Songfacts®:

• This is the closing track on American music artist Mary Chapin Carpenter's tenth studio album, The Age of Miracles. She explained to Express Night Out: "'The Way I Feel' is a road song and it's about just saying 'I'm casting off my cares and I'm going to feel the freedom of driving at night by myself with my thoughts as my company, music as my company.' It's [also] a shout out to Tom Petty in one of the lyrics."
• Carpenter told The Boot why she decided to end the record with such an upbeat song after much of the material reflected a dark period in the singer's life when she fell badly ill. Said Carpenter "I wanted very much to end the record with it because I knew going into the studio that this was very much going to be predominantly a quiet record, in terms of it being a narrative of my coming out of this experience that I had. I didn't see it as a cacophonous, muscular-sounding record. I saw it as a more meditative work and ultimately a collection of songs that were positive songs of resilience. So it was important for me to place this song there."