Released August 7, 1969 Length 3:35 | Recorded 1969, Hitsville U.S.A. Label Tamla | |
Genre Soul, psychedelic soul, funk Writer(s) Norman Whitfield
Barrett Strong | ||
"That's the Way Love Is" is a 1967 Tamla (Motown) single recorded by The Isley Brothers and produced by Norman Whitfield, later covered in a 1969 hit version by Marvin Gaye.
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The single was his third consecutive million-selling solo hit after "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" written by Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Whitfield took the up-tempo Isley Brothers record, and turned it into a slowed-down psychedelic soul opus. Like "Grapevine", the song is sung by an emotionally wrought Gaye, singing the song in a preacher-like tone, who tells a woman to "forget" her lover now that that lover has gone off to someone else.
The song peaked at #7 on the Billboard pop singles chart and held the #2 spot for five weeks on the soul singles chart in October 1969, eventually selling a million copies. The Temptations also covered the song as a B-side of "Psychedelic Shack" and released on their 1969 album Puzzle People.
The song was covered for the 1991 Alan Parker film The Commitments.