Songfacts®:

• The Running on Empty album is a tale of life on the road and the struggles of an itinerant musician. Jackson Browne didn't write "The Road," but the song fit very well in his set as it described the comfortless lifestyle filled with motels and strangers.
  
  The song's writer is Danny O'Keefe, who had a hit in 1972 with "Good Time Charlie's Got The Blues." And while "The Road" sounds like it was written after that hit, it was actually composed earlier. The song foreshadowed O'Keefe's fate, as he found himself living the song when he toured to promote his hit. In a Songfacts interview with Danny O'Keefe, he said: "For me the road was basically go out for six weeks and after six weeks you were usually sick of the road and sort of beat to death and poor, because unless you stay out there for a long period of time it's very hard to recoup those expenses that you have when you're carrying a band."
• "The Road" follows Running On Empty as the second track on the album. This sequencing is deliberate, with "Running On Empty" fueled by the adrenaline that pumped up Browne and his band when they hit the stage. We hear the crowd cheering before and after that song, but then it fades down and we hear Browne singing quietly, accompanied by just David Lindley's fiddle on "The Road." It sounds like a studio recording for the first three minutes, then the crowd cheers, the full band comes in, and we're back at the show. This is meant to show the contrast between the lead-up to the show and when the band takes the stage.