Songfacts®:

• "County Road" is a poignant message to a young victim of cancer. Driven by piano and pedal steel guitar, it serves as an affectionate epitaph to Margo Price's late friend, Ben Eyestone.
• Ben Eyestone was a drummer for a band called The Lonely H and a member of Price's ever-evolving circle of friends. After moving to Nashville from Washington state, Eyestone gigged around town. He played with Price and other local singer-songwriters until he developed colon cancer and died. Like many musicians, he didn't have health insurance.
  
  "The song," Price told Uncut magazine, "is about those five to 10 years when we were all struggling and hanging out at (Nashville's) The 5 Spot. It's about how everything has changed since then, which I guess makes it my 'The Boys of Summer.'"
• Margo Price wrote "County Road" with her husband (and frequent collaborator) Jeremy Ivey.
• Margo Price recorded the song for Strays. The American star laid down the album with producer Jonathan Wilson, who has worked with a wide range of artists, including Father John Misty, Angel Olsen and Conor Oberst.
• Price recorded the song at Wilson's studio in Topanga, outside Los Angeles. While working on the bridge, she tried to exorcise some ghosts.
  
  Remember when we got drunk
  That time in Ontario
  Listening to Warren Zevon
  On the stereo
  
  It was one of those ordinary yet unforgettable experiences that you cling to when someone dies. Price, her piano player Micah Hulscher, and Wilson retreated to his dark garage where he had an upright piano set up along with some old microphones. "I sang those lines, 'remember when we got drunk that time in Ontario. Listening to Warren Zevon on the stereo,'" Price recalled to Uncut magazine. "I sounded like a ghost. Michael pounded out this ominous chord on that piano, which was just a little out of tune. It's such a big moment in that song and on the album, and it gives me chills just thinking about it."