Love My Way

Album: Forever Now (1982)
Charted: 42 44
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Songfacts®:

  • Furs frontman Richard Butler had a specific audience in mind when he penned the lyrics to this song. He explained in an interview with Creem in 1982: "It's basically addressed to people who are f--ked up about their sexuality, and says 'Don't worry about it.' It was originally written for gay people."
  • To the best of our knowledge, this is the most popular song featuring a marimba as a lead instrument. The Forever Now album was produced by Todd Rundgren and recorded at his studio, Utopia Sound. It was his idea to use the marimba on this track, and he played it.

    The demo of the song had a different instrument for those sections, but Rundgren had a marimba in the studio and thought it would be worth a shot. "It turned out that the little musical theme just sounded perfect with the marimbas, and became a signature element of the song," he said in a Songfacts interview. "So it just was a question of availability. It's not like I had to go rent some marimbas. I happened to have them."
  • The lead single to their third album, "Love My Way" was the first Psychedelic Furs song to chart in America, where it reached #44 thanks in large part to exposure on MTV. To that point, most Americans only heard the band on college radio or at listening stations in independent record stores. When the song caught on in the States, the band moved there because they found the audience more receptive and they liked what New York had to offer.
  • Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles sang backup on this track, but you would never peg the "Happy Together" singers as the backing voices. Producer Todd Rundgren used them essentially as an instrument, creating a wash of vocals under the chorus and at the end of the song.
  • The dreamy, heavily tinted video, directed by Tim Pope, was the first by the band to get significant airplay on MTV, which launched a year earlier. Like many new wave British bands, Psychedelic Furs had been making music videos from the jump and had refined the form by the time MTV went on the air. Their videos didn't rely on subplot storylines where actors would portray characters in the songs. Instead, they typically showed just the band, offset by some abstract imagery.
  • The Forever Now album marked a change in direction for the band, which had slimmed down to a quartet after losing saxophone player Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger Morris. Their first two albums were produced by Steve Lillywhite, but Todd Rundgren was at the controls for Forever Now.
  • Richard Butler doesn't write love songs, but he does write songs about love. He told Songfacts that "Love My Way" is a great example.
  • This song is included on the Valley Girl (1983) soundtrack. It was used in the scene when Nicolas Cage surprises Deborah Foreman in the bathroom at a party. Because of issues with music licensing, this song and others hits from the soundtrack, like Men at Work's "Who Can It Be Now?," have been replaced with other songs on the DVD release.

    The song also appears in the 1998 movie The Wedding Singer and in a 2009 episode of the TV series Hung.
  • When Rich Good filled in for guitarist John Ashton on tour in 2009, he quickly learned how passionate fans were about this song. He remembered in an interview with a now-defunct unofficial Psychedelic Furs website: "We got some rather heated responses when we didn't do 'LMW' for the first dates of 2009. I believe violence was threatened… You can't please all the people all the time."
  • The song features in a dance party sequence in the 2017 movie Call Me by Your Name where we see Armie Hammer bust out some awkward moves. It collected 177,000 audio and video streams in the US in the week ending November 30, 2017 following the film's release, according to Nielsen Music. That marked the song's largest ever streaming week.

Comments: 7

  • Cali from Los AngelesThis song was also in the scene where Julie (Deborah Foreman) and her friend Stacy were getting ready for the party in Valley Girl.
  • Derp Derp from Usa Chicago SubsThis song also appears on the Grand Theft Auto Vice City Soundtrack Wave 103 radio station
  • Don'l J from MerrylandThis song beautifully captures the of being gay in that time,1982. AIDS had started it's horrific March and the conservatives were celebrating the devastation taking place in the gay world, it was a very frightening time. The holocaust references are obvious and powerful and horrifying, as the Nazis literally dissected people basically for the fun of it. The Nazis were hunting gay people too. It is such a beautifully sad yet powerfully affirming song, stating despite all the horror and hatred trying to destroy us we will love our way...we will love.
  • Darrylbru from Salt Lake City, UtahI would have sworn that they were just playing a regular ol' xylophone. Like the one in "Moonlight feels right".
  • Scott Usa from United StatesI love this song. 1982 I was 13 yrs old. I have a very eclectic music library. To me, this so g is clearly about the holocaust. "There's an army on the dance floor" Clearly the streets the Jewish community walked upon.
    "They'd put us on a railroad
    They'd dearly make us pay
    For laughing in their faces
    And making it our way
    There's emptiness behind their eyes
    There's dust in all their hearts
    They just want to steal us all
    And take us all apart"

    The Jews were put on railcars, they paid dearly, they were stolen and taken apart as a community.
    Holocaust.
  • Melinda from AustraliaThis is an Iconic song of 1982.
    If you were cool in 1982 this song was your song.
    No one knew back then it was about a gay issue. We didn’t have access to info like today on the net. Nor access to exact lyrics. At all. (Occasionally they were included on album covers) We had to guess lyrics.

    Love My Way was popular because it was an Art New Wave song . But they had a kinda 1960’s feel. It was a very serious song. And quite haunting.
    Like a New Order Song or Joy Division. Plus the lead singer was good looking.
    I believe Boy George’s great 1st song, Do you Really Want To Hurt Me ..was very popular when The Pyschedelic Furs, Love My Way came out.
    They were kind of similar.

    Before Boy George quickly descended into unpopularity with us teens, because his music moved into silly pop songs. That only appealed to pre-teens.
    Perhaps that was when Boy George descended into serious heroin addiction too. Probably.
    His descent and unpopularity certainly cleared the field for more talented bands to get noticed.
    And in the long run, early 1980’s bands like The Psychedelic Furs get the respect today and admiration they deserve.
    Love My Way by The Psychedelic Furs was so iconic in the 1980’s it was included in the decade defining 1985 movie Pretty In Pink.
  • Tony from San DiegoAbsolutely amazing song. Very cool, did not know that Todd Rundgren played the marimbas on this and produced it.
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