That's the Way (I Like It) - 2004 Remaster

"That's The Way (I Like It)" was the second of an astounding five US #1 hits from KC & The Sunshine Band. Their first #1 was "Get Down Tonight," which gave them the template for songs like this one. Like all their hits, it was written by their bass player/producer Rick Finch and frontman Harry Wayne Casey. In a Songfacts interview with Richard Finch, he explained, "We were all happy, and you could tell. We transferred the excitement of that hit feeling from 'Get Down Tonight,' and trust me, then we were all like, 'Oh, my God, this is amazing! We've done it! Let's put the magic on something else.' And you could definitely hear the excitement and the magic from that first hit record with 'That's The Way I Like It,' because we were all pumped, and we were all stoked. If you listen to that record closely, you can hear everyone smiling while they're singing. Especially the background singers. It was a very, very magic moment. I mean, we're in Miami, Florida, and we're in a little independent label, and we're becoming successful? C'mon, man, this is not possible, this must be a dream!"

This was originally recorded in a more suggestive manner by KC & The Sunshine Band before lead singer Harry Wayne Casey toned down the "uh-huhs," making them sound like cries of jubilation instead of moans of pleasure. In a Songfacts interview with Casey, he explained that the très risqué French song "Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus" by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg gave him the idea to make the "uh-huhs" rather sensual, but he thought better of it. "It was a little bit overboard," he said.

There's no mistaking the title in this one: it's repeated four times in each chorus, and that chorus opens and closes the song. This wasn't by accident: Harry Wayne Casey worked in a record store while he was earning his wings as a musician at TK Records. Customers would often come in looking for a song, but didn't know the name of it; Casey wanted to make sure that didn't happen to him. He also had a revelation when listening to some Beatles albums. Casey wasn't a big fan of the group, but he heard how they would repeat a title over and over in songs like "She Loves You" and "I Want To Hold Your Hand."