MDNA Tour, where the singer performed the song while slacklining. Background and release In 2004, after the release of her ninth studio album American Life, Madonna began working on two different musicals: one tentatively called Hello Suckers and another one with Luc Besson, who previously directed the music video for her single "Love Profusion", which would portray her as a woman on her deathbed looking back on her life. Madonna collaborated with Patrick Leonard, Mirwais Ahmadzaï and Stuart Price to write new songs, and told Price to pen disco songs that sound like "ABBA on drugs". However, Madonna found herself dissatisfied with the script written by Besson and scrapped it. When she began composing Confessions on a Dance Floor, she decided to rework "Hung Up" and include it in her record. "Hung Up" was one of the first songs written for the album, along with "Sorry" and "Future Lovers". It was inspired by aspects of the 1970s disco era, including the music of ABBA and Giorgio Moroder and the film Saturday Night Fever (1977). Madonna imagined it to be a cross between the music played at Danceteria, the New York City night club she frequented in her early days, and the music of ABBA. Their 1979 song "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" formed the basis of the song. Songwriters Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus generally do not allow anyone to sample any of their tracks, an exception being Fugees, who sampled their song "The Name of the Game" for their single "Rumble in the Jungle". In order to gain the rights to sample "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!", Madonna had to send her emissary to Stockholm with a letter which begged them to allow her to sample the song and also telling how much she loved their music. To the BBC she explained: "[T]hey never let anyone sample their music. Thank God they didn't say no. [...] They had to think about it, Benny and Björn. They didn't say yes straight away." The pair agreed to let Madonna use the sample only after making a copyright agreement that entitled them to a significant share of the royalties from subsequent sales and airplay. Andersson, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph in October 2005, declared "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!" to be the essence of "Hung Up" while joking that it was his favorite Madonna song thus far. He further said: "We get