Like the Way I Do

Song information

The song was actually written years before the album was recorded. Melissa Etheridge had already played it during her live concerts, where it was the first of her own compositions that kept being requested by the audience. The intro of the song was created by coincidence when the singer played one of her other songs - "I Want You" - backwards on a cassette recorder.

Like many other songs on the album ("Bring Me Some Water", "Similar Features", "Don't You Need"...), "Like the Way I Do" deals with the non-monogamous relationship she was in at the time. In the lyrics she asks her lover, who had told her that she had a crush on someone else, what she sees in the other person and what that person is giving to her what she herself cannot: "Tell me does she love you like the way I love you, does she stimulate you, attract and captivate you?". In the verses she also accuses her lover of not putting enough effort on making the relationship work: "You found out to love me you have to climb some fences".

"Like the Way I Do" is one of Etheridge's most famous songs and in her autobiography, she states:

Etheridge also says that the studio version is actually a short version of the song since when she performs it live, she improvises a lot which sometimes makes the song last 15 to 20 minutes.

Music video

"Like the Way I Do" was the first Melissa Etheridge song for which a video was produced. It shows the singer during a live concert and includes scenes both from on stage and backstage. The place at which she is playing is a smaller bar or club with a smoky, rather dark atmosphere. It was produced in 1988 and is also included on the bonus DVD of her album Greatest Hits: The Road Less Traveled.

Charts

The song did not chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on its initial release, but it was a minor hit on the Album Rock Tracks chart, where it reached No. 28. Seven years later, when Etheridge was at the height of her popularity and radio exposure, "Like the Way I Do" was rereleased as the B-side to Yes I Am's third single, "If I Wanted To"; this allowed the track to chart on the Hot 100 for the first time, peaking at No. 42. This statistic understates the song's popularity, however: while Billboard tracked the songs separately, and "If I Wanted To" was regarded as the A-side and hence charted higher (No. 16, 1995), many Top 40 radio stations treated "Like the Way I Do" as the de facto A-side and played it in heavy rotation—in many markets, more than "Wanted". Under then-current Hot 100 rules, all of the combined retail sales points of the single were given to the A-side, and so "Like," the B-side, had to chart on radio airplay points alone.

Having been performed at a Dutch music festival (Pinkpop festival) which was broadcast on television in the early 1990s, "Like the Way I Do" became a No. 2 hit in the Netherlands after Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You".

Track listing

All songs written by Melissa Etheridge.

Credits and personnel

Cover versions

In 1996, Melissa Etheridge performed a parody of this song on Sesame Street called "Like the Way U Does" where she serenaded, danced, hugged, and was held by a big letter U.