Perfect song, perfect hit, amazing really.

From the book (mine's paperback) Playboy Interviews with John Lennon & Yoko Ono: JOHN LENNON: "'Bless You' is again about Yoko. I think Mick Jagger took 'Bless You' and turned it into 'Miss You'... The engineer kept wanting me to speed that up—he said, 'This is a hit song if you'd just do it fast.' He was right. 'Cause as 'Miss You' it turned into a hit. I like Mick's record better. I have no ill feelings about it. I think it's a GREAT Stones track, and I really love it. But I do hear that lick in it. Could be subconscious or conscious. It's irrelevant. Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-12-31 18:34 by Title5Take1.

Yeah that is an interesting bit in the Playboy Interviews. What a wonderful font of history from Lennon. It is funny, I do hear shades of Miss You in Bless You. And Mick really revered Lennon, and his opinion. Mick probably had the idea germinating, then Billy Preston was able to add the funk injection that turned it into Miss You.

Quote
whitem8
Yeah that is an interesting bit in the Playboy Interviews. What a wonderful font of history from Lennon. It is funny, I do hear shades of Miss You in Bless You. And Mick really revered Lennon, and his opinion. Mick probably had the idea germinating, then Billy Preston was able to add the funk injection that turned it into Miss You.

Just as I suspected!Lennon behind even that tune...

2 1 2 0

Quote
whitem8
The Stones hit hard with four to the floor. Slithering opening with a jungle funk groove. The backing vocals sound like a remake of Sympathy with a new funk/punk sheen. Ronnie and Keith perfectly harmonize with their guitars, weaving a Curtis Mayfield groove with wonderfully economical funk grit. Mick's urgent call out to his agonized lonely friend with a cure of Puerto Rican girls, and a gorged love fest to shut out the loneliness of divorce and alienation from your long gone mate. Bianca is haunting his dreams, a picture of something Mick thought he was supposed to have but lost. That's what is so great about this entire album, the concept of loss and anger, grieving. Miss you ratchets it up with intensity to the chorus with propulsive gut bucket authority. Miss was the perfect single of barn storming proportions. It was huge. The Stones slapped back at the Punks with a funk work out that was a massive hit. This creates a wave of interest that Some Girls surfed the entire summer. Perfect weather album for a hot summer of sensuality and humid Stones grooves. Every click and pop of that entire album became part of a deep hypnotic memory that to this day brings a shiver memory of the thrill of 1978.

Excellent stuff whitem

I reacted to the song in much the same way.
Whenever I see this song lazily attributed to Jerry Hall (mainly due to her own revisionist claim and journalists who buy it) it drives me nuts, and here's why:

Mick and Bianca's divorce was being played out in the press when this song hit the radio and clubs and most people rightly assumed it was about that separation. In a strange way, i think that fact humanized Jagger and gave the song that real sense of urgency. I once read a book about that period and the author wrote about Miss You: 'Everybody who was anybody then knew that it was Bianca Mick was missing..'
It wasn't just the beat, the music...this song, even as a kid hearing it on the radio..it had a melancholy about it.
This song was still in heavy rotation in 79 when I got into the Stones and I remember reading my mom's People, Us and gossip rags about the Jaggers' divorce - with Jerry Hall as the third party...and me thinking that Jerry Hall probably thought the song was about her because she seemed like one of those girls who would think that, or believe that. And like most people, I also assumed it was about Bianca. That humanized Jagger to me, and gave the song an emotional power.
'I guess I'm lying to myself, its you and no one else...'
Even as a 13-year old I sensed this was about an emptiness, something missing, real purgatory.
It was the first song I had ever heard that had a meaning to it - a cause, effect and result....and that's when the Stones' music first rocked my little world.
So when Jerry Hall claims its about her while she was away on a modeling assignment - if that were the case - the song would lose its emotional, solitary power. It's not about 'rights' - its about changing the whole meaning of a song that so many people could relate to on a visceral level.
I know its all open to interpretation, but sometimes songs really are about one person, one specific. And to take that away - its just a song with a great groove ....beat.
You put that into words so perfectly whiten



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-12-31 19:29 by stupidguy2.

Right there with Satisfaction, and Jumping Jack Flash as turning points in the Stones career. They were pretty fried by 1978. 'Love You Live' didn't excite anyone. Their last couple albums had kind of stiffed from a critical standpoint, and they hadn't been relevant since Angie. Miss You was a huge shot in the arm for the boys. They were the true Kings of Pop again, incorporating the disco scene into the Stones sound. And women absolutely love it. The Rolling Stones were lifted from tiresome classic rock to leading the pack.

It has not been justice since Bill's bass commandeered the stage in the early 80s. Irony of ironies. A black bass player just can't get Miss You right.

stupidguy2 thank you so much for your post. Very nicely written as well. Happy New Year!

This is how it sounds as a Blues:

buddy guy and junior wells had it as a staple in their setlist for years.

they haven't written anything as good since...they have riden that song (along with a couple of other war horses) for the last 35 years into the sunset.

Quote
whitem8
stupidguy2 thank you so much for your post. Very nicely written as well. Happy New Year!

