard!!!!'
"When 'I Knew You Were Waiting' came out, it quickly replaced 'Careless Whisper', which had replaced eight-year-old me's choice of 'Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go' as my Best Song Ever Recorded. At the time, in Apartheid South Africa in the aftermath of the tumultuous 'State of Emergency' years of 1985/86 – years in which the simmering tensions simmered so high that the country teetered just on the edge of full-blown civil war – there was something delightfully transgressive about loving this song.
"Thirty years later, when I hear that heavenly chorus, my strongest association is not to a longed-for love in the form of a person. Instead I find myself remembering what the long-awaited arrival of 27 April 1994 felt like to my by then 17-year-old heart. My heart leaps unstoppably to the still-fresh memory of what freedom felt like when it finally arrived for the South Africans who’d lived to see the day: 'When the river was deep, I didn't falter. When the mountain was high, I still believed. When the valley was low, it didn’t stop me ... No, No: I knew you were waiting for me.'
"I don’t know if George Michael and Aretha Franklin realized the song might give hope to people in all sorts of situations – and not just those pining for romantic love – but, regardless, it did. To me this song was a promise sung from their hearts and injected into my ten-year-old brain; a promise that something better waited beyond the mess of what South Africa looked like in 1987."
