In 1970, the Allman Brothers retreated to Idlewild South, a rundown farmhouse outside of Macon, Georgia. They drank, smoked a lot of dope and relaxed. That atmosphere fueled Greg Allman‘s creativity and led to “Midnight Rider.” Allman wrote the bulk of the song in under an hour – an experience many songwriters relate, how a song just came through them as if they were a vessel capturing something in the air.
Only he didn’t quite complete the song. He knew he had something but needed to close it out. He walked around singing the lyrics. In the middle of the night, he turned to the band’s roadie, Kim Payne. Here’s how Payne described their interaction:
We were getting high, and, honestly, he was starting to irritate me – because he was singing this song over and over, and I got sick of hearing the band play the same shit over and over again until they got it right. So I just threw out the line, ‘I’ve gone past the point of caring / some old bed I’ll soon be sharing.’
#Songoftheday #allmanbrothers #midnightrider
YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z8zk7XKyoE8?si=4DCy31ggs8oVao7-
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/1hHGUdFaiJHw9hVZGJWYO2?si=789236addfd14af5