"Jo the Waiter" is a song by Gary Numan, originally released by his band Tubeway Army on its self-titled debut album in 1978. The song is often cited by critics and fans as one of the high points of the album, and Numan has taken to performing it live in concert over the last decade or so.

The subject concerns a lonely man who recalls an unsuccessful gay affair that he had with a waiter that he used to employ. The affair is over and he is licking his wounds, while junkies and valium addicts hang around his flat. Like many Numan songs from this period, it evokes a Burroughsian world of addiction, homosexuality and failed relationships, predating the writer's fascination with science fiction that took hold on the next and last Tubeway Army album, Replicas (1979).

The phrase "Young men need love special" is a quote from the novel Naked Lunch by William Burroughs. According to biographer Steve Malins, Numan took the real-life loss of a girlfriend as the starting point for the song, reversed the sexuality of the affair and then embroidered the tale to arrive at the final lyric.

"Jo the Waiter" is one of Numan’s few acoustic guitar tracks, others being "The Monday Troop" and "Crime of Passion" (also written and recorded in 1978 but unreleased until 1985).

Gary Numan songs