The Way It Is (song)
E528388
"The Way It Is" is a 1986 piano-driven pop-rock song by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, best known for its socially conscious lyrics about racial and economic inequality and its distinctive piano riff.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Way It Is | 1 |
| The Way It Is (album) | 1 |
| The Way It Is (song) canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T5509885 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Way It Is (song) Context triple: [Bruce Hornsby, notableWork, The Way It Is (song)]
-
A.
The Way It Is
"The Way It Is" is the 2005 debut studio album by American R&B singer Keyshia Cole, featuring emotionally driven songs about love, heartbreak, and personal struggle.
-
B.
That’s the Way It Is
"That’s the Way It Is" is an upbeat pop song by Celine Dion, released in 1999 and known for its empowering lyrics and strong vocal performance.
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C.
That Way
"That Way" is a melodic hip-hop single by Lil Uzi Vert, best known for its nostalgic interpolation of the Backstreet Boys’ "I Want It That Way" and its popularity in the late 2010s rap landscape.
-
D.
Some Way
"Some Way" is a hip-hop track by Nav that helped raise his profile in the rap scene with its melodic style and introspective lyrics.
-
E.
How It Is
How It Is is a late experimental novel by Samuel Beckett that explores fragmented consciousness through disjointed, minimalist prose and a mud-bound narrator’s monologue.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Way It Is (song) Target entity description: "The Way It Is" is a 1986 piano-driven pop-rock song by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, best known for its socially conscious lyrics about racial and economic inequality and its distinctive piano riff.
-
A.
The Way It Is
"The Way It Is" is the 2005 debut studio album by American R&B singer Keyshia Cole, featuring emotionally driven songs about love, heartbreak, and personal struggle.
-
B.
That’s the Way It Is
"That’s the Way It Is" is an upbeat pop song by Celine Dion, released in 1999 and known for its empowering lyrics and strong vocal performance.
-
C.
That Way
"That Way" is a melodic hip-hop single by Lil Uzi Vert, best known for its nostalgic interpolation of the Backstreet Boys’ "I Want It That Way" and its popularity in the late 2010s rap landscape.
-
D.
Some Way
"Some Way" is a hip-hop track by Nav that helped raise his profile in the rap scene with its melodic style and introspective lyrics.
-
E.
How It Is
How It Is is a late experimental novel by Samuel Beckett that explores fragmented consciousness through disjointed, minimalist prose and a mud-bound narrator’s monologue.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
single
ⓘ
song ⓘ |
| album | The Way It Is (album) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| artist | Bruce Hornsby and the Range NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| associatedAct | The Range NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| chartPosition |
number 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart
ⓘ
number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 ⓘ top 10 in several European countries ⓘ |
| composer | Bruce Hornsby NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| criticalReception | praised for its piano performance and lyrics ⓘ |
| genre |
adult contemporary
ⓘ
pop rock ⓘ soft rock ⓘ |
| hasBPM | approximately 104 BPM ⓘ |
| hasBside | The Red Plains NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasLiveVersion | The Way It Is (live performances) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasLyricsTheme |
civil rights movement
ⓘ
economic inequality ⓘ racial inequality ⓘ social justice ⓘ |
| hasMusicVideo | The Way It Is (music video) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| hasPart | piano riff ⓘ |
| hasSubject |
segregation and discrimination in the United States
ⓘ
welfare and poverty in the United States ⓘ |
| includedIn | greatest hits compilations of Bruce Hornsby ⓘ |
| inspiredWork | Changes (song by 2Pac) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| instrumentation | piano-driven arrangement ⓘ |
| key | G major ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| lyricist | Bruce Hornsby NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| notableFeature |
distinctive piano riff
ⓘ
socially conscious lyrics ⓘ |
| originallyPublishedIn | The Way It Is (album) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| partOf | The Way It Is (album) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| performer | Bruce Hornsby and the Range NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| producer |
Bruce Hornsby
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Eliot Scheiner NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| recordLabel | RCA Records ⓘ |
| releaseDate | 1986 ⓘ |
| side | A-side of the single "The Way It Is" ⓘ |
| singleReleaseYear | 1986 ⓘ |
| timeSignature | 4/4 ⓘ |
| usedAsSampleIn |
Changes (song by 2Pac featuring Talent)
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Changes (song by 2Pac) NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| vocalist | Bruce Hornsby NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| yearEndRanking | one of the major US hits of 1986 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Way It Is (song) Description of subject: "The Way It Is" is a 1986 piano-driven pop-rock song by Bruce Hornsby and the Range, best known for its socially conscious lyrics about racial and economic inequality and its distinctive piano riff.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Way It Is (album)
this entity surface form:
The Way It Is