1984 No. 1 Soft Rock Hit Ranked Among 'Best Songs of the '80s' Became a 'Devastating' Heartbreak Anthem
Back in the days before streaming and Spotify and satellite, if you wanted to listen to music in the car, you had no choice but to settle for whatever was on the radio. Sometimes, though, you'd get lucky and the DJ would pick the perfect song for your mood...like when you were feeling sad about a recent breakup and John Waite's "Missing You" suddenly started playing.
Released in June 1984 as the lead single from Waite's second solo album, No Brakes, the track skyrocketed to #1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the U.S. Billboard Album Rock Tracks charts, going on to be nominated for the 1985 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.
While the lyrics tell the typical tale of someone mournfully missing their ex, it's Waite's emotional delivery that really makes an impact, particularly on lines like:
"Well, 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"
It's no surprise that Rolling Stone included the hit on a list of "200 Best Songs of the 1980s," with writer Rob Sheffield praising Waite as "the most soulful of arena rockers, with one of the saddest AOR break-up songs."
"As John Waite once said, his style is 'Heathcliff with a Marshall stack,'" Sheffield wrote. "In the post-'Billie Jean' era, songs all had to have long, long, long fadeouts - there was no concept that you could repeat the title too many times al coda. But 'Missing You' is one where you hang on the end, hoping you might get a late-breaking glimmer of hope. (Any DJ who fades it out before that last 'oh nooo' is a failure at life.) The most devastating moment: when he rips into the words 'heartbreak overload.'"
John Waite knew 'Missing You' would be a hit right away
There's a simple reason why Waite's anguished performance on "Missing You" packs such a punch: It was inspired by real-life heartache. As Waite explained to People, he wrote the song while he was "winging it on the mic" in the middle of a recording session.
"I was married at the time, and I'd been away from home maybe two months," he said, adding, "And I must have made it up on the spot. I suppose it was about denial, trying to be tough. When I sang the song, I stopped. I stepped back from the mic. I couldn't speak. I choked. It was so emotional. I knew what it was. I knew it was number one. It was that good, and it had come out of left field. It was a magical experience."
Not only was "Missing You" a hit with fans, but even musical legends like Tina Turner and Rod Stewart went on to cover the song.
"It's so weird to have someone sing your melody and lyrics that you admire that much. She's white hot," Waite said of Turner.
"It's very hard to get that song right," he continued. "Rod did it like a disco song. And I love Rod, too, but I was like, 'Why would you do it like a disco song?'"
All these years later, Waite's original version of "Missing You" is still the most beloved.
Related: 1984 Hit Breakup Anthem Deemed the 'Perfect Pop Song'
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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 4:36 PM.