Merle Haggard described the extremely fast process of writing and recording the song, inspired by the frustrations of his tour bus driver, Dean Holloway:

The feeling resonated, because it was a time in America when things were breaking down, especially in cities. I thought about Detroit and the problems the car industry faced after the gas shortage of ‘79. I imagined a family leaving Detroit and happy to be getting out.

Within minutes of writing the lyrics with Holloway on a sheet of paper, Haggard ran back into the studio to record before he forgot the music:

The band was packing up. I said, “Hold on, let’s do one more. I just wrote something and I want to get it down.” The band shrugged and said, “All right, if that’s what you want to do.” … The engineer ran off a tape reel of the song, and I took it out to the bus. I had a big player mounted in there, and I cued up the tape. I said to Dean, “I want you to hear something. This hasn’t been written a full hour yet.” I punched play and said, “Listen to your song, Mr. Holloway.” Well, Dean’s attitude went from the floor to the ceiling. I said, “You and I just wrote a hit.”