Songfacts®:

• This Steve Bogard and Jeff Stevens penned song was released on May 22, 1997 as the second single and title track from George Strait's album of the same name. The song reached #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.
• The song finds Strait singing about carrying the love of his girl with him when he is away from home.
  
  Baby, all I got is this beat up leather bag
  And everything I own don't fill up half
  But don't you worry 'bout the way I pack
  All I care about is gettin' back real soon
  A good-bye kiss is all I need from you
  
  "'Carrying Your Love With Me' is a title Jeff Stevens mentioned to me that we didn't write until about six months later," Steve Bogard recalled to Taste of Country. "We just let it percolate, and finally I got the idea for the 'beat up leather bag' metaphor."
  
  "We pretty much wrote it in a few hours," Bogard added. "Our publisher, Michael Knox, called Larry Willoughby, the A&R man for MCA, and he came over and heard it in my little office live. Jeff [was] singing and playing acoustic, and [I was] playing bass and singing harmony."
  
  "[They] put it on hold and made us promise not to play the demo, which we hadn't done yet, for anyone until he could send it to George," he concluded. "I'm glad we did. It's a great cut!"
• George Strait's fellow Texan Parker McCollum recorded a cover as a Spotify Single in 2021 before officially releasing it on March 11, 2022. McCollum considers the King of Country Music to be his musical hero. "Impossible to truly do this song justice but when I got the opportunity to try I just couldn't pass it up," he shared.
• At one point, both Tim McGraw and George Strait had their eyes on recording "Carrying Your Love With Me."
  
  "It just so happened that one of the songwriters pitched it to him [Strait], and one of the songwriters pitched it to me at the same time." McGraw recalled on TL's Roadhouse with Tracy Lawrence podcast.
  
  McGraw put the song on hold only to find out Strait had done the same. "I'm like, 'I'm not getting into a pissing match with George Strait,'" McGraw said. "So, it's George Strait's song."
  
  Even now, it's a bittersweet memory. "It still stings a little when I hear it," McGraw admitted. "It's one of the ones I hate missing out on, because that is one of my favorite George Strait songs."