Songfacts®:

• "Park" is a country anthem about young hearts and stolen moments, inspired by a real-life incident when Tyler Hubbard got caught making out with a girl in a church parking lot. The escapade landed Hubbard in a heap of teenage trouble.
• The song paints a picture of a souped-up jalopy screaming down a dusty backroad, with Hubbard behind the wheel and his girl by his side. He talks big about burning rubber and outrunning the wind, but all he really wants to do is slow down, steal a kiss, and cuddle up under the stars. Hubbard cleans it up a bit in the lyrics, but let's be real, folks – we've all been there.
• Here's the kicker: Tyler wasn't exactly qualified to be playing Dale Earnhardt. He was 15 so he didn't have his license yet. His girlfriend, a 16-year-old with a Toyota Camry, was the one doing the driving.
  
  So why'd they choose a church parking lot for their little rendezvous? "Well, it was the darkest parking lot on the way home," he chuckled to Taste of Country Nights, On Demand. "I think I was actually going home from church, and I was about a mile from my house, and I should have just went on to the house and sat in the driveway."
  
  But their stolen moment got cut short when a set of blue lights flickered in the rearview mirror. Turns out, the officer wasn't feeling their impromptu parking spot and decided to give Tyler a little police escort straight to his front door. "I had to walk to the front door, had to tell my dad!"
  
  Hubbard was grounded for about a month. "At 15 years old, when you're grounded for a month, especially from your girlfriend, I was like, 'Wait, I can't...,'" he said. "She was my ride at that point. So, yeah, I was out of commission and lesson learned."
• Hubbard co-wrote "Park" with Jesse Frasure (Jon Pardi's "Dirt on My Boots," Chris Lane's "Fix"), Ashley Gorley (Cole Swindell's "She Had Me At Heads Carolina"), Morgan Wallen's "Last Night") and singer-songwriter Canaan Smith, who is signed with Round Here Records, an independent label founded by Florida Georgia Line.
  
  The song came together near the end of a songwriter retreat at Jesse Frasure's Gulf Coast home. A couple of different teams were working on songs for Hubbard at the same time. He bounced between rooms, listening to the ideas as they took shape.
  
  Frasure, Smith, and Gorley already had a bunch of songs in the bag, so by the time they got to "Park," the trio were feeling loose and ready to experiment.
  
  Frasure threw a curveball - an upbeat instrumental track with a dancey vibe. It was a hit with everyone in the room; even the wives (Frasure's Stevie and Hubbard's Hayley) were grooving along. Inspired, the writers started brainstorming lyrical ideas that would mesh with the track.
  
  Tyler Hubbard was in another room working on something else when Gorley suggested the title "Park" from his list. The contrast between the energetic music and the seemingly mellow word "Park" was intriguing, and they decided to explore it.
  
  Hubbard came back in, gave the thumbs up to the direction they were headed, and the writing kicked into high gear.
• "Park" is the second single from Hubbard's sophomore solo album, Strong. Hubbard co-produced the project alongside Jordan Schmidt and wrote or co-wrote all 13 songs on the album.
• The chorus practically wrote itself, with the opening line tailor-made for Hubbard's bravado:
  
  I can drive you from this holler to Hollywood
  Got like 700 horses under the hood
  
  Apparently, Hubbard's got a need for speed. "He's always loved to go fast," Smith dished to Billboard "Back in the day, when we first met at Belmont College, he was riding his motorcycle up and down the interstate doing wheelies at 80 miles an hour."
  
  The writers kept the driving theme going, all horsepower and screaming tires, but switched it up at the end. Despite all that power, all the singer really wants to do is "park" with his girl.
  
  "To me, there's a really interesting, cool flip in the storyline here," Smith said. "Yes, he likes to go fast, but there's nothing he'd rather do than just put it in park."
  
  "It was just sort of a picture of young, innocent, and it's fun and a little bit risky and wild," Hubbard added. "We've all been there at some point in our life, and I like to think occasionally, it's fun to just go back to that mindset."