At 13 years old, Rachel Farley was opening shows for Brantley Gilbert. Five years later, she’s making her own way to headliner status with singles like “Midnight Road,” an autobiographical country rocker about young love, late nights and the thrill of the open highway.
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“This song is about that exciting and awkward feeling you get when you’re with somebody and [the relationship is] kind of at the turning point of whether it’s becoming something or not,” says Farley, who wrote the song with Nashville songwriters Ross Copperman and Heather Morgan. “Ross had this really cool, haunting track that he was building on his Mac, and that really inspired the melody. Heather threw out the title “Midnight Road,” which we all thought was super cool. Everybody really brought a lot to the table on this collaboration, and we were all pretty stoked about the final outcome.”
Sounding far older than her 18 years, Farley, who spent last summer and fall opening for Jason Aldean’s My Kinda Party Tour, sings the song with a throaty belt carved from the same mainstream bedrock as Kelly Clarkson. Still, “Midnight Road” feels like a time capsule from our teenage days, back when the weight of the world rested on whether or not our crush called us back. Looking to feel nostalgic? Put this song in drive.
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