How the Stones’ ‘Miss You’ Channeled Disco and Jagger’s New York Nights

The Rolling Stones were staring down irrelevance in 1978. Punk had made them look old, and disco was ruling the charts. So they did what bands do when cornered: they stole the best parts. “Miss You” wasn’t just a nod to the four-on-the-floor beat—it was a full-on immersion. Bill Wyman locked into a pulsing bass line that mirrored the throb of Studio 54, and Mick Jagger started writing lyrics while walking through New York, letting the city’s late-night rhythm seep in.

Jagger later said the lyrics came from a phrase he’d hear over and over on the disco floor: a dancer saying “I miss you” in a breathy, almost hypnotic way. He wasn’t trying to mimic the genre directly—he was pulling from the vibe of those clubs, where repetition became emotion. He also pointed to a specific blues influence: a little-known 1956 track called “I Miss You So” by Jimmy Reed, which gave the song its conversational, pleading tone. So the Stones weren’t chasing disco; they were translating it through their own blues-rock lens, and it worked. The song hit No. 1 and kept them from becoming a nostalgia act.