A straight answer is something you will never get when it comes to various members of the Rolling Stones explaining how "Miss You" was conceived.
Lead signer Mick Jagger and guitarist Ronnie Wood claim when they put that record together, the disco craze of the time was the furthest thing on their mind. Then there's Keith Richards, who claimed that "Miss You" was "a damn good disco record; it was calculated to be one."
Whoever you believe, it became another classic hit song by one of popular music's greatest bands ever.
And it was a jam session between Jagger and the late, great Billy Preston that got the ball rolling for what would turn out to be "Miss You," according to former Stones bass player Bill Wyman.
"The idea for those bass lines came from Billy Preston," Wyman said. "We'd cut a rough demo a year or so earlier after a recording session. I'd already gone home, and Billy picked up my old bass when they started running through that song. He started doing that bit because it seemed to be the style of his left hand. So when we finally came to do the time, the boys said, 'Why don't you work around Billy's idea?' So I listened to it once and heard that basic run and took it from there. It took some changing and polishing, but the basic idea was Billy's."
That was in early 1977, and the band was facing a dire situation: Richards was in a load of trouble for drug possession in Toronto and was looking at a long prison sentence if found guilty on the charge. It was at that time that Jagger took control of the entire writing of the album that would turn out to be "Some Girls."
By October, the band was ready to put down the track for "Miss You" at the Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris. And while the band denied it was a disco record, they had done some extensive time going to discos throughout the world. What he had heard in those discos was able to translate to Preston, who put the jam down for him.
However, it was the "supporting" cast what ended up making a big difference in the end. Longtime keyboardist Ian McLagan came in to play the electric piano. Mel Collins was brought in to play the saxophone. The Stones members knew about those guys.
They didn't know, though, about a guy named Sugar Blue. His real name James Whiting, Sugar Blue was born in 1949 in Harlem, N.Y., but was living in Paris and working the Paris Metro (their train station) busking on harmonica. Knowing that a harmonica player may come in handy during the recording sessions, a member of the band's Rolling Stones record label was so impressed by Sugar Blue that this person invited him to the studio.
Turns out that his harmonica would be the highlight instrument of "Miss You." Oh, and that bass riff that Wyman played because he heard what Preston had done. The harmonica's feel made this a dance record with a honky-tonk feel to it. It also gave it a raw blues edge, and if you were a member of the Stones, this was a positive for this was how the band first got started – playing raw blues.
But that whole disco thing? Richards explained that he thought "Miss You" was more an "R&B record and not a disco song." As for drummer Charlie Watts, his explanation was simpler.
"A lot of those songs like 'Miss You' were heavily influenced by going to the discos," Watts said. "You can hear it in a lot of those four-on-the-floor rhythms and the Philadelphia-style drumming. Mick and I used to go to discos a lot. It was a great period. I remember being in Munich and coming back from a club with Mick singing one of the Village People songs, 'Y.M.C.A.' I think it was ... and Keith went mad, but it sounded great on the dance floor."
It was understandable why the Stones got bitten by the disco bug – by 1978, disco music was soaring, thanks to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack that made fellow Brits The Bee Gees stars. And seemingly, most everything out on the radio at the time had a beat to it.
So in that regard, why not the Rolling Stones, the world's most famous rock band at that point?
Richards may have scoffed at it and sarcastic in the end, but the rest of the guys knew they had a hit when they heard it. "Miss You" was released as the first single from the "Some Girls" album and made its Hot 100 debut at No. 76 on May 27, 1978. And it didn't take long from there for the Stones to make a Top 40 entry as "Miss You" jumped to No. 53, then to No. 37 on June 10, 1978, where it debuted. A pair of six-notch climbs was followed up on July 1, 1978 when "Miss You" climbed from No. 25 to No. 14. The next week, "Miss You" entered the Top 10 at No. 7. After a one-notch climb to No. 6, it entered the Top 5 at No. 3 on July 22, 1978. But it held at that spot for two weeks, putting its future in doubt on the chart.
The worries were short-lived -- on August 5, 1978, the Rolling Stones ended its patient wait of Andy Gibb's "Shadow Dancing" at the top to become the eighth and last No. 1 hit in their amazing careers.
As for the lyrics, many suspected that Jagger wrote the words after he and then-wife Bianca had a spat and she kicked him to the curb. No so, said Jagger, who said, "'Miss You' is an emotion. It's not really about a girl. To me, the feeling of longing is what the song is."
With the success of "Miss You" on the pop chart, the time came to re-mix it into what would be the Stones' first "disco" record. With a young Bob Clearmountain behind the controls, the 12-inch "remix" was filled with more repeats of what was heard on the original record, keeping that dance vibe fresh throughout. Before long, there were numerous versions of "Miss You" out at the clubs or on the radio. For the record itself, it was placed on what was pink-colored vinyl.
For better or worse -- and whether Mick and Keith agreed or disagreed -- the Rolling Stones had dipped their bodies completely into the pool known as disco. Other artists would follow over the next year -- from Rod Stewart to Cher to Paul McCartney to Barbra Streisand. It was cool to feel the dance beat.
The Stones would perform "Miss You" in concert over the years, but tried variations of it, eventually choosing to be more bluesy than disco-y.
Before he died, John Lennon stated that "Miss You" sounded an awful lot like his own composition "Bless You." In an interview he gave for Playboy in 1980, Lennon said, "'Bless You' is again about Yoko (Ono). I think Mick Jagger turned 'Bless You' and turned it into 'Miss You.' The engineer kept wanting me to speed it up. He said, 'This would be a hit if you 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."
You hear something in "Miss You." It's a disco record. It's an R&B tune. It's a blues tune. And it was a No. 1 smash.
Chalk one up for the Rolling Stones even though they still can't truly describe this song to this day.
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