About The Song
The origin of “That’s The Way Love Goes” belonged to songwriter Sanger D. Shafer (known as “Whitey” Shafer), who had the initial idea on a day in which he and his buddy Lefty Frizzell drove to Dallas Frazier’s cabin in the fall of ’73 for the sole purpose of writing songs. It was nice and secluded up there, and a great place to write. Shafer had a melody going and the first verse of a little tune he was working on. He ran it by Frizzell, and Lefty remarked, “Well, that’s the way love goes.” From that point, Whitey began looking to that phrase as the title. Within the hour, the two men developed the rest of “That’s The Way Love Goes.”
One night at Nashville’s Continental Inn during the latter part of 1973, Johnny Rodriguez was involved in a “guitar pull,” a Nashville ritual in which songwriters gather around in a circle, pass a guitar around and each writer would sing the new songs they had written. Along with Rodriguez, the attendees included Dallas Frazier, Merle Haggard, Lewis Talley (Haggard’s manager), Whitey Shafer and Lefty Frizzell. The session was about to break up and everyone started to get ready to go home when Lefty said he wanted to play just one more song. It was “That’s The Way Love Goes.”
Haggard wanted it right then, but he had just finished an album and didn’t have any more studio time scheduled. So the next day, Shafer brought “That’s The Way Love Goes” down to the studio where Rodriguez was recording. Johnny snapped it up and cut it, and the result was his third consecutive number one hit on February 16, 1974.
Merle Haggard actually recorded “That’s The Way Love Goes” four or five times through the years before he finally got a version he liked. He tried different tempos, band line-ups and arrangements, but it never quite came together until Haggard teamed up with producer Ray Baker, whom he had known since the mid-1960s.
Their first session together yielded a number one single: “You Take Me For Granted,” (written by Merle’s wife Leona Williams), but Baker was frustrated when subsequent sessions took up huge chunks of time without results. Ray had the utmost regard for Haggard’s band “The Strangers” as musicians, but they didn’t get in a hurry about things. Baker was used to getting a certain budget from the record company and utilizing the time wisely, being very frugal with the money being spent. That included getting down to business in the studio and no horsing around, a message which Ray couldn’t seem to convey to the band.
So Baker persuaded Merle to use a group of more-efficient studio musicians for the session. Surprisingly, that was no problem. He agreed to that. What was really tough was getting Haggard to come in at 10:00 a. m. to record. Merle’s normal habits were to record at night and sleep late the next morning. Haggard had an apartment on Old Hickory Lake, just northeast of Nashville, and Baker told him that he would personally drive out there, pick him up and bring him down to the studio. Ray’s intentions were to get Merle into the studio while his band members were still asleep so they wouldn’t be around to distract him.
The tactic worked. Haggard cut three songs from beginning to end in about two hours and twenty minutes. Even Merle was amazed at how smoothly it came off. One of the three songs recorded that day was “That’s The Way Love Goes,” which landed at number one on Billboard’s country singles chart on February 11, 1984. It also brought Haggard his very first Grammy for “Best Country Vocal Performance by a Male.”
Video
Lyrics
I’ve been throwing horseshoes
Over my left shoulder
I’ve spent most all my life
Searching for that four-leaf clover
Yet you ran with me
Chasing my rainbows
Honey, I love you too
That’s the way love goes
That’s the way love goes, babe
That’s the music God made
For all the world to sing
It’s never old, it grows
Losing makes me sorry
You say, “Honey, now don’t worry
Don’t you know I love you too?”
And that’s the way love goes
That’s the way love goes, babe
That’s the music God made
For all the world to sing
It’s never old, it grows
Losing makes me sorry
And you say, “Honey, don’t worry
Don’t you know I love you too?”
And that’s the way love goes
