Songfacts®:

• According to Jackson Browne, a woman he knew very well (he won't say who) would sometimes take her clothes off and ride home naked, giving him the idea for the title "The Naked Ride Home." He came up with the title first and built the song from there.
• The song sounds like it takes place at a bar, with a guy trying to pick up a girl by daring her to take off her clothes and let him take her home. She agrees to do it and he gets what we'll call a joyride, but there a tinge of trouble. At the end of the song, we find out that his wasn't a random pickup but a married couple struggling to stay together.
  
  "The song actually signals the end of a relationship," Browne told Rolling Stone. "You don't find out untl the last verse that this is a couple, people who are driving home to their house. He's trying to rekindle something, and it's not working out."
• "The Naked Ride Home" is the title track and leadoff song from Jackson Browne's 12th album. He recalled to Uncut magazine in an interview with their August 2010 issue: "How records get made is the most fascinating thing to me. I love 'The Naked Ride Home' as a recording. [band guitarist] Mark Goldenberg was playing structurally on the original session, and I was going to overdub him doing lead on top, but I wound up adding this great guitarist Val McCallum to the Band just to play that part."