Wham! - Young Guns (Go For It!) (1982)

"Young Guns (Go for It)" (also as "Young Guns (Go for It!)") is a song by English pop duo Wham! first released as a single in ...

"Young Guns (Go for It)" (also as "Young Guns (Go for It!)") is a song by English pop duo Wham! first released as a single in the UK by Innervision Records in October 1982. It was written and co-produced by George Michael, one half of the duo. The song was Wham!'s first hit, although it came with some help from the BBC music programme Top of the Pops, which invited Wham! on to the show as a last-minute replacement for another act which had pulled out. It helped that the producer of Top of the Pops had seen them previously on another programme: Saturday Superstore.

Top of the Pops

Wham! were just outside the top 40 threshold of the UK Singles Chart at the time, which meant they had not climbed high enough in normal circumstances to get on the show, but they were recruited nonetheless as the highest-placed artists still climbing the charts from outside the top 40. On Top of the Pops, George mimed the vocals to his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley, who "acted" the part of the teenage bridegroom-in-waiting. They were flanked by backing singers Dee C Lee and Shirlie Holliman.

The original recording does not feature the voices of Lee or Holliman but that of American backing singer Lynda Hayes.

Chart performance

The song entered the chart initially at number 73, went up to number 48, then dropped to number 52 and the week after that, it jumped to number 42. Their appearance on Top of the Pops broke the record wide open and on the following Monday the distribution centre received some thirty thousand orders. This sent the record to number 24 before eventually peaking at number 3 in November 1982.