The song is sung from the perspective of someone whose lover, having failed to become a Hollywood star, is leaving Los Angeles to move back to Georgia, taking the titular "midnight train". The singer expresses her commitment to accompanying him to Georgia: "And I'll be with him (I know you will)/ On that midnight train to Georgia"[6][7]
Background
The song was originally written and performed by Jim Weatherly under the title "Midnight Plane to Houston", which he recorded on Jimmy Bowen's Amos Records. "It was based on a conversation I had with somebody... about taking a midnight plane to Houston," Weatherly recalls. "I wrote it as a kind of a country song. Then we sent the song to a guy named Sonny Limbo in Atlanta and he wanted to cut it with Cissy Houston... he asked if I minded if he changed the title to "Midnight Train to Georgia". And I said, 'I don't mind. Just don't change the rest of the song.'"[8]
Weatherly, in a later interview with Gary James, stated that the phone conversation in question had been with Farrah Fawcett, and he used Fawcett and her friend Lee Majors, whom she had just started dating, "as kind of like characters."[9][10][11] Weatherly, at a program in Nashville, said he had been the quarterback at the University of Mississippi, and the NFL didn't work out for him, so he was in Los Angeles trying to write songs. He was in a rec football league with Lee Majors and called Majors one night. Farrah Fawcett answered the phone and he asked what she was doing. She said she was "taking the midnight plane to Houston" to visit her family. He thought that was a catchy phrase for a song, and in writing the song, wondered why someone would leave L.A. on the midnight plane – which brought the idea of a "superstar, but he didn't get far".[5]
Knight had changed record companies from Motown to Buddah Records, a company with a broader appeal.[5] Weatherly's publisher forwarded the Houston version to Gladys Knight and the Pips, who followed Houston's lead and kept the title "Midnight Train to Georgia" but changed the character of the song.[12]Tony Camillo and Ed Stasium recorded and produced the Al Green-inspired instrumental backing track using a basic band set-up.[5] The vocal recording introduced Knight to ad-libbing towards the end, assisted by her brother. The Pips featured prominently in the call-and-response aspect of the song.[5]
The single debuted on the Hot 100 at number 71 and became the group's first number-one hit eight weeks later when it jumped from number 5 to number 1 on October 27, 1973, replacing "Angie" by the Rolling Stones. It remained in the top position for two weeks.[5] It was replaced by "Keep On Truckin' (Part 1)" by Eddie Kendricks. It also reached number one on the soul singles chart, their fifth on that chart.[13] The record was awarded an RIAA Gold single (for selling one million copies) on October 18, 1973. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number ten on June 5, 1976.[14]
Eddie Middleton had a degree of success with the song. His version made it into the Cash BoxTop 100 Country chart and on the fourth week on July 2, 1977, it peaked at no. 84.[15]
In her autobiography, Between Each Line of Pain and Glory, Gladys Knight wrote that she hoped the song was a comfort to the many thousands who come each year from elsewhere to Los Angeles to realize the dream of being in motion pictures, television or music, but then fail to realize that dream and plunge into despair.[16]
The song plays a notable role in the 1987 film Broadcast News. The character Aaron Altman listens to the song while at home, upset at not being chosen to work on a special breaking news report. While reading a book and simultaneously juggling remotes for his stereo and his television to mute one or the other, he sings:
Episode 210 of the TV series 30 Rock ends with Kenneth Parcell attempting to take the midnight train to Georgia after getting addicted to caffeine, only to return quickly noting that the train actually leaves at 23:45. The episode ends with a rendition of the song by most of the cast (and a speaking-only cameo by Knight herself).[29]
Garry Trudeau did a Sunday color Doonesbury comic strip[32][33] featuring this song, though Georgia was changed to the ignominious "Cranston" in Rhode Island, and an unnamed song/dance group; it was published on July 28, 1974. It has been informally referred to as the "Beats Working" strip.[34]
Episode 56 of Will and Grace featured the title characters posing as millionaires interested in purchasing Sandra Bernhard's co-op, with the latter inviting them to sing along during a rehearsal in which she was rehearsing this song.[35] Bernhard also performed the song during her 1998 one-woman show I'm Still Here... Damn It!
Vocals were recorded at Artie Fields Studio[37] in Detroit. Gladys Knight recorded her lead vocals in a single take. She later recorded a punch-in of a single line in New York City.
^Rolling Stone Staff (15 September 2021). "500 Best Songs of All Time". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 October 2022. "I never really imagined writing R&B songs," Weatherly admitted. "I really thought I was writing country songs." It reflected the times...
^Gladys Knight makes no mention of Cissy Houston's version in her autobiography, Between Each Line of Pain and Glory. Instead she says "Bubba and I worked with Jim on rewriting the lyrics so I would be more comfortable with them. ... We changed the plane to my favorite mode of transportation, and dumped Houston for my home state." (p. 205)
^Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 330.
^This is a paraphrase of Justin Novelli, writing in [Songfacts] (August 7, 2017). In her book, Between Each Line of Pain and Glory: My Life Story published in 1997, Gladys Knight says "Was [all the song's success] worth it? I don't know how you balance that scale. It had taken a lot to reach that level as performers. We had put our hearts and souls into our singing careers, and it had certainly taken its toll on our personal lives. Our families, too, had made sacrifices. Nothing in this world comes without a price. This is one truth that I've sung and that I've lived." (p. 208)
