Almost Hits: Fastball - The Way (1998)

How can a song be considered a hit without ever making an appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 at all? Easy, release a track as catchy as "The Way." Fastball did just that in 1998 on their second album, All the Pain Money Can Buy.

The single charted well in Canada, Australia, Iceland, Sweden and Norway. In America the full length CD reached #29 on the Billboard 200 album chart so it's possible that the success of the album here at home may have hurt sales of the single.

"The Way" also spent seven weeks at the top of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks survey and VH-1 ranked it #94 on their list of the hundred greatest songs of the nineties.

The trio's lead singer, Tony Scalzo, who composed "The Way," was inspired by a real news story about an elderly, married couple who disappeared and were found dead two weeks later in their car a long way from home.

The couple, Lela, 83, and Raymond Howard, 88, were driving to a festival near their home in Texas and apparently got lost. She was suffering from Alzheimer's and he had recent brain surgery. Their bodies were discovered two weeks later in Arkansas with Lela in the driver's seat. It's believed she was looking for an old vacation spot.

Scalzo's lyrics do not follow the actual news story. In his song he decides to have the couple abandon their real life and just go driving. Eventually, the car breaks down and they begin walking, and by doing so they find peace by abandoning the real world while understanding there is a possibility they may never make it back home.

The song's introduction has the sound of someone scanning a radio looking for a station before finding a song played by singer-songwriter Jewel.

I'm posting the link to the YouTube page featuring the band's official video in addition to embedding it below so you can read the sixth of 3,914 comments. It was posted by Stacy Howard, the grand niece of the missing couple. She received 81 replies to date.
 
You can find a review of the full album here. The trio's original lineup is still together and making music today.

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Almost Hits is an occasional exploration into songs that failed to reach the top 20 on the American Billboard Hot 100. Many have become classics despite what their chart position may indicate.

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