Andrew Marlin wrote “Hard Travelin’” years before it was recorded. Emily Frantz said it dated from before the duo made This Side of Jordan in 2012 but never had a place on their earlier records, and that it stayed in their repertoire until the sessions for Blindfaller, when it was added during the demos and the first take they got that day was kept. The album, Mandolin Orange’s fifth (the duo became Watchhouse in 2021), came out on Yep Roc on 30 September 2016 and was recorded live with a band; Josh Oliver, Allyn Love, Clint Mullican and Kyle Keegan joined Marlin and Frantz. PopMatters premiered the song on 11 August 2016. At about two minutes forty seconds it is the shortest track on the record.
The song is a musician’s road song. The singer asks whether anyone on Music Row might lend a hand, since he could use a better show; the shows come night after night, and he tosses and turns as a stranger in someone else’s house. The refrain is the title line with the singer feeling low. A final verse says that whiskey never holds a man the way a good girl can, and that on lonely nights it can be the only friend. Frantz said she expected it to become a “jammer” on tour, with room for solos from guitar and mandolin.
