| Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You) | |
| Cover: | Wishing-AFlockofSeagulls.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | A Flock of Seagulls |
| Album: | Listen |
| B-Side: | Committed |
| Released: | 22 October 1982 |
| Recorded: | 1982, Compass Point Studios[1] |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 4:09 (7" version) 5:29 (Album version) 9:34 (Extended version) |
| Label: | Zomba Records |
| Producer: | Mike Howlett |
| Prev Title: | Space Age Love Song |
| Prev Year: | 1982 |
| Next Title: | Nightmares |
| Next Year: | 1983 |
"Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" is a 1982 song by A Flock of Seagulls, the opening song and only hit single from their second album Listen.
The song exemplifies "synth-pop's spaced-out loneliness" and yearning for imagined, absent lovers,[2] and is noted for its Wall of Sound-styled layer of synthesizer padding – a "multi-layered, hypnotic song", according to AllMusic.[3]
According to lead singer Mike Score, "Wishing" was based on a real person. When recalling the experience with this person, he said, "It was the eve of the first trip we ever took to America, and I had met a girl. We went out for the night, and I didn't want to forget her, so I said, 'We're going on tour and I'll be back. I'd like to get a photograph of you, if I could get one.' And she said, 'No, because you're going to go on to be famous and you'll forget me.'"[4]
Unlike the band's 1982 hit "I Ran (So Far Away)", largely a United States and Australian hit, "Wishing" performed strongly in the band's home country, the United Kingdom, and reached the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart; in the US, it reached the top 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in mid-1983.[6] It was popular in South Africa, reaching No. 8.[7]
| Chart (1982–1983) | Peak position | |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Kent Report | 46 | |
| France (SNEP)[8] | 1 | |
| Germany Singles Chart | 37 | |
| Irish Singles Chart | 6 | |
| New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart | 33 | |
| South African Singles Chart | 8 | |
| UK Singles Chart | 10 | |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 26 | |
| US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks | 3 | |
| US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play | 26 | |
| US Cash Box Top 100[9] | 35 |