Songfacts®:

• This is the title track of American country/folk singer songwriter Nanci Griffith's 19th album.
• This song tells the true story of pioneering interracial couple Mildred and Richard Loving, whose marriage landed the couple in jail in 1958. Their case, Loving v. Virginia, led to a landmark 1967 Supreme Court decision ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States. Mildred passed away in May 2008 and Griffith told Billboard magazine, that after reading her obituary, she cried "before writing the song in 10 minutes. It amazed me that there was so little fanfare about possibly one of the most important cases in this country."
• In the liner notes for the album, Griffith conceded that she had "lost something in her heart for writing songs." She added that it was her "larger than life hero," Dee Moeller, who motivated her to "kick-start my writer's pen" for a new batch of songs. Griffith expressed her appreciation to Moeller by covering two of her honky-tonk songs—"Party Girl" and "Tequila After Midnight."