Songfacts®:

• "Shake Me, Wake Me (When it's Over)" is about lost love. In the song, lead vocalist Levi Stubbs sings about hearing his neighbors' voices coming through his thin apartment walls. The neighbors are talking about how his woman doesn't love him anymore; he is knocked out by the news and asks to be woken up when the nightmare is over.
• This was written by the Motown team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. Most of their hits went to The Supremes, but they also wrote some songs for the Four Tops, including the #1 hits "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" and "Reach Out I'll Be There." "Shake Me, Wake Me" was a modest hit, reaching #18 in the US on March 26 while "Ballad Of The Green Berets" was #1.
• A group of female vocalists named The Andantes did background vocals for the track. It's one of 16 Four Tops songs they contributed to.
• This was the first single released from On Top, the third Four Tops album. The B-side was "Just as Long as You Need Me."
• This wasn't the only song doing some shaking and waking in 1966: Al Kooper's band The Blues Project released "Wake Me, Shake Me" that year.
• In 1975, Barbra Streisand did a disco version of the song for her album Lazy Afternoon. She released it as a single. It earned her a #14 position on Billboard's US Dance Club Songs chart and a #10 on Billboard's US Disco Singles chart.