The Allman Brothers Band scored their commercial breakthrough in 1973 with "Ramblin' Man," despite earlier releases such as "Black Hearted Woman" failing to gain radio traction. Written by founding guitarist Dickey Betts, the track became the lead single from the band's fourth studio album, Brothers And Sisters, and gave the group their first Top 5 hit. Its significance runs deeper than chart success, however, as it was also the first song the band recorded following the death of co-founder Duane Allman in a motorcycle accident.

Betts drew on his own itinerant childhood for the song, recalling how his father's construction work meant frequently moving between Florida's east and west coasts, splitting his school years and friendships between the two. The song's rhythmic hook came from an offhand remark by his friend Kenny Harwick, a barbed-wire fence builder, while the title borrowed from a 1951 Hank Williams song of the same name, reworked to reflect Betts's own experience of "trying to make a living" rather than simply playing music. Betts has said he wrote the song in just five minutes, comparing the process to writing a letter to a loved one.