Remember Ronnie Dunn’s Tribute to the Late Merle Haggard?

Ronnie Dunn asked for layers of steel guitar on his Merle Haggard tribute. The singer's cover of a song that scored the late legend a Grammy Award and a No. 1 hit is a throwback to the Oklahoma native's formative years.

"That's the Way Love Goes" is also a whole lot of fun to sing. Talking to Taste of Country after covering the mid-'80s hit with a few chosen players, Dunn shares that he appreciates the economical songwriting of the Lefty Frizzel and Whitey Shafer lyric. Johnny Rodriguez originally recorded the song, making it a No. 1 hit in 1973 before Haggard took a try.

"I came up through the ranks in Texas and Oklahoma playing bars," Dunn says, positioned on a stool in the Taste of Country studio following his performance. "There's certain songs that you gravitate to over the years."

"That's the Way Love Goes" is certainly one of them. The sorrowful lyric spills into the tears created from a melancholy arrangement that is heavy on steel guitar. He says it was a song he frequently covered before he joined Kix Brooks to create Brooks & Dunn, so it was an obvious choice for him to record when he decided to do a full album of cover songs.

Find Dunn's cover of "That's the Way Love Goes" on Dunn's 2020 album, Re-Dunn, which also features covers of classics by George Strait, Hank Williams, Tom Petty and more. The album debuted at No. 1 country and No. 2 all genre on the Apple Music charts.

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