"Oh Atlanta" was written and sung by Little Feat's keyboard player, Bill Payne. The song finds him yearning to be in Atlanta with a red-haired girl who sets his heart on fire. According to the book Willin': The Story of Little Feat by Ben Fong-Torres, it was inspired by a girl he met in the city.
The opening lines find Payne doing some plane-watching: They got a place down Kentucky Right down near Ohio Where you can watch the planes at night People line up to watch each flight He got this idea from being in the Cincinnati airport, watching the planes come and go.
Little Feat was led at the time by guitarist Lowell George, who wrote most of the songs and produced the Feats Don't Fail Me Now album. Other members of the group were also strong songwriters, and they could get competitive in their songwriting. Bill Payne credited George for pushing him to write "Oh Atlanta." "We affected each other, we pushed each other, and it was that type of camaraderie that produced the music," he said in Mojo. "Lowell would say, 'You can't write a commercial song like that.' And I'd say, 'Yes, you can.' And he'd say, 'No, you can't.' And the result of that was 'Oh Atlanta.'"
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