Album: Amplified Heart (1994)
Charted: 3 2
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  • I step off the train
    I'm walkin' down your street again
    And past your door
    But you don't live there anymore
    It's years since you've been there
    And now you've disappeared somewhere
    Like outer space
    You've found some better place and I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain
    And I miss you, oh
    Like the deserts miss the rain

    Could you be dead?
    You always were two steps ahead of everyone
    We'd walk behind while you would run
    I look up at your house
    And I can almost hear you shout
    Down to me where I always used to be

    And I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain
    And I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain

    Back on the train
    I ask why did I come again
    Can I confess
    I've been hangin' 'round your old address?
    And the years have proved
    To offer nothin' since you moved
    You're long gone but I can't move on

    And I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain
    And I miss you, yeah
    Like the deserts miss the rain

    And I miss you, I step off the train
    I'm walkin' down your street again
    Past your door
    I guess you don't live there anymore
    It's years since you've been there
    And now you've disappeared somewhere
    Like outer space
    You've found some better place and I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain
    And I miss you, yeah
    Like the deserts miss the rain

    And I miss you, and I miss you
    Like the deserts miss the rain
    And I miss you, yeah
    Like the deserts miss the rain

    Deserts miss the rain
    Like the deserts miss the rain (like the deserts miss the rain)
    Like the deserts miss the rain Writer/s: James Thomas Smith, Oliver Sim, Romy Anna Madley Croft
    Publisher: Sentric Music, Universal Music Publishing Group
    Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 6

  • Angela L. from Deer Park, TxMeaning of "Missing" by Everything But The Girl

    The song "Missing" by Everything But The Girl is about longing for a lost love and not being able to find them. The singer laments over their disappearance, which feels like an eternity filled with missing them more and more as time passes. The chorus emphasizes the comparison of longing for the missing person just as the desert misses the rain, conveying a deep sense of longing and pain. The singer reflects on the past, visiting the place where their lost love once lived and recalling how they used to be together until they were gone. The song is a heartbreaking reminder of love gone missing and what it feels like to be without them.
  • Rnmorton from West Chester PaJust awesome. Pretty much hits all the high points (or low points) in the lost relationship category.
  • Kriz from UkWhen this came out I was about 10 years old and in those days you couldn’t just google a lyric, so I thought it went “like the desert’s myster-y”. Some how that misinterpretation invoked greater imagery
  • Dougee from San Bernardino, CaI too like the non-dance version. Much more heartfelt. The drum track on the dance version completely ruins the song for me. One time when the song was relatively new, we were 4x4ing, alone, in the middle of the vast Anza-Borrego Desert, and this song came on a distant AM station. What a feeling... "like the deserts miss the rain" in the middle of the desert.
  • Vera from Pittsburgh, PaThis song can be interpreted as a love song, but in fact it is about a friendship found and lost, as Tracey once told in an interview. It is about a friend of hers whom she shared a house with who suddenly disappeared without a trace.
  • Jesse from Madison, WiI personally like the original, non-dance version of the song, and was somewhat disappointed when I bought the 12" and the original version was not on it. It seems to capture the spirit of the song better than the house remixes.
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