The Way We Were

It's about the misty memories "we" might of left behind, about old friendships and what the past has meant to "us"."Whats to painful to remember we simply choose to forget?", aint that the truth. The movie "The way we were", is a simple but memorable song of the friends, significant others and everyone else that have touched us so deeply, we never forget them and always have them in our memories...This is CHEESY, makes me cry ever time. When the character of Ms. Streisand and Robert Redford see eachother after 10yrs??? And this song comes up...This song is about everyones memory lane.

well said, City Girl. i realized even if i can and will forget the past, i cannot get rid of myself, who is made of what happened in the past. those memories doesn't only exist in my brain, they are the material that built me. I am them!

Our memory distorts the true nature of our past relationships. An old flame from many, many years ago recently contacted me and told me she thought her life would have been much better if we had stayed together. Though I was flattered, and though we did have some very good memories, I realized that she was conveniently forgetting the bad times and what caused us to eventually break up. As the song says, "Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet What’s too painful to remember We simply choose to forget So it's the laughter We will remember Whenever we remember The way we were"

I do agree with everyone above that this song is about remembering the good times between to lovers who have long since parted with one another, but I also have to say that it is partly about the world, particularly the US during the 1930's and 1940's. Remember the movie for which this song was written was about McCarthyism and ethnic and class oriented struggles. Today we tend to look at the past as 'the good old days' but this really is only true if you were a straight white christian man. But still, 'its the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember the way we were'

For me this song is all about how you can't return to what you were. Past relationships, once tainted, can never be the same. and once you figure out that its never going to be as great as it was before, you just leave it there, and move on. And so we try to be grateful for what we had, and we try to forget the bad times, shown when she says -

"Mem'ries, may be beautiful and yet What's too painful to remember We simply choose to forget

but i think the whole point of the song is, that you can't forget the bad things, the way you ended, the person you miss, the things that were said. It's only human to fixate on those things. Because all people are greedy, and so even though we try to be grateful for what we had, we still want more, and its upsetting how you can never get "more" because as james morrison said "you can't play on broken strings."

life can be funny. my two best friends, one of 2 years, the other of 12 years, were obsessed with Robert Redford and watched his movies all the time. so naturally, we three heard this song alot. at the time it felt like we would always remember the fun we were having together. now, after discovering that the entire friendship was based on them lying to me, i havent spoken to them anyomore. i miss the good parts, i miss the fun parts, but now i know it was never real. so basically, i miss the lies. now this song means to me what it meant to Katie & Hubble in the movie.

Ironic how life is sometimes like a circle. It ends where it begins. And all we have left are memories. (Hopefully some interesting ones, along with memories of smiles and laughs.) We can love hard and even befriend, but we can't make some things last that were not meant to be. For if they were meant to be, they would simply be. I have loved hard and I have lost hard. And I will not wait my life away for what is never coming. So I will grab life's memories and choose to live...to start a new course. This song is the epitome of that...looking back over our lives and choosing to recall what is beautiful, not painful. For with pain often comes learning and understanding, and hopefully compassion (even if we faulter often). I do not partically care for Steisand's voice and I hate her politics, but I recall quite fondly when and where this song fit beautifully into my life and held such promise. Nobody can ever accuse me of not loving and of not trying. Remember that...

In retrospect, wow, what a landmark song.

Now reading along as I listen again, it's amazing how short are the lyrics. So few words.

Streisand performed it like a true master – extending herself almost beyond then back to the softest whisper. Her singing brings out the full impact of the meaning.

And a very powerful meaning indeed.

Any song about memories can become timeless. The melodic impact of Streisand's rendition pins it at the very top.

I find this is such a sad song of the harsh realities of life. I am not sure we really get over someone special, maybe we just get over the loss of them in our lives. Memories re-ignite those strong feelings and has us clutching at straws. But sometimes, when you're drowning in a sea of emptiness, clutching straws can seem the only option.

Well for me it is about my close teen friend when we had to separate and live on the other side of the world. This is the song I sang to myself about it.