Peak
1
Weeks
24
Score
4,624
Chart Year
1984
The music video for "Missing You" was written/directed/produced by Kort Falkenberg III and was actually filmed in Los Angeles during the summer of 1984. Although some people understandably have mistaken the street scene for New York City or London, the director intentionally looked for a location in downtown Los Angeles where there was "no Stucco" on the walls which would have been a dead giveaway that it was shot in the southwest U.S., as he wanted it to look neutral and not be identifiable as any particular city. To start the clip, John Waite is sitting in a chair, and after seeing a picture of a woman (played by actress Elizabeth Reiko Kubota[9]) with whom he is still in love, he, frustrated, slaps the lamp above him causing it to swing back and forth and begins to sing the song. When he opens his bedroom door, a woman playfully jumps into his arms and they embrace falling back onto the bed. Later, Waite watches through a crack in the door as the woman angrily throws her clothes into her suitcase. She pushes through the door to leave him and it hits him in the face full force as she storms past him, away. Pained at her emotional and physical assault, he sadly remembers being at one of her photo shoots. Trying to be cool, Waite leans on a lighting stand but misses and stumbles. Seeing this, she lovingly laughs at his fumbling. Back to the present, Waite tries to call her from a phone booth, but when the woman finally picks up the phone, her only connection is to a dangling phone in an empty phone booth. Waite is gone. He laments about "I ain't missin' you at all" as he walks down the city street only to see a picture of the woman on a newspaper. He goes into a bar. There, an older woman slides onto the stool next to him and tries to flirt with him, but for sheer sorrow shows he is not interested and then goes home again still pining for the woman. He tries again to call her but his anger and frustration gets the better of him and he smashes the phone into pieces. When she finally comes to his door and knocks, he doesn't answer, as he doesn't hear her knock over the music playing on his earphones he had put on just before her first knock. She leans against the door gently touching it and, with a deep breath, she turns and leaves as tears flow down her face
This song came at a very emotional time for Waite, who lays down his burdens in his sentimental lyrics and passionate vocal performance. In our interview with John Waite, he explained that the song was about a phone call. Waite got married in his native England before moving to New York, where he recorded his first solo album, Ignition, which was released in 1984. The album was a disappointment, and after some squabbles with his record company (Chrysalis), he returned to England and settled into married life. After extricating from his contract, he signed a new deal with EMI and returned to New York, leaving his wife behind while he made his second album, No Brakes. "My wife was a long way away," Waite said in a Songfacts interview. "There were quite a few women in my life at the time, and it all came sort of floating to the top." Waite's feelings poured out of him in the song - on one level, he missed his wife dearly, but on a more superficial plane he didn't miss her at all, which is what he sang on the refrain: "I ain't missing you at all." The song encapsulates the disconsolation that comes with long distance love. Waite and his wife would later divorce. The songwriters Mark Leonard and Charles Sandford wrote the music for this song. Sandford also wrote the Stevie Nicks hit "Talk To Me" and co-wrote "What Kind Of Man Would I Be?" for Chicago. Leonard wrote the music for the 1986 movie Back To School, and also co-wrote "Let Me Be The One," which was recorded by Terri Nunn. One of the more memorable parts of this song happened spontaneously. Said Waite: "I had no idea I was going to sing, 'Missing you, since you've been gone away, I ain't missing you no matter what my friends say.' I had no idea I was going to sing that, and when it came out, it floored me. I stood back from the mic, and I thought, 'F--k it. Number 1.' I just knew. I just knew in my heart that it was that good." Tina Turner took this song to #12 in the UK when she recorded it on her 1996 album Wildest Dreams. Around the same time, the soul singer Millie Jackson also recorded the song, but Turner released her version first. Jackson told us: "I recorded 'Missing You' And I was all excited about it, it was gonna be my next single, and the guys at Muscle Shoals said, 'Boy you got the song out quick! I heard it at a truck stop.' And I'm trying to figure out how in the world did they hear my song at a truck stop when it won't be out for two weeks. And of course it was Tina Turner and we had to pull the single and come back with a different one." John Waite was the lead singer of a group called the Babys, whose 1978 song "Every Time I Think Of You" reached #13 in the US. Waite cribbed a lyric from that song (which was written by the songwriters Jack Conrad and Ray Kennedy) to get him started on "Missing You." Compare the opening lyrics to these songs: "Every Time I Think Of You" - "Every time I think of you, it always turns out good." "Missing You" - "Every time I think of you, I always catch my breath." Once he had the first line, the rest of the lyrics flowed downhill, and the rest of it was written in about 10 minutes. Waite told Songfacts: "I sang the whole first verse, bridge, and chorus without