King of Wishful Thinking
1990 single by Go West
"King of Wishful Thinking" is a song by British pop duo Go West, written by Peter Cox, Richard Drummie and Martin Page. It appeared in the film Pretty Woman and was later included on Go West's third studio album, Indian Summer, in 1992.
In terms of the group's discography, "King of Wishful Thinking" has become their best known song. The track reached number three in Canada, number six in Australia, number eight in the United States, and number 18 in the United Kingdom. At the 1991 Brit Awards, the song was nominated for the Brit Award for British Video of the Year.
Critical reception
Music journalist Hannah Dailey of the U.S. publication Billboard has labeled the song as "one of the crown jewels of ’90s classic hits".
Music video
The song's official music video is known for including various absurdist elements alongside the pop duo as they act on a solid white stage. It was produced, directed and written by Paul Flattery and Jim Yukich of FYI. Though the film does not outwardly utilize film clips from Pretty Woman, outside of brief glimpses superimposed on actual celluloid, the video includes lookalikes of Julia Roberts and Richard Gere (dressed as his character from An Officer and a Gentleman). An actor playing Roy Orbison, performer of the titular song from the film, also appears.
In 2018, actor Paul Rudd and late-night host Jimmy Fallon made a shot-for-shot recreation of the music video for The Tonight Show.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “King of Wishful Thinking” is 1990 single by Go West. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through King, Wishful and Thinking, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6412313. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1992, 1991 and 2018.
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This entry incorporates text from “King of Wishful Thinking” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.