Album Discussion Thread #1: The Way It Is

[PianoManKD]

Hey

Saw these type of threads on other forums for other bands I’m into and it can become really fun…..This first week is for the album The Way It Is…..Talk about the positive and negative things about this album, what you like/dislike, thoughts on the musicians on the album, etc….Everything about this album….

Let the games begin!

Kyle

[careyon]

I remember buying this album ( and I do mean album!) thinking
that since I liked the songs on the radio, Way It Is and Mandolin Rain, I
might like the rest of the album too. The first time I listened to it , I was amazed that I liked every song on it. I loved that the songs told stories
and I noticed that Bruce had written most of them with his brother John.
It was a lot different than most of the music I was hearing on the radio during the 80’s – a very welcome change!

[treah]

My thoughts about this album pretty much mirror Carey’s-except I bought the cassette instead of the vinyl copy… I really liked all the radio hits from the rcord, especially the title track (Wow, a cool-sounding song with a message!) I was also drawn to “Down The Road Tonight”. I loved the bluesy sound & could just see that same story taking place In my home town.

Jackie

[Si Twining]

My first memories of this album were of watching Mike Tyson hammer the daylights out of Trevor Berbick. Seriously.

Here in the UK, the BBC used to play the “Way It Is” solos as backing music over their sports headlines. We can lay claim to giving Bruce his break, before he got big in the US!

Highlights for me – aside from the album’s title track, Down the Road Tonight and The River Runs Low still mean a great deal. There are a lot of songs about journeys in Bruce’s older work – ever noticed that? Whether it’s a physical route, or a path through life, a lot of that resonates with me.

This site’s page on The Way It Is gives an idea of people’s thoughts – let’s hear some more! The highlights from this forum will be added to the page:

https://bruuuce.com/albwayitis.htm

[Victor]

The Way It Is

Growing up lower-middle-class in East Tennessee in the mid-80s, I had a rule for spending my hard-earned cash — any record had to have at least three songs that I thought were really good before I would buy it.

Back then, you really didn’t have any way of knowing what was on a record other than a couple of radio-hit songs. Then rest was hit-or-miss at best. So I probably bought this record for The Way it Is, Mandolin Rain, and Every Little Kiss … but I was astounded to also get Down the Road Tonight, The Long Race, and my favorite of all, The River Runs Low.

My least favorites are Western Skyline, Wild Frontier, and Red Plains because I think Bruce was going for a style of “Western Rock” that fit in with the theme of a band that just came in off the “Range.” But I do enjoy those songs — it’s not like I have to fast-forward or skip through them the way I seemed to do so many songs from other acts of the mid-80s.

That’s what’s kept me a Bruce fan so long — the consistent quality of each and every song he writes. He never seems to write a couple of songs to make the radio … and then go through the motions on 8 or 10 other songs. It’s all good.

[steve8282]

In order to be the stick in the mud….

Can you imagine how good it would have been if had been Molo instead of the drum machine.

[zncstr]

i was a senior in high school when it came out.
I saw it on MTV i saw it on MTV I saw it on MTV
also remember seeing mandolin rain a lot too

of course the singles were what drew me in, my older brother played guitar and I played drums and remeber him learning Every Little Kiss and we used to play it in the attic of my parents house

favorite songs of course every little kiss, way it is and western skyline although i really didn’t discover skyline until years later

lastly, I used The Way it is as a reference point when I taught an 8th grade history class

[Author]

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