Bruce Hornsby - The Valley Road Lyrics Meaning

This song tells the story of a love affair between a rich plantation owner's teenage daughter and a blue-collar country boy -possibly a hired hand on her father's farm.

They went down the valley road together and had sex. Not long afterward, she became pregnant, and her parents sent her away- either to have her baby and give it up for adoption, or to get an abortion.

Rumors abounded at her school about her pregnancy, but she eventually returned to school, and acted as if nothing had happened.

She and the farm hand came from two different worlds. They could have a brief sexual affair, but there was no way her father would ever allow her to marry someone so far beneath her in wealth and social status.