Stay Awake

Story of Song

Example explained the story of the song to The Independent: “It’s about this generation that we’ve grown up in, that have been seemingly taking more drugs than ever before. And drinking more, and spending more money on partying, raving and festivals. Is it right? Does it affect our personal life, or our work? Some of the best albums have been written on drugs. I don’t think enough people talk about it. It is a bit edgy, but there are kids at 14 now doing things that I wasn’t. Taking pills and smoking weed and having sex. I think because of that people shouldn’t be scared to sing about it, even though I’m 28. I just hate bland music, with no emotion or message.” The song’s producer, Nero, explained how Example ended up on this song and how it came about, telling Digital Spy: “He [Example] came down to the studio and we played him a load of stuff that is similar to what we have on our record, which was quite dark and techy, but I don’t think it was quite commercial enough. In the end we just wrote a big commercial dance floor track for him, which is what we probably thought he was looking for. It worked out really well in the end because it’s definitely not a Nero track or something we’d put out, but it works really well for him.”

Release date

Released August 28, 2011

Songwriter/s

Example

Label

Ministry of Sound

Chart Rankings

UK – 1

SCOTLAND  – 2

BELGIUM – 29

‘Stay Awake’ topped the UK Singles Charts, UK Dance Charts and the UK Indie Charts. It was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales over 200.000 copies. In Scotland, the song peaked at number 2, and in Ireland at number 18. ‘Stay Awake’ did not make it to the US Charts.

Artist’s age on release date

Elliot John Gleave, aka Example, was 28 years old when this song was released.

Cover Versions

Very few amateur artists covered this song on Youtube.