Songfacts®:

• "We Will Always Be the Way We Were" is Jack Savoretti's tribute to his wife, the British actress, Jemma Powell. While the title hints at nostalgia, the song isn't about trying to relive the past. Instead, it celebrates the idea that although we mature and circumstances change, the qualities that drew us together in the first place can remain intact.
• When Savoretti first met Jemma at a party, the encounter left an instant impression. As he told The Guardian, his very first thought was: "There she is. The mother of my children. My future." The couple married in 2010 and now have three children.
  
  The song follows that journey from its earliest spark ("that night we met, I can't forget, we talked until the morning") through to present-day endurance ("the song still plays, and so much has changed, but we're still here together"). "It's what it says on the tin," Savoretti told The Sun. "I don't believe people change. Hopefully we grow, but like a tree, where as much as we might grow, our roots always remain the same."
• The song is the title track of Savoretti's ninth album, We Will Always Be the Way We Were, which explores identity, acceptance and the passage of time. "The record's not nostalgic, but I'm still the boy I used to be," he told The Official Charts. "I've grown and I'm getting better at evaluating my choices, but my essence and my soul, that's still me."
• Savoretti told RTL Today he nearly called the album "Midlife Crisis" before settling on this gentler framing of what psychologist Carl Jung termed "the afternoon of life."
• Savoretti wrote "We Will Always Be the Way We Were" alone, while producer Tommaso Colliva, whose credits include Muse and Damon Albarn, oversaw the recording sessions.
• Like the rest of the album, the track was captured live at Eastcote Studios in West London with Savoretti's longtime touring band comprising:
  
  Jesper Lind: drums
  Sam Davies: bass
  Sam Lewis: guitar
  Nikolai Torp: keys, organ
  Shannon Harris: piano, Wurlitzer
  
  For Savoretti, the album represented a personal homecoming. "It's going back to my roots, to the neighborhood where I first started making music," he said, referring to the Ladbroke Grove and Portobello Road scene where he developed as an artist alongside many of the musicians who still play with him today. "It's the album I always wanted to make when I was starting out but didn't yet have the courage or experience to make. Now I do."