I Want It That Way

"I Want It That Way" is a dance-pop ballad from the American boy band Backstreet Boys. It is about a relationship that is troubled by emotional or physical distance. In the United States, the song peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100. It hit #1 in many other countries.

"I Want It That Way"
Single by Backstreet Boys
from Millennium"
B-side	"My Heart Stays with You" "I'll Be There for You"
Released	April 12, 1999 (1999-04-12)
Recorded	November 1998
Studio	Cheiron (Stockholm, Sweden)
Genre	Pop
Length	3:33
Label	Jive
Songwriter(s)	Andreas Carlsson Max Martin
Producer(s)	Kristian Lundin Max Martin
Backstreet Boys singles chronology
""All I Have to Give" (1998) I Want It That Way ""Larger than Life" (1999)
"I Want It That Way" at YouTube

The song was nominated for three Grammy Awards.

It was released on April 12, 1999, as the lead single from their third studio album, Millennium.

Writing and inspiration

"I Want It That Way" was written by Andreas Carlsson and Max Martin, while Martin and Kristian Lundin produced the track. The acoustic-guitar arpeggio riff, which forms the song's intro and reiterates throughout the verses, was written at the very end of the recording sessions and was, according to Carlsson, inspired by "Nothing Else Matters" by Metallica. The song is composed in the key of A major until approximately the 2-minute, 25-second mark of the song, at which mark that the key changes to B major. It follows a chord progression of F♯m–D–A with a tempo of 99 beats per minute, and is set in the time signature of 4
4 common time. The group members' vocals on the track range from the low note of E₃ to the high note of B₄.

Alternate version

An alternate version of the song with different lyrics was written and recorded by the band in January 1999. The version was included in some early demo presses of the album. In the alternate version, the song has the opposite message ("I love it when I hear you say, I want it that way"). The alternative lyrics were written by Martin and Carlsson in collaboration with Robert John "Mutt" Lange. The alternate version was leaked on the internet via Napster and other methods in the early 2000s and was also played infrequently on some radio stations. It was eventually included on Millennium 2.0 (a 25th anniversary reissue of Millennium) in 2025.

According to a member of the Boys' backing band, Tommy Smith, the album version is the "original version"; the alternate version was recorded because the chorus of the album version did not make sense. In an interview with HitQuarters, Andreas Carlsson confessed that the song was a play with words. He said, "When Max came up with the original idea for the song, it already had the line 'you are my fire, the one desire.' We tried a million different variations on the second verse, and finally, we had to go back to what was sounding so great, 'you are my fire, the one desire.' And then we changed it to 'am I your fire, your one desire,' which made no sense in combination with the chorus – but everybody loved it!"

Lyrical interpretation

Many critics over the years have questioned the song's lyrical meaning, mainly the line, "I want it that way." Ben Westhoff of LA Weekly dissected the song, writing that its lyrical content "makes zero sense." For Westhoff, "Mainly, the meaning of 'that' is at issue." While analyzing the lyrics, Westhoff perceived that "None of the sentiments in the chorus seem to go with any of the other ones. Even worse, no further explanation is given for what 'that' is." The critic assumed that in the song, "someone simply doesn't like it when his lover expresses preferences, never wanting to hear when his girlfriend says she wants things in particular ways."

Andrew Unterberger of PopDust also questioned the song's lyrics, writing that "the song doesn't make a whole lot of sense" and noting "the odd phrasing of the title and certain other key lyrics." Unterberger also stated, "The phrase 'I want it that way' is similarly devoid of inherent meaning, but it's used recurringly as a kind of conclusive phrase, always calling back to those first two lines, as the song gets gradually more despairing in nature." Unterberger also found out that "The chorus would appear to be in direct opposition to the rest of the song."

Unterberger concluded that the song "is about a relationship that's troubled by matters of emotional and/or physical distance, but that the singer feels strongly enough about to keep it going just the same…until the chorus, at which point he decides that it's not worth the trouble. No, it doesn't make sense, but it's still stirring, beautiful in its own weird way, and undeniably unforgettable. And frankly, we wouldn't want it any other way." Kevin Richardson, a member of the band, explained in an interview that, "Ultimately, the song really doesn't make much sense." Richardson also wrote that co-writer Max Martin's knowledge of English was limited at the time. "There are a lot of songs out there like that don't make sense but make you feel good when you sing along to them, and that's one of them," Richardson commented in an interview.

In 2018, the band seemed to reverse course regarding the depth of the song's lyrical content, at least in part. In response to Chrissy Teigen on Twitter, the official Backstreet Boys Twitter account attempted to clarify the song's meaning of "it," among other points of confusion: "Don't wanna hear you say that you want heartaches and mistakes... or to be 2 worlds apart. We don't want you to want "it" that way - that's the way we want it... for you to not want it that way."