The Marshall Tucker Band's 1973 debut single "Can't You See", written by band member Toy Caldwell, almost had a different lead vocalist. Lead singer Doug Gray has recalled that Caldwell originally offered him the song to sing, but Gray declined, telling Caldwell "I can't sing that" and asking him not to give it to him. After a couple of weeks, Caldwell decided to sing it himself, and his rendition, in Gray's words, "just blew the audience away".

The song was not a commercial success on release, failing to break the Top 100, yet it went on to become the band's most enduring and popular track. Caldwell, who wrote most of the band's material and was married to his wife Abbie from 1969 until his death in 1993, penned the heartbroken lyric despite not having lived the experience himself. The song has since been covered by artists including Hank Williams Jr., Waylon Jennings, Alabama, and the Zac Brown Band with Kid Rock, and in 2025 it reached the Top 10 of Ultimate Classic Rock's Greatest Southern Rock Songs list.