How the Rolling Stones Made 'Miss You' and Entered the Disco Era

The disco boom of the late ’70s felt like enemy territory for a blues-rock band like the Rolling Stones, but Charlie Watts’ four-on-the-floor kick drum pattern on “Miss You” turned into one of their biggest hits. The beat came partly from Watts listening to disco at New York clubs, though Keith Richards later claimed he hated playing it — he wanted the snare on two and four, not the straight thump. Still, the groove locked in with Bill Wyman’s slippery, syncopated bass line (one of his few writing credits, actually co-credited with Jagger), and Mick Jagger layered on a falsetto vocal and a harmonica solo that sounds more like a street busker’s nod than a studio polish. The band argued in the press for years about whether it was a sellout; Richards called it “Mick’s disco record” while Jagger insisted they were just borrowing the feel, not the genre.