stopping. Then I had to stop, I was so overwhelmed. I stood back from the mic and I couldn't speak. Then I just rolled the tape again and got on with it." Some of the symbolism in this song was inspired by Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" and Free's "Catch A Train." Both songs depict lonely scenarios far from a loved one. The song was a last-minute addition to the album, but Waite had no trouble convincing his crew that it needed to be on the tracklist. "I took the tape down to the guys in the studio who were mixing, thinking the record was finished, and I knew it wasn't, since we didn't have 'Missing You,'" he told us. "I played it in the control room and everybody stopped talking. It had that effect on people from the word go. It was one of those songs that defined a decade, really. It was one of the biggest. I think it's been played about 9, 10 million times on American radio - it's a huge thing." The video was in hot rotation on MTV, which helped the song climb to #1 in the US. In the clip, Waite gives a tortured performance, but what he was feeling at the time was more anxiety than heartbreak. "You can tell how shy I was at the time," he told us. "I'm trying to sing this song and sort of look at the camera and then not look at the camera. I'm embarrassed, you know. I mean, it's okay being on stage, because you're in some sort of persona. But being filmed was a new experience for me on that level. I suppose it was kind of charming. But there was a million places I would rather be than being filmed at that point in my life." Kort Falkenberg III, who also did Waite's video for "Change," directed the clip. It was shot in downtown Los Angeles near Pershing Square. "The biggest thing I remember about 'Missing You' is that the night before I went down to Let It Rock, which was a clothes store on Melrose Avenue," said Waite. "I bought a Johnson suit, this black two-piece suit from London that was a beautiful suit. Tiny. I was very thin at the time. And then I went and had all my hair shaved off. I thought, 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to go in whole hog, you know. I'm just going to do it flat out European.' I showed up with a black suit and a crew cut, and it worked. I do everything on instinct, basically, and half of the time it's a bullseye." Waite performed this on the short-lived ABC TV series Paper Dolls in 1984. This was used in second episode of Miami Vice, "Heart of Darkness," which aired September 28, 1984. At the time, it was the #1 song in America, landing at the top on September 22. Miami Vice spent big bucks on music and used many contemporary songs throughout the series' five-year run. Exposure on the show also helped the artists because the show was undeniably cool. Phil Collins got the biggest boost when "In The Air Tonight" featured in the first episode. This song appears in the following movies: 22 Jump Street (2014) Selena (1997) Let It Be Me (1995)
Everytime I think of you I always catch my breath And I'm still standing here And you're miles away And I'm wonderin' why you left And there's a storm that's raging Through my frozen heart tonight I hear your name in certain circles And it always makes me smile I spend my time thinkin' about you And it's almost driving me wild And there's a heart that's breaking Down this long distance line tonight I ain't missing you at all (Missing you) Since you've been gone away (Missing you) I ain't missing you (Missing you) No matter what I might say (Missing you) There's a message in the wire And I'm sending you this signal tonight You don't know how desperate I've become And it looks like I'm losing this fight In your world I have no meaning Though I'm trying hard to understand And it's my heart that's breaking Down this long distance line tonight I ain't missing you at all (Missing you) Since you've been gone away (Missing you) Oh hey, I ain't missing you (Missing you) No matter what my friends say (Missing you) And there's a message that I'm sending out Like a telegraph to your soul And if I can't bridge this distance Stop this heartbreak overload I ain't missing you at all (Missing you) Since you've been gone away (Missing you) I ain't missing you (Missing you) No matter what my friends say (Missing you) I ain't missing you (Missing you) I ain't missing you, I can't lie to myself (Missing you) And there's a storm that's raging Through my frozen heart tonight I ain't missing you at all (Missing you) Since you've been gone away (Missing you) I ain't missing you (Missing you) No matter what my friends say (Missing you) Ain't missing you I ain't missing you I ain't missing you, I can't lie to myself Ain't missing you I ain't missing you I ain't missing you I ain't missing you I ain't missing you I ain't missing you Ain't missing you, oh no No matter what my friends might say I ain't missing you
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jun 23, 1984 | 89 | 37 |
| 2 | Jun 30, 1984 | 74 | 52 |
| 3 | Jul 7, 1984 | 60 | 66 |
| 4 | Jul 14, 1984 | 45 | 81 |
| 5 | Jul 21, 1984 | 36 | 90 |
| 6 | Jul 28, 1984 | 29 | 97 |
| 7 | Aug 4, 1984 | 23 | 103 |
| 8 | Aug 11, 1984 | 12 | 114 |
| 9 | Aug 18, 1984 | 7 | 119 |
| 10 | Aug 25, 1984 | 5 | 121 |
| 11 | Sep 1, 1984 | 2 | 124 |
| 12 | Sep 8, 1984 | 2 | 124 |
| 13 | Sep 15, 1984 | 2 | 124 |
| 14 | Sep 22, 1984 | 1 | 125 |
| 15 | Sep 29, 1984 | 2 | 124 |
| 16 | Oct 6, 1984 | 4 | 122 |
| 17 | Oct 13, 1984 | 7 | 119 |
| 18 | Oct 20, 1984 | 12 | 114 |
| 19 | Oct 27, 1984 | 23 | 103 |
| 20 | Nov 3, 1984 | 34 | 92 |