Songfacts®:

• Train a Comin' was the first album recorded by Steve Earle after he'd overcome his addiction to drugs. "Goodbye" was he first song that he wrote sober, penning it in the fall of 1994 while in court-ordered rehab. He recalled to Q magazine: "I wrote it when I was still in treatment, before I even got to that step, the first time I got my hands on a guitar. It wasn't very good guitar, but I hadn't written anything in a very long time, so it was kind of reassuring to write something and to write something that good."
• In concerts, Earle introduces the song as a "ninth step in the key of C," referring to the step in which a recovering addict seeks to make direct amends to others that they have harmed.
• The song was covered by Emmylou Harris on her 1995 Wrecking Ball album. Her version features Steve Earle on acoustic guitar.
  
  Wrecking Ball won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Recording, ironically, beating out Train a Comin' which had also been nominated.