Songfacts®:

• This is the title track of the fifteenth album recorded by Steve Earle. It features his live band, The Dukes and is his first to be billed as 'Steve Earle & The Dukes (And Duchesses).'
• Earle explains in the album's liner notes that it is his "road record." He writes: "I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view. I've seen a pretty good chunk of the world and my well-worn passport is one of my most prized possessions, but for me, there's still nothing like the first night of a North American tour; everybody, band and crew, crowded up in the front lounge, eating Nashville hot chicken and Betty Herbert's homemade pimento cheese, swapping the same tired old war stories half shouted over the rattle and hum of the highway. And I'm always the last one to holler good night to Charlie Quick, the driver, and climb in my bunk because to me it feels like Christmas Eve long ago when I still believed in Santa Claus. God I love this."