That same day, Shafer and Frizzell also completed another song: the highly-acclaimed “I Never Go Around Mirrors.” In one of Frizzell’s last chart appearances, his original version of this song reached #25 in the spring of 1974. Nearly fifteen years later, “I Never Go Around Mirrors” came to the attention of Keith Whitley. Keith loved it and wanted to release his own rendition as a single, but his label (RCA) overruled him, deeming the song “not commercial enough.”
One night at Nashville’s Continental Inn during the latter part of 1973, Johnny Rodriguez was involved in a “guitar pull,” a Nashville ritual in which songwriters gather around in a circle, pass a guitar around and each writer would sing the new songs they had written. Along with Rodriguez, the attendees included Dallas Frazier, Merle Haggard, Lewis Talley (Haggard’s manager), Whitey Shafer and Lefty Frizzell. The session was about to break up and everyone started to get ready to go home when Lefty said he wanted to play just one more song. It was “That’s The Way Love Goes.”
Haggard wanted it right then, but he had just finished an album and didn’t have any more studio time scheduled. So the next day, Shafer brought “That’s The Way Love Goes” down to the studio where Rodriguez was recording. Johnny snapped it up and cut it, and the result was his third consecutive number one hit on February 16, 1974.
Merle Haggard actually recorded “That’s The Way Love Goes” four or five times through the years before he finally got a version he liked. He tried different tempos, band line-ups and arrangements, but it never quite came together until Haggard teamed up with producer Ray Baker, whom he had known since the mid-1960s.