Michael wrote the song while sitting on a swinging bridge in Knott County, Kentucky after meeting Miss June Buchanan for the first time. The President of the school, Dr. Jerry Davis, recorded over 30 hours of interviews with Miss June about her life at Caney with Alice Lloyd. He released a book of those interviews, also called "Miracle on Caney Creek."
"Miracle on Caney Creek" was filmed as a long form music video on the Alice Loyd College campus in 1991. The Appalachian writer Al Stewart, ALC students as well as Grady Stumbo make cameo appearances in the clip. The cabin in the film is the actual cabin Abisha built for Alice when they first moved there, the typewriter is Alice's actual writing machine. The music video was produced on 35mm film and directed by Mike White.
The clip was sent to CMT (Country Music Television) and Stan Hitchcock, the founder of CMT, began to air the music video. It eventually rose to #12 of the music video charts, even though there was no record release associated with the film.
