I was driving in to write one day and saw a road crew patching holes in the blacktop, and I said to myself, “asphalt.” I’ve walked down many an asphalt road just for fun before and after I was old enough to drive, and when you’re supposed to be home by dark and you’re still a mile from the house at dusk, you pick up the pace. So I had “asphalt” and “fast walk”, along with a melody for a verse when I was invited one year to a cabin in North Carolina to write with Eric Church, whom I’ve been honored to play for on the road for over 12 years. We didn’t know where the song was going, just kinda let it dictate the story one line at a time, and getting to “baby” seemed like a good reason to be walking fast down an asphalt road.