Lyrics to
The Way We Were

This version of The Way We Were was released by Donna Summer in 1978.

Our About Donna Summer page at Decade Lyrics includes the lyrics for The Way We Were from 1978 as well as all of the other lyrics from Donna Summer that we have in our lyrics database.

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Well you ladies out there
You know what I’m
I’m talkin’ ’bout ya
But you wanna know something?
Did you ever try to remember or
Or just place up a memory in your mind
And it always seems so far away
So hard to find

Memories
Light the corners of my mind
Misty water-color memories
Of the way we were

Scattered pictures
Of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another
(oh yesterday) for the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again

Tell me, how many of you would live your lives again
I would too
You girls?

Memories
May be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
And so it’s the laughter
We will remember
Whenever we remember

The way we were
The way we were
Whoaaahhhh

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Donna Summer has released many songs over the years besides The Way We Were. Donna Summer released songs from 1974 to 1996 spanning across albums like Lady Of The Night, Love To Love You Baby, Four Seasons Of Love, A Love Trilogy, Once Upon A Time, I Remember Yesterday, Live And More, Bad Girls, The Wanderer, Donna Summer, She Works Hard For The Money, Cats Without Claws, All Systems Go, Another Place And Time, Mistaken Identity, Christmas Spirit, and I'm A Rainbow. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Donna Summer.

If you're a fan of the music of the 1970s looking for more songs from 1978 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The Way We Were by Donna Summer

The lyrics for The Way We Were are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1978 song by Donna Summer. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to The Way We Were have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for The Way We Were - Donna Summer and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to The Way We Were by Donna Summer in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The Way We Were" means the words set to the music of The Way We Were, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Donna Summer. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The Way We Were and the lyrics to The Way We Were are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Donna Summer who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Way We Were, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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