Songfacts®:

• In this song, Madonna is hung up, waiting for a guy to call (see what she did there?). It a pretty standard storyline, but there is more to it. She repeats the phrase "time goes by so slowly" over and over, which is how she feels when she's waiting. Only action can cure her ennui. Madonna was 47 when the song was released.
• The music is based on ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)." Madonna wrote to ABBA members Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson personally to get their permission to use the sample. This was the second time ABBA had granted such a request. Previously, Fugees were given permission to sample the bass and synthesizer from this for their 1997 hit "Rumble In The Jungle."
  
  Bjorn Ulvaaeus explained to the Sunday Telegraph how they granted permission to the Queen of Pop: "Madonna wrote a very, very nice letter saying please, please we have had a wonderful idea which involves 'Gimme Gimme.' We said we would have to listen to it first, but after half a minute I knew it was brilliant. That is one of the few we have allowed. Five years earlier we said yes to the Fugees. But to everyone else we said no. I think the Madonna record shows that ABBA is part of the DNA set-up of pop."
• The song was originally written for a musical that was going to be directed by French director Luc Besson. The musical was later abandoned, and Madonna decided to use it for her Confessions On A Dance Floor album instead.
• Madonnna wrote and produced the song with Stuart Price, who worked on nine tracks on the album. Other clients on his CV include The Killers, Keane and Gwen Stefani.
• On November 3, 2005 Madonna opened the MTV Europe Music Awards at the Pavilhao Atlantico in Lisbon (Portugal), performing "Hung Up" live for the first time (always the perfectionist, she rehearsed it 30 times first). On February 8, 2006 Madonna opened the Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles with the animated band The Gorillaz, performing a medley of this and "Feel Good Inc."
• "Hung Up" peaked at #7 in America but was a huge hit elsewhere, going to #1 in a record 41 countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and Japan.
  
  Worldwide, it's one of the most popular songs in Madonna's vast catalog, and it has aged well, with streaming numbers that blow away most of her earlier hits. In America the song got more popular when downloads became viable - by 2008 it sold a million. On YouTube, only the meme-powered "La Isla Bonita" has more views among Madonna songs.
• Johan Renck ("Nothing Really Matters") directed the '70s-inspired music video over the course of six days in London and South Central Los Angeles after months of rehearsal for the dancers. At Madonna's request, some of the dancers were recruited from the 2005 documentary Rize about the "krumping" dance movement out of South Central. One of the London scenes took place at an abandoned tube station near Charing Cross, which was a mere 10 minutes from Madonna's home at the time.
• This is the first track on Madonna's 2009 compilation Celebration. Explaining why to Rolling Stone, she said, "Because it's a badass song."
• "Hung Up" was featured on CSI: Miami in the episode "Felony Flight" and on CSI: NY in the episode "Manhattan Manhunt," both in 2005.
• Madonna's daughter Lourdes, then age 9, was disgusted by the music video. The singer explained to Out magazine: "She watched the 'Hung Up' video, the part where I'm in the tunnel and dancing with all the guys, and she is like, 'Ugh, gross! This is disgusting, Mom. Why are you doing that?' And I am like, 'Because I am having fun. This is what people do: they go out, when they are grown-ups, and dance and have fun.'"
• While filming the music video for this song, Madonna was still putting herself back together after a horse-riding accident left her with nine broken bones a few months earlier. The project proved to be a test of strength. She explained to Harper's Bazaar: "Forget about riding a horse again - I didn't know if I was going to be able to dance again. When I shot the video [for 'Hung Up'] none of the bones had gone together. Pharmaceuticals and my will got me through the shoot. So to come out of that, I felt so much inspiration and so much joy just to have my body back and to feel strong again."
• In the UK, the 2006 "Children In Need" appeal was a parody of the "Hung Up" music video performed by the cast of the British soap opera Holby City.