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TL;DR:

  • John Lennon compared The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You” to one of his songs.
  • John had a strong reaction to “Miss You.”
  • Listeners in the United States had a similarity strong reaction.
The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger with a microphone
Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones | Evening Standard/Getty Images

One of The Rolling Stones‘ most famous songs is “Miss You.” John Lennon believed “Miss You” was based on one of his solo songs. On the other hand, The Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood said the song was inspired by a genre that had nothing to do with John’s output.

John Lennon felt 1 of his songs about Yoko Ono inspired The Rolling Stones’ ‘Miss You’

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In the interview, John was asked about his song “Bless You.” “‘Bless You’ is again about Yoko,” he said.

John felt Mick Jagger was influenced by “Bless You.” “I think Mick Jagger took ‘Bless You’ and turned it into ‘Miss You,'” John opined. “‘Wherever you are, child on a shooting star.’ The engineer kept wanting me to speed that up — he said, ‘This is a hit song if you’d just do it fast.’ He was right. ‘Cause as ‘Miss You’ it turned into a hit.”

John revealed what he thought about “Miss You.” “I like Mick’s record better,” John said. “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.”

John Lennon felt he inspired The Rolling Stones but the band was influenced by disco songs at the time

John discussed his feelings about musicians taking influence from others. “Could be subconscious or conscious,” he said. “It’s irrelevant. Music is everybody’s possession. It’s only publishers who think that people own it.”

On the other hand, Salon reports disco music inspired “Miss You.” “Disco was [in the air] when ‘Miss You’ came around,” The Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood recalled. “We didn’t get together and say, ‘Let’s make a disco song.’ It was a rhythm that was popular and so we made a song like that.”

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What The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones Asked John Lennon About The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’

How ‘Bless You’ and ‘Miss You’ performed on the charts in the United States

John never released “Bless You” as a single, so it did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The song appeared on John’s album Walls and Bridges. The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a single week. It stayed on the chart for 35 weeks.

On the other hand, “Miss You” became a huge hit. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week, staying on the chart for 20 weeks in total. None of the band’s other No. 1 singles lasted as long on the chart.

The Rolling Stones included “Miss You” on the album Some Girls. The album topped the Billboard 200 for two weeks. Some Girls stayed on the chart for 88 weeks altogether.

“Bless You” wasn’t a huge hit but it may have had an influence on “Miss You.”

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