Songfacts®:

• Houser sings of his difficult upbringing on this poignant ballad, recalling when an uncle helped his mom and him escape his abusive stepfather. "When he took to drinkin', he'd take it out on us," he croons. The singer called this "the most personal song I've ever written."
  
  In our interview with Randy Houser, he said, "It's just about my life growing up. Pretty simple." Despite the challenges, Randy says he still enjoyed his childhood. He explained: "A tough life can still be a good life. When I look back, I can obviously say it wasn't an easy life, but it's how I became who I am. I can't say it was a bad life."
• Randy penned this song with two of his buddies, Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip. "I guess it was just time for that to come out," he told The Boot. "I had that idea for a while and thought about it, but when we went in the room that day, I wasn't really expecting to bring all that personal stuff out. It started falling out of me and I was hesitant because I was like, 'Is this what I want to deal with right now with these two buddies of mine here?' I guess so."
• So what did Randy's mom think when she heard it? "She heard it by accident," he told The Boot. "I wasn't going to let her hear it until the album was out because I didn't want her to say, 'No, don't put that song on the album.' I was gone and she was at my house babysitting. She got in my truck and it was in my CD player. She heard it and she sent me a text and said, 'I just heard that song about Route 3 and I just can't quit crying.' It was a part of our lives that was tough that we really never talked about. It's just one of those things you don't really discuss, but a lot of those things come out in music in my life."