Like the Way I Do
"Like the Way I Do" is a Melissa Etheridge song, the second single in the US from her first album "Melissa Etheridge" (1988). In the UK, "Don't You Need" was released as the second single. 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 the Way I Do" is one of Etheridge's most famous songs and in her autobiography, she says, ""Like the Way I Do" is definitely one of my best songs. It is filled with passion and agony and desire and utter gut-wrenching pain. If you've ever seen me in concert, you know that when I perform that song, it becomes a part of me. It's a transforming song for both the audience and me." 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 Etheridge song for which a video was produced. It was conceived and directed by Tony van den Ende. It shows the singer during a live concert and includes scenes both 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 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 final 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 the then 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 the Dutch Pinkpop festival, which was broadcast on television in the  early 1990s, "Like the Way I Do" became a No. 7 hit in the Netherlands after Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You". Track listing. All songs written by Melissa Etheridge. In 1996, Etheridge performed a parody of this song on "Sesame Street" called "Like the Way U Do" where she serenaded, danced, hugged and was held by a big red letter U.