Recorded in five days, Gas Food Lodging was produced by Paul B. Cutler.[5][6]Chuck Prophet joined the band prior to the recording sessions for the album.[7] The band incorporated a more pronounced country sound on many of the songs.[8] "We Shall Overcome" is a cover of the gospel anthem.[9] "Sixteen Ways" is about an old man who outlives his many children.[10]
Robert Palmer, in The New York Times, wrote that, "musically it's perhaps the most distinctive and accomplished of all the recent 60's-rooted albums"; he later listed the album among the best of 1985.[16][17] The Ottawa Citizen determined that "the roughness lends the music a measure of down-homeiness, but its stories do not reflect down-home attitudes... This is a bleak view of the American heartland."[18]
The Sunday Times called the album "clanging road music, the driven sounds of Californian boredom."[19] The Omaha World-Herald noted that "the bleak power of a record like Gas Food Lodging [is] akin to New York art bands like Television or the Velvet Underground."[9]
AllMusic concluded: "Gas Food Lodging is too loose and deliberately ramshackle to support the title of masterpiece, but calling it Green on Red's best album will do nicely."[11] Reviewing a reissue, Entertainment Weekly opined that the music could be labeled "garage Americana."[14]
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