"You Don't Miss Your Water" is a soul song and the debut single written and recorded by American singer William Bell. It was released by Stax Records in 1961. It is Bell's signature song and best known recording.

The song was written while Bell was in New York, playing with the Phineas Newborn Orchestra, with lyrics that were not inspired by a lost love, but by Bell's own feelings of homesickness. Bell recorded the song upon returning to Memphis, believing that he was making a demo. However, the recording was released as the B-side of the lesser known Bell single "Formula of Love". It was only after DJ's flipped the record over and began playing the B-side instead of the A-side that sales started to pick up.

The song did not chart in the Billboard R&B charts (southern U.S. records were often either not given enough attention by the chart compilers or lacked the slick production of the more popular Detroit and uptown soul outlets), although it did reach #95 on the pop charts. Since then, the track has gone on to become a Southern soul classic. The song was also released on Bell's 1967 album The Soul of a Bell, along with the original version of "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man", which was more famously covered by Aretha Franklin.

Lyrically, the song's theme revolves around the singer's confession of his unfaithfulness to his lover and, now that she's gone, his realization of his foolishness.

But when you left me
And said bye-bye
I missed my water
My well ran dry

"You Don't Miss Your Water" was covered by Otis Redding and released on his critically acclaimed 1965 album, Otis Blue. The Byrds covered the song on their 1968 album, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, with lead vocals sung by guitarist Roger McGuinn, although an alternate version featuring Gram Parsons on lead vocals was released on The Byrds box set in 1990. The song was also covered by Taj Mahal on his 1968 album The Natch'l Blues. Jerry Lee Lewis covered the song in 1972 and did a blues ballad arrangement.

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