"It's in the Way That You Use It" is a song, which was written by the British rock musician Eric Clapton in collaboration with The Band's guitarist and composer Robbie Robertson. The song was recorded and performed by Eric Clapton, who released the track under licence of Warner Bros. Records as the second of four singles from his 1986 studio album August in 1986 and March 1987. The song, which is used as the theme tune to the Martin Scorsese film The Color of Money, was produced by Eric Clapton himself with the help of Tom Dowd, who acted as the assistant producer. The release sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide.

The song was especially written as part of the film soundtrack for the movie The Color of Money, which was directed by Martin Scorsese and starred Paul Newman and Tom Cruise as pool sharks. The recording first appeared as part of the film soundtrack, before it was released as a single or on Eric Clapton's 1986 studio album release. The British rock musician wrote "It's in the Way That You Use It" with Robbie Robertson, whose work with The Band in the 1960s encouraged Eric Clapton to get away from the long, heavy solos he was playing with Cream. Robertson was in charge of the music for The Color of Money, but because he was not finished with his first solo album, his record company would not let him sing on any of the songs. He got around it by contributing instrumental songs to the soundtrack. The original song title was "The Gift".

"It's in the Way That You Use It" was released as an official single in late 1986 for the following territories: Australia, Canada, the United States and Portugal. For the rest of the world, mainly including Europe, especially Germany and the United Kingdom, the single was released in March 1987. The single was released on both a seven and twelve inch vinyl grammophone record. The single was also released in Japan. The track features Eric Clapton playing electric guitar and singing lead vocals with a band consisting of Gary Brooker as a background vocalist, Henry Spinetti on drums, Richard Cottle playing the synthesizer and Laurence Cottle playing bass guitar.

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