Songfacts®:

• Chris Knight was working as a songwriter in Nashville when he came up with this song, which ended up as a single from his debut album. Knight wrote it with Craig Wiseman, whose extensive credits include Blake Shelton's "Hillbilly Bone" and Tim McGraw's "The Cowboy in Me." The song is about feeling out of place; it resonated with many listeners who could relate to the feeling of breaking free from the bounds of society.
  
  When we spoke with Chris Knight in 2012, he told us about coming up with the song: "I don't know what inspired me to write it, but I remember sitting down and hollering out the first couple of lines one morning before I went to work. I'd get up early in the morning and I'd get me a cup of coffee and I'd start writing. And I remember hollering out saying the first couple of lines of 'Ain't Easy Being Me,' and then setting it aside. And then I took it down and showed it to Craig Wiseman and then we just took off from there. He liked the idea and everything, so we went from there."
• Artists to cover this song include John Anderson, Randy Dukes, and Blake Shelton. Knight's original version stalled because his record label, Decca, folded soon after it was released, making the song a promotional orphan. Before they went out of business, it looked like Decca was going to support the single and get it some radio play - they did make a music video for the song which was quite clever, using a demolition derby to represent the self-destructive behavior of the singer.