Songfacts®:

• This is a true tale of Steve Earle calling his toddler Justin from "a truck stop somewhere on the Arkansas line."
• The song's subject, Justin Townes Earle, became a performer himself. He was partly named after Townes Van Zandt, who was his father's mentor. Justin died on August 23, 2020, at the age of 38.
• Steve Earle is known as an artist who suffers for his art. However, he believes the writing process involves more than just getting things off his chest. He explained to Artist Direct:
  
  "You have to be open, and the more open you are, the more of yourself you are willing to give up, the more you are likely to find that part of you that other people identify with because that's all they care about. They don't give a f---that I'm riding around on a bus that costs more than their house. What they care about is I miss my kids when I do. Because they miss their kids when they are away from their kids too.
  
  Johnny Cash came up to me in 1986 or 7 and then said, "I love that song 'Little Rock 'N' Roller' of yours," it was a huge compliment, but then a truck driver came up to me about three weeks later and told me he loved that song, and that's when the light kind of went on that it was kind of the same experience for Johnny Cash and the truck driver. They both miss their kids when they are gone, and so do I. That's what the job is to me, it's empathy."