Miss You - what was your reaction in 1978?
Date: June 16, 2011 20:21
Miss You was a single in the late spring of 1978. It's gone down in history as a pivotal Stones release, but what were your impressions at the time?
I took a little convincing at first, but that may be because of my age. (I was 13, and not much of a disco fan, and even though I was fascinated by the Stones, and desperate to investigate their back catalogue as pocket money permitted, I hadn't liked their previous British hit, Fool To Cry, and wondered if they were washed-up.) Annoyingly, I was too young to buy Love You Live, as much as I salivated over the adverts for it in NME and Sounds. So the release of a new Stones single in '78 was a really big deal for me.
Miss You... I recall I was listening to Radio Luxembourg one weekday night in April or May '78, with school the next morning, and the DJ kept promising he'd play 'the new Stones single' after the next news or weather bulletin. Midnight came and went. Then we were into the following morning.. 1 a.m., possibly 2 a.m. I was flagging, but determined to stay awake. Then it came.
Even over my tinny transistor radio, at quiet volume, it was possible to notice the bassline; it stood out. The Jagger falsetto seemed to keep a continuity with Fool To Cry (which I wasn't too sure about!), but there was a 'fun' aspect to the song that seemed infectious even though what I *really* wanted was a ROCK song.
So that was my first impression of Miss You. I wouldn't have thought 'oh, instant career revival', or anything like that, but I found it pretty different and interesting, if not quite what I was hoping for, and I looked forward to hearing it again.
Which obviously I did many times in the next few weeks.
You?