Just Like That (Bonnie Raitt song)

In an interview with American Songwriter, Raitt explained that her initial inspiration for the song came after she saw a human interest piece on the news in 2018 about a woman who donated her deceased child's organs and was meeting the man who received his heart. The segment moved Raitt to the degree that she was compelled to write a song about the selfless act, noting "I just lost it. It was the most moving and surprising thing. I wasn't expecting it. I vowed right then that I wanted to write a song about what that would take. Every time I hear about a family donating organs when their child has been killed, or there's some sort of sudden death — as if you're not in grief and shock enough — to have the view and the compassion and the love to be able to pay it forward like that is so incredible".^[6][7] During her Grammy acceptance speech, she explained "I was so inspired for this song by the incredible story of the love and the grace and the generosity of someone that donates their beloved's organs to help another person live and this story was so simple and so beautiful for these times".^[8]

Raitt stated that the song was inspired by the death of her longtime friend and fellow performer John Prine, who died in 2020 after complications from COVID-19. She singled out his song "Angel of Montgomery" as particularly inspiring, noting that he "crept into the heart of the woman that was singing" the song when he was a 21-year old man.^[9] Raitt composed the guitar part of the song while on tour, shortly after Prine's passing, and reflected to The New York Times that she had Prine "in my heart. I just started fingerpicking, and I had the lyrics in front of me, and the song poured through me without any thinking about it."^[10] While reviewing Just Like That…, critic Robert Christgau commented that both the title track and "Down the Hall" suggested that "Raitt is missing John Prine even more than the rest of us".^[11] In another interview with American Songwriter, Raitt commented that she tends to focus on her personal experiences when writing story songs, so for "Just Like That" and "Down the Hall", she sought to look to the experiences of others.^[9]

"Just Like That" won both the Best American Roots Song and the all-genre Song of the Year at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.^[12] Raitt's win in the latter category made her the first person to win with a solo composition since Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" in 2008, and was noted by critics as a shock victory, as she beat out popular frontrunners Adele, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Lizzo, and Harry Styles.^[2][3] At the time of the awards ceremony, the song had one-sixtieth the number of Spotify streams of the second-least streamed Song of the Year nominee, DJ Khaled's "God Did", and was the only one out of the ten nominees not to have peaked within the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100.^[13][14] The Guardian referred to Raitt as "the unexpected winner… over modern titans such as Beyoncé and Taylor Swift."^[15] The week after her victory, Raitt published an open letter thanking listeners for sharing their own experiences with organ donation.^[16]

Almost eight months later, Raitt also won Song of the Year for "Just Like That" at the 2023 Americana Music Honors & Awards.^[17][18] With the win, Raitt became the first solo songwriter to win Song of the Year since 2018, when Jason Isbell's "If We Were Vampires" won.^[18]