Songfacts®:

• "Love You Like I Used To" starts off like a breakup song.
  
  Girl I've always loved you, but something's changed
  Blame it on time, the road or the ride, but it ain't the same
  
  However, as the romantic pop-country tune progresses, we learn Russell Dickerson is singing about a love that gets sweeter with time.
  
  I don't love you like I used to
  This gets better every time you kiss me like this
  It's stronger the longer I'm with you
• Dickerson penned "Love You Like I Used To" with his close friends and frequent co-writers Casey Brown and Parker Welling in January 2018. Like Dickerson's other love songs, it's an ode to his wife, Kailey.
• Dickerson told Billboard that his wife is honest with him about his material and when he first played her this song she told him, "Oh, I don't think you nailed it on this one."
  
  So, six months later, Dickerson got together with Brown and Welling and completely rewrote the song. They kept the chorus but restructured it, adding the attention-grabbing twist. After they'd finished, they played the track to Kailey and some people from his team, and they all loved it. He recalled:
  
  "When we came back with the song sounding like a breakup song in the first verse and then it hit that twist in the first chorus, it was like boom!"
• Russell Dickerson references Deana Carter's 1996 hit "Strawberry Wine" during the second verse.
  
  What we got ain't got no ending, like a band of solid gold
  It's sweeter with time like strawberry wine, it gets as good as it gets old
  
  Dickerson rewrote the song with Brown and Welling in Detroit while supporting Lady Antebellum on their 2018 tour. At the end of their show, Hillary Scott and Dickerson would sing "Strawberry Wine" as a duet together every night. He explained to American Songwriter: "I think that line was just fresh in my mind. People use the 'it gets better with time' and 'wine' rhyme all the time. But I thought it would be cute. That's the point in the story we are at right now."
• Casey Brown and Parker Welling, Dickinson's buddies from his time at Nashville's Belmont University, subsequently became his go-to writing partners. They collaborated with the singer on his first four hit singles: "Yours," "Blue Tacoma," "Every Little Thing" and this song.
  
  "The magic never hit until I wrote with Casey and Parker," Dickerson reflected to The Boot. "We were friends - basically family; we still are - before we were co-writers... You can't just replace that."
  
  "Even in the writing room, you feel more comfortable, because it's like we're just hanging out, as opposed to [it feeling like], 'Oh, I'm in the room with this famous songwriter, I'm nervous they're gonna think this idea is stupid and never want to write with me again,'" he added. "Loyalty is a huge part of it."