Missing (Everything but the Girl song)

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"Missing"

Single by Everything but the Girl
from the album Amplified Heart
Released	1994
Format	CD single, 12 inch single, maxi-single
Genre	Pop/Dance
Label	Blanco Y Negro (UK) Atlantic (U.S.)
Writer(s)	Tracey Thorn Ben Watt
Producer(s)	Ben Watt Todd Terry
Chart positions
#1 Latvia #2 U.S. #3 UK
Everything but the Girl singles chronology
"Rollercoaster" (1994)	"Missing" (1994)	"Wrong" (1996)

"Missing" is a song written and recorded by British pop music duo Everything but the Girl. The song was released as a single from the band's 1994 album Amplified Heart. "Missing" is Everything but the Girl's best-known hit and it is credited with revitalizing the duo's musical career and steering members Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn into a successful electronic music direction.

1 Original release and remix
2 Trivia
3 Charts
4 Cover Version
5 References

[edit] Original release and remix

Prior to "Missing", Everything but the Girl was most known as a folk and jazz group. They had released eight albums prior to Amplified Heart and had a number-three UK singles chart hit in 1988 ("I Don't Want to Talk About It"), but were relatively unknown in the United States. "Missing" was recorded as a laid-back guitar-based pop song that had earned modest airplay on U.S. Adult Contemporary radio. The duo gave the track to house music producer Todd Terry to remix for clubs. The resulting dance version of "Missing" became a worldwide smash, matching Everything But the Girl's UK best chart position of number three in October 1994 and hitting number one on the German singles chart. The song became the duo's first U.S. Billboard Hot 100 entry, and after a long climb up the chart, it peaked at number two in 1996, eventually spending fifty-five weeks on the chart (a record at the time which has since been broken).

Tracey Thorn later explained to Rolling Stone that "Missing" was originally intended as a dance-oriented track: ^[1]

“

"It was written with that idea in mind, totally... we put on sort of a laid back house groove instead. Then when we gave it to Todd, he took it in a really, really strong New York house direction, which had a real simplicity to it, but it was very infectious."

”

After the global success of "Missing", Everything but the Girl ventured into a more electronic/house/drum and bass direction with their follow-up albums Walking Wounded and Temperamental.

[edit] Trivia

Even with its success in the mainstream and in dance clubs, "Missing" never entered the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart. Everything but the Girl would eventually amass four U.S. dance chart number-ones, with singles released after "Missing".
This single is today the ninth-longest charting song on the U.S. Hot 100.
The track served as the signature song for Saturday Night Live character Mango. During several of his fans' obsessive daydream sequences, Mango would commonly appear in a thought cloud over the person's head, and dance provocatively to this song.