Peace.
That's a great version by Etta! I had never heard it...thanks Green Lady...
Does anyone remember another version from the mid-80s by an R&B female singer - I keep thinking it was Betty Wright and I had the album...it was closer to the original but without the four/four on drums.
but can't find anything online...

I'm reading Rod Stewart's new autobiography and he said MISS YOU partly inspired DA YA THINK I'M SEXY. Particularly the "disco bass."

Loved it when it came out in 1978. Still sounds great to me now. Not thrilled about some of the live versions, but so what. The guitars slash and jangle, the bass is sublime, the use of Sugar Blue on harp was inspired, and Mick is at his most "Mick". I haven't even mentioned Charlie (oh, I just did). What's not to like?

Quote
drewmaster
Ahh, Miss You, perhaps the most famous post-1971 Stones track besides Start Me Up, and the one that obviously kicked off the band’s late-70’s resurgence. To my ears, it has unfortunately not aged as well as, say, Emotional Rescue. Maybe it’s because classic rock radio played it to death back in the days when I listened to the radio, and then the Stones tirelessly trotted out in their live shows, but I’ve long since grown bored with that four-on-the-floor beat and Mick’s rather tedious “oooh oooh oooh ooohs”.

So despite its massive popularity, Miss You does not rank with the Stones best work, IMO. Being a Mick Jagger dance (disco?) number, it lacks the rock-and-roll punch, the outlaw appeal that Keith brings to much of the rest of Some Girls; instead it must primarily rely on the swing of Charlie and Bill. And swing they do, but by Stones standards that beat is not particularly exciting, at least to me. Where things get interesting, of course, is the infamous early-rap section where Mick starts walkin’ Central Park, singin’ after dark, and people think he’s craaaaaaay-zeeeee. I used to find that part mesmerizing ... nobody can captivate the listener like Mick Jagger can … but alas, after hundreds upon hundreds of hearings, the novelty has worn off.

And so we’re left with Sugar Blue to take the song home. Sugar is a good harp-player, but let’s face it, he’s no Mick Jagger. Not even close. Mick, why the hell did you decide to relegate harp duties to someone else?? If you’d played the solo, surely it would have been electrifying, as opposed to merely adequate. It would have been the icing on the cake on a song that was yours from the start. Lord, I miss you child.

Drew

As famous as It's Only Rock and Roll?

Always loved this song, won't miss it live though.

What about this cover? Gets the blood boiling.

Second coming for The Stones. Bob Clearmountain's dance mix was ground breaking. One of the most important RS records.

Good, innit?

You've been strung out for too long,
You know, girls will come and go
They're just like streetcars:





One thing that's obvious is that this is a favourite of Mick's - I've never heard him sound bored singing it, he chose it for the White House, he sang it at the Saturday Night Live afterparty, it never seems to get left out of a live set...

Quote
StonesTod
disco rocks

Disco sucks.

I won't tell ya'll what I really think of this unlistenable dreck.

This is the song that got me hooked on the Stones. Such a great track, everything in it is played with a sense of purpose and feeling.

The studio-cut is a classic, but it's never worked me in concert - especially during the Bridges To Babylon Tour.

Quote
Edith Grove

Quote
StonesTod
disco rocks

Disco sucks.

I won't tell ya'll what I really think of this unlistenable dreck.

Disco was fantastic. It pushed aside that Classic Rock bs for a while and put some rhythm back in rock and roll. It was time to put Jethro Tull aside for a while and get silly, get uptown, get out of the plaid flannel shirts and move. Then it had the grace to disappear, unlike rap.

Quote
Edith Grove

Quote
StonesTod
disco rocks

Disco sucks.

I won't tell ya'll what I really think of this unlistenable dreck.

Oh but do tell...I have a feeling it is right in line with my thoughts judging from your teaser review

With any genre of music , a certain percentage of it is crap and disco is no different. But there were some quality disco music made that holds up today.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-06 19:08 by ryanpow.

People like Bernard Edwards, Nile Rodgers, Tony Thompson were amazing musicians... Talking about dance before machines took over

Who wrote the song?

Jagger (words and....?)
Preston (maybe bassline, rhythm, ....)
Wyman (the bassline is Wyman, maybe inspired by Preston?)
Ronnie?

The melody, who wrote that, Sugar blue? Mick? Ronnie?

Quote
ryanpow
With any genre of music , a certain percentage of it is crap and disco is no different. But there were some quality disco music made that holds up today.

Ryanpow- No offense, I do not consider MY as a disco song. It's too slow to be a dance song. It's simply a pop song, which at the time !981? Upon its relase, Stones fans considered this un- Stones like, and threw the hard core Stones fans off course. It's not a bad or good song. But I hate how commercial "oldies and "Classic" radio staions play this song or satisfaction over and over. They never play the True Stones fans songs such as Rocks off with the eception of Pain it Black, Get off my Cloud, or even TD. the commercial stations never play the classics such as Torn an Frayed, Sweet Virginia, for example ...on and on..

Quote
Chris Fountain

Quote
ryanpow
With any genre of music , a certain percentage of it is crap and disco is no different. But there were some quality disco music made that holds up today.

Ryanpow- No offense, I do not consider MY as a disco song. It's too slow to be a dance song.

then why were all those ppl dancing to it in the discotheques?