Midnight Train to Georgia

"Midnight Train to Georgia" is a song most famously performed by Gladys Knight & the Pips, their second release after departing Motown Records for Buddah Records. 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. It also won the 1974 Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus and has become Knight's signature song. In 2026, the song was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for its "cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation's recorded sound heritage." 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".