Songfacts®:

• Most trucking songs tell stories about working men behind the wheel. Here, Eric Church switches things up by honoring a tough-as-nails female hauler.
  
  Them boys would chuckle when they saw her buckle
  Herself in the captain's seat
  But nobody was laughin' when she'd go to passin'
  Smilin' at them real sweet
  
  The closest cousin we could find on our database is Crystal Bowersox's "Arlene," which is about a female bus driver.
• The feminist anthem is recounted by the son who details how his "bad mother" taught him everything he knows about respecting women.
  
  I was raised on jerky from here to Albuquerque
  Went to school on her ol' CB
  She made a name for herself, taught me how to spell
  R-E-S-P-E-C-T
  
  Church nods to another feminist anthem, Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit tune "Respect" where the Queen of Soul also spells out R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
• Country singer Joanna Cotten provides soulful vocal harmony throughout the song. A longtime Eric Church backing vocalist, Cotten can also be heard supplying the gospel harmonies on "Heart Like a Wheel."
• Church co-wrote this slide guitar-propelled southern rocker with Casey Beathard, Luke Dick and Jeremy Spillman. All three have collaborated with Church before, including Beathard with "Drowning Man," Dick with "'Round Here Buzz" and Spillman with "The Snake."
• Church's regular producer Jay Joyce helmed the track.
• The original "bad mother..." is Shaft, from the Isaac Hayes song and movie. This song spins it around by making the character a woman.