The Way (song)

"The Way"
Single by Fastball from the album All the Pain Money Can Buy
Released	September 21, 1998 UK
Format	3-track CD, Cassette
Genre	Rock
Length	4:17
Label	Hollywood Records
Fastball singles chronology
"Are You Ready for the Fallout?" "The Way" (1998) "Fire Escape" (1998)

"The Way" is a 1998 single by Fastball from their album All the Pain Money Can Buy. In the U.S. the single reached #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart in April and remained there for seven weeks. It was also #12 on the magazine's year-end Hot 100 Singles Airplay chart. It only reached #21 on the UK Top 40, despite having had a fair amount of airplay from independent radio stations like Forth One. The song was voted by VH1 as one of the 100 Greatest Songs Of The 90's, ranking at number 94. The song was remixed about a year after its original release by Italian DJ Gigi D'Agostino, in his album "L'Amour Toujours".

Meaning

"The Way" revolves around an older married couple who decide to give it all away by packing up and going driving and drinking. Along the way, their car breaks down, so they continue on foot. As the song goes on, it becomes apparent that these two achieve happiness by losing touch with the world. Fastball bassist Tony Scalzo came up with the idea for the song after reading journalistic articles which described the disappearance of an older married couple, Raymond and Lela Howard from Salado, Texas, who left home in June of 1997 to attend a family reunion but never arrived. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route About the song, Scalzo said that "It's a romanticized take on what happened" - he "pictured them taking off to have fun, like they did when they first met."

Trivia

From the start of the song on the album version, a radio is switching stations for about 8 seconds, at the 7th second, a snippet from a prechorus of a Jewel song, "Foolish Games", is heard. The chorus to the song uses the same chord progression as Pachelbel's Canon in D.

Track listing

1. The Way
2. Are You Ready For The Fallout
3. Freeloader Freddy