My Issue with a Song

At first, "Missing" by Everything But the Girl was a beautiful, romantic, and heartfelt song of a romance that disappeared or a love that got lost. Here are the lyrics so you can start to understand my issue:

I step off the train

I'm walking down your street again

Past your door, but you don't live there anymore

It's years since you've been there

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, 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 here you shout down to me

Where I always use 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 hanging round your old address?"

And years have proved

to offer, nothing since you've 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, like the deserts miss the rain

I step off the train

I'm walking down your street again

Past your door, but you don't live there anymore

It's years since you've been there

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, like the deserts miss the rain

(repeat last two stanzas)

(c) EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Now, the woman in the song (yes it's a woman singing it, thus I assume it's a woman actually speaking to the audience) obviously has some stalker tendencies. She's going back to the old house in which either her ex-lover, ex-boyfriend, ex-husband, or whomever use to live. Looking up to a specific point where he probably slept and would speak to her out the window (or even yelled at her to leave), she's seemingly brought back to her senses and leaves back for the train... but she returns to the house again. It's a cycle she can't resist... She's obsessed with him or still loves him or something.

Now for the chorus: "And I miss you, like the deserts miss the rain." Ok... sure... the woman misses her ex-whatever. It's obvious because she's still returning to his old house and reliving her emotions or memories. But the allusion of a desert missing rain doesn't compute with these feelings she's presenting to us. Assuming deserts have mental capacities and therefore hold memories... The desert itself wouldn't miss rain. It might fear rain for how infrequently it falls. Think about it... a dry, desolate place, use to the day to day life of not having moisture except in the form of ever so slight humidity, would see rain as a suffocating experience overwhelming the landscape and covering every fiber of the desert with water. Not necessarily an experience most anyone would miss. I wouldn't miss that experience, especially if it made me change drastically into something green when I wanted to remain golden.

On the other hand, perhaps the desert refers to the people of the desert, or the animals of the desert, or life in general living in the desert. Even so... These lifeforms may only want a slight rain, not enough to drench the landscape and destroy houses or reshape the terrain by mudflows, flooding, etc. And the people and creatures of the desert don't miss the rain... they know where to find water, what to search for for nutrients, how to survive without rain. Yeah, it may be a nice reprieve... but not a missing notion.

This is why I have an issue with the aforementioned song. The woman doesn't miss her ex like the desert misses the rain. The desert doesn't miss the rain. Therefore she shouldn't miss him. And maybe that's the point the woman is going for, that the song is ironic in its intrinsic meaning. If that's the case, then I LOVE the song for what it represents. Perhaps moving on? Perhaps coming to terms with the loss of love and the association of needlessness that comes with forgetting him (but she hasn't forgotten him...). Bah, and I'm back to my issue. Bad song... Beautiful lyrics on the surface and a wonderful melody to accompany it.

Hey, if you have any other insight to "Missing," let me know! I'd love to have my emotions about the song resolved.