Written by Jim Weatherly, and included on the Pips' 1973 LP Imagination, "Midnight Train to Georgia" became the group's first single to top the Billboard Hot 100.

[5] 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".

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".

"[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.

[5] Gospel/soul singer Cissy Houston recorded the song as "Midnite Train to Georgia" (spelled "Midnight ..." on the UK single) released in 1973.

[12] Tony Camillo and Ed Stasium recorded and produced the Al Green-inspired instrumental backing track using a basic band set-up.

The song appears in the Vietnam War film The Deer Hunter, playing in a strip club in Saigon visited by Nick (Christopher Walken) in one scene.

The character Aaron Altman listens to the song while at home, upset at not being chosen to work on a special breaking news report.

[29] Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr. re-enacted The Pips' dance moves from a live performance of the song for the season seven finale of American Idol.

[30][31] 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.