Dave Stewart sets down The Way It Was Back Then
The title single and its Soho video are out, with the ten-song album due on Bay Street Records on 30 October; it follows last year's Dylan covers set.
Dave Stewart has released the title track and official video for The Way It Was Back Then, the lead single from his forthcoming ten-song album of the same name. The record arrives on 30 October 2026 via Bay Street Records. Stewart wrote, performed and produced the set, working with engineer Jesse Samler.
The single and the first details of the project appeared in late September 2026. The video was filmed on the streets of Soho, revisiting locations from Stewart's early musical life. No further promotion or live dates have been confirmed.
One room, one take
The album was recorded at Stewart's Stardust Studios in the Bahamas. The sessions favoured spontaneous one-take performances rather than heavy overdubbing or elaborate production. Stewart said the songs emerged naturally while he was occupied with other work, rather than being forced out of a single, planned writing block. The material insisted on being finished, gathered into a tight sequence rather than stretched across a sprawling campaign.
The ten tracks are 'The Way It Was Back Then', 'Your Wishes', 'Cry If You Want To', 'The House Where I Was Born', 'Black Cat', 'Makes Me Happy (And Sad)', 'Oh Jesse', 'All Done', 'Thin Ice' and 'What's A Man Supposed To Do'. Titles such as 'The House Where I Was Born' and the album name itself lean toward memory and place; others sit closer to address and mood. Across the album, the writing credit rests with Stewart alone.
After the Dylan set
The Way It Was Back Then follows Dave Does Dylan, the 2025 Record Store Day collection of Dylan covers. That release was part of a recent run of activity that also included the 2025 single 'Peace One Day' and a string of singles through 2024. The new album shifts the frame again: original songs, sole authorship, and a production credit that rests with Stewart and Samler.
Stewart's reputation was established earlier, during the Eurythmics years. The studio albums In the Garden (1981), Touch (1983), Be Yourself Tonight (1985), Revenge (1986), Savage (1987) and We Too Are One (1989) form the core of that run. Those records established him as writer, player and producer in equal measure. The decades since have seen further production work, collaborations and solo releases; the 2024 and 2025 singles and the Dylan set are the immediate predecessors to the October album.
What marks the new set is the closed circuit of the sessions: one studio in the Bahamas, performances caught in a single take, and a finished ten-song sequence shaped from first idea to final mix. The Soho video underlines the looking-back theme without turning the project into a nostalgia package: the songs were cut now in the room, not rebuilt from old tapes.
Fixed points and open ground
The fixed points are plain. The title track is available. The video is circulating. Bay Street Records has the album scheduled for 30 October 2026. The tracklist is public, and the working method and writing credit are stated.
What remains open is everything around the release. No tour has been announced. No further singles have been named. No television or festival appearances have been attached to the campaign. For an artist whose career has long moved between the studio and the stage, that silence simply means the next step has not yet been announced.
Listeners who followed the Dylan covers will meet a different proposition here: original writing, a small production circle, and a title that admits the pull of the past while the method stays rooted in present performance. How the record sits beside the Eurythmics catalogue is for the ear to decide once the full set is out. Until then the invitation is the single, the Soho footage, and a date at the end of October.