Songfacts®:

• Musicians are often asked about their influences, and the alt-country rockers My Morning Jacket cite many iconic bands for informing their sound - including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. But MMJ frontman Jim James has a few of his own as a vocalist. The At Dawn cut "The Way That He Sings" was inspired by the feeling he gets when he listens to singers like Roy Orbison and Neil Young.
  
  "[The song is] just about all my favorite singers, really, just the fact of being in love with the way something is, rather than what it appears to be or is presented as," James explained in a 2002 Pitchfork interview. "There is nothing more pure and beautiful than the human voice and oftentimes I just drift away listening to Roy or Neil sing a song, and it doesn't matter really what they're saying or they're playing. You know, it's all about the moment. And I feel the same way about love. I kind of mention that little rascal too from time to time - I guess it's inevitable."
• James formed My Morning Jacket as a way to perform the acoustic tunes that didn't fit into the repertoire of his existing rock band, Month Of Sundays. MMJ started off hot with The Tennessee Fire, which found an audience in The Netherlands, before making a name for themselves back home with their sophomore album, At Dawn.
• My Morning Jacket considers themselves a rock 'n roll band above any other genre, but it can't get more country than recording your albums on a farm. For their first three releases, the group set up shop at a soybean farm in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where James recorded his vocals in an unused grain silo to take advantage of the natural reverb.
  
  The farm, owned by then-guitarist Johnny Quaid's grandparents, also housed their own studio, Above The Cadillac, a reconverted apartment above a three-car-garage. James described the setup in a 2001 interview with Philadelphia City Paper: "We locked ourselves in for many days with all the necessary elements (lights, candles, Madonna's Immaculate Collection, Dreamcast and cookies) and we just started cooking."
• Orbison and Young inspired this track, but The Rolling Stones' spacious sound on Exile On Main Street and John Bonham's frenetic drum work for Led Zeppelin inspired the atmosphere.
  
  "I love big, huge open sounds, such as vocals cut far away from the mic in a big room, and also huge drum sounds," James told Philadelphia City Paper. "I just love atmosphere. I love hearing the rooms where the songs were recorded, chairs creaking, crickets and the like… It feels like love and rhymes with childbirth."
• In the band's 2011 VH1 Storytellers episode, James introduced the song by talking about some of the other singers who inspire him, including Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon and Marvin Gaye, whose ability to hit high notes was something James strived for when he was learning how to sing. In fact, he still reaches out to his heroes when he needs a little help during live performances.
  
  "Sometimes when I'm way off in space when we're playing a show, and I'm trying to hit a high note or really take it to an emotional place, I try to find them," he said. "I think that's why I spend a lot of the shows with my eyes closed, because I'm trying to find them and hope that they can help me get on the same rocket ship that they rode to those high notes."
• My Morning Jacket's move off the farm coincided with a shift in their style, which alienated a portion of their fanbase but brought them critical accolades and mainstream attention. In a professional studio setting with seasoned producers, they polished the rough edges off of their sound. They abandoned the "harmonies and folk shit" (says James) of their youth in favor of a kaleidoscope of genres, such as psychedelia, space rock, reggae, club music, and R&B. Evil Urges (2008) earned them their first Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album.