One of Madonna’s most-loved songs has a secret link to Liverpool.
Hung Up, from the American singer’s 10th studio album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, was created after one of the co-writers spent the night in Liverpool DJing. In an interview with Music Week, Stuart Price revealed : “how a night on the M1, a chance Radio 2 play and a handwritten note saw the Material Girl sample ABBA’s Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”.
Stuart recalled how through a former work colleague he managed to secure a spot in Madonna’s band as a keyboard player. This connection gave him the opportunity to work with the singer and help remix some of her already existing songs.
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He claims Madonna was making a movie at the time “that didn’t materialise”, which was supposed to feature music from different generations including a punk rock era, a ‘20s era and a disco era. Stuart was asked if he had anything that would be similar to “ABBA at Studio 54”, to which he originally said no. However, he later remembered a track he had created earlier that year after playing at a Seel Street venue.
Stuart said: “However, six months beforehand, I had a DJing residency at a club in Liverpool called The Masque, at the Chibuku Shake Shake night. One night, I was coming back from Chibuku, it was 5am on the M1, I was falling asleep – I wasn’t driving – and Radio 2 was on. Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! started playing, and in that dream state I thought, ‘wow, that would be a really good sample for a song.’ So just before I went up to play Chibuku again, I quickly hacked the sample into a track that I could play in my DJ set.
“It was immediate – the whole room felt pretty special. I played it for the next couple of months, but like most DJs, I wore out my records and moved on. So when Madonna mentioned ABBA, I suddenly went, ‘Well, there is one thing’.”
Madonna “listened intently” to the track and began “opening her mouth” and singing the chorus: “Every little thing that you say or do, I’m hung up, I’m hung up on you.” Stuart added: “It really happened that quickly. We were in the studio, which was in the attic of my flat in Maida Vale, so I recorded her. Subsequently, the production took some work, but the whole thing about making Confessions On A Dance Floor was that it was such fun. Hung Up really set the tone for that album.”
The lead single from the 2005 album, which was described as a “Liverpool track” by Stuart, peaked at number seven on the Hot 100 and was the first of two chart hits from Madonna’s “discofied album”. Meanwhile, the music video, which saw the 64-year-old mum-of-six, channelling Saturday Night Fever whilst clubbing in London, remains one of her most recognisable videos.
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