2017Released
4:34

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about The Way You Used to Do. By Songfacts®.

The lead single from Villains sees QOTSA adopt a dance-y swagger, with a swinging robotic guitar emphasizing the inherent groove-based elements of the band's sound. Asked about the song's 'super-sexy' vibe, frontman Josh Homme told NME: "Well it's about screwing so I guess that answers that question!"

The song was influenced by mid-20th century swing music. Homme told Beats 1's Zane Lowe: "Cab Calloway. Dean Martin. You know? If you listen to 'Minnie the Moocher' and like all the swinging stuff -or there's this cat C.W. Stoneking that's from Australia that's great too. That plays in an old manner, you know that almost 20s jazz. Or, you know, this 'bum bum be bu bum' this big band rhythm, yeah man. It's just wonderful and that sort of swing, just after morning after morning after morning for like a few years of going there. You know, you start to go (starts clapping rhytmically.) Homme added: "Like, where do we belong in all of this? And I think that's where influence is one of the greatest things ever. It's like, you know, influence shouldn't be like, 'We should copy that' cause that's gross. But it should be like, 'Where do I belong in this too? It resonates with me already when I listen to it, so if I were gonna be that, where would I be in all that?'"

This was the first song that Josh Homme wrote for Villains. He recalled: "We were actually on tour at the end of the last record. And I had this - I was setting up a home studio and I thought, 'well I should test it. Make sure it works.' Cause I don't make demos cause I just don't believe in them. But I said, well I'll test it and I just wrote that thing and came up with the song. And I liked it so much I was like, 'I can't listen to this cause I don't want to get sick of it.' So I didn't listen to it for a year and a half but knew it was there. And I would sometimes go 'dat de du duh' You know, and I thought 'oh, I can't even - I won't sing it.' And I played it for the guys once and I think that immediate reaction is a great litmus test for if something's good or not. And everyone - I just put it on in the room and didn't do anything. And within a few seconds, everyone was like, 'what's this?' And I was like, 'Great. Okay great. So I'm not going to listen to this for the next year and that's great.' And so it was the first song for this record. And it was the only song that we knew. But it was like this is the direction, you know? I think one song becomes sort of the talisman for where you're going."

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of The Way You Used to Do.
CKey
MajorMode
4/4Time Signature
98BPM

Album

The album The Way You Used to Do is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released The Way You Used to Do.
Matador
2017 Queens of the Stone Age under exclusive license to Matador Records
2017 Queens of the Stone Age under exclusive license to Matador Records

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