Waiting For A Girl Like You

Album

Yellow Balloon

Label

Atlantic Records

Genre

Soul

Composer(s)

Mick Jones;Lou Gramm

Entered Chart

Oct 10, 1981

Peak Date

Nov 28, 1981

Released

October 1981 (US) 4 December 1981 (UK)

Recorded

1987

Catalog #

Atlantic 3868

B-Side

"I'm Gonna Win"

Foreigner has always stayed away from any "message songs," so you won't get political or social commentary from them, but you will get songs dealing with relationships and emotions. Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones, who wrote the song with lead singer Lou Gramm, told us, "There's a song called 'Waiting For A Girl Like You,' which I literally had no control over, it just came out. I had no idea what it meant, but it got to the point where I couldn't even be in the studio when we were recording it sometimes, it left such a deep impression on me. But it ended up being a song that brought a lot of people together. I hear these days that it's a song that a lot of people play at their weddings. It's the kind of song that the pen does the writing, and you don't even know where it came from. But I feel that it's stuff that's floating around at times and you have to grasp it - it's kind of flying around in the air, and you just have to be open enough to let that flow through you. Sometimes it's sort of mystical where these ideas come from. Sometimes you have an idea about a song, or you have a title that you base the rest of the song on, but sometimes it comes just literally from an unknown area. You'll be thinking about something completely different, and suddenly you get that inspiration. I usually know when it's happening, and I just let it flow and try not to interfere with it - just try and deliver what that thought, those feelings, mean." (Check out our interview with Mick Jones.) Thomas Dolby of "She Blinded Me With Science" fame played the synthesizer intro, which was very un-Foreigner, but helped make the song a huge hit. The 4 album was produced by Mutt Lange, who called in the 19-year-old Dolby after hearing his demo tape. In our interview with Thomas Dolby, he said: "It was great to work with a top band and a top producer - I was very inexperienced in the studio. And I associated Foreigner with solid hard rock and AOR radio and things like that, but they said that they had a couple of really great ballads and that they wanted to take a different approach to them. I think to be listening to commercial radio in 1981 and to hear 15 seconds of ambient music coming out on the front of the song was very unusual. A journalist said, 'This is a radical approach for Foreigner, who's responsible for it?' They would see my name on the credits, and go, 'Well, who is this guy?' So I think that it actually contributed in large part to there being a receptive atmosphere for when I came out with my solo stuff." Dolby would later work with Lange on Def Leppard's Pyromania album, and Lange sang backup for Dolby on "She Blinded Me With Science." This may be the biggest hit single in US chart history that never made it to #1. It spent an astounding 10 weeks at #2, but had the misfortune of peaking at the same time as Olivia Newton-John's even more massive hit "Physical," which spent 10 weeks at the top spot. But even when "Physical" finally fell out of #1, "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)" by Daryl Hall and John Oates leapfrogged ahead of this song into the #1 spot. The week after that, "Centerfold" by the J. Geils Band knocked the Hall and Oates song to #2 and this song to #3. In 2002, "Work It" by Missy Elliott matched this song's dubious chart feat, also staying at #2 for 10 weeks without hitting #1. >> In 1985, 4 years after this near-miss for the ages, Foreigner would finally get their first and only #1 hit with "I Want to Know What Love Is." Ironically, these 2 songs are love ballads, not typical of Foreigner's usual hard-rocking style. The group Heart also fell into this category, scoring their first #1 with a the atypical ballad "These Dreams" also in 1985. >> Whilst this song never made it to #1, the 4 album did, topping the Billboard 200 for ten weeks. In doing so it became the first solely-numerical title to reign since the Billboard 200 launched as a weekly survey the week of March 24, 1956. In his autobiography, Lou Gramm tells of a beautiful, mysterious woman who appeared in the control room when he was recording his vocal and gave him the inspiration to deliver the stirring take that was better than he has ever sung the song. He writes that this ephemeral beauty vanished, and he has never discerned her identity. When we spoke with Gramm in 2013, he admitted that this purple prose was embellished a bit, and that he had already found the girl he was waiting for - his first wife, Roseanne. This opens the third episode of Stranger Things ("Holly Jolly" - 2016) while Nancy goes to bed with Steve, and Barb faces a harrowing situation outside. It was also used in these TV shows: The Goldbergs ("Horseplay" - 2021) Scream Queens ("Rapunzel, Rapunzel" - 2016) Bones ("The Mutilation of the Master Manipulator" - 2014) Medium ("The Talented Ms. Boddicker" - 2009) Doogie Howser, M.D. ("You've Come A Long Way, Babysitter" - 1993) Moonlighting ("The Man Who Cried Wife" - 1986) And in these movies: While We're Young (2014) Epic Movie (2007) Snow Day (2000) Can't Hardly Wait (1998) Footloose (1984)

So long, I've been looking too hard
I've been waiting too long
Sometimes I don't know what I will find
I only know it's a matter of time

When you love someone
When you love someone
It feels so right, so warm and true
I need to know if you feel it too
Maybe I'm wrong
Won't you tell me if I'm coming on too strong?
This heart of mine has been hurt before
This time I want to be sure

I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you, you're a love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

You're so good
When we make love it's understood
It's more than a touch or a word we'd say
Only in dreams could it be this way

When you love someone
Yeah, I really love someone
Now, I know it's right
From the moment I wake up 'til deep in the night
There's nowhere on earth that I'd rather be than holding you tenderly

I've been waiting for a girl like you to come into my life
I've been waiting for a girl like you, you're a love that will survive
I've been waiting for someone new to make me feel alive
Yeah, waiting for a girl like you to come into my life

I've been waiting, waiting for you, ooh
Ooh, I've been waiting
(Waiting) I've been waiting, yeah
(I've been waiting for a girl like you, I've been waiting)
Won't you come into my life?
Ah