Songfacts®:

• "Gabrielle" is a soulful piano ballad where Brett Eldredge ponders the end of a romance. Though their relationship didn't quite work out, he wishes his former lover well with her life.
• Eldredge told The Boot that the "what if?" story of parting ways is based on a real person, but he didn't disclose if his ex is actually named Gabrielle.
  
  Said the singer: "It's kind of a breakup song, but with the bittersweet, kind of happy, wishing the other person well within their life, wherever they are, but you still kind of look back and wonder, you know, at a certain point in your life, or often, what that person's up to and where they are now, and what it could have been and what if, you know? It's one of those kinds of songs, and the nostalgia of that."
• The song is the first piece of new music to come from Eldredge since the release of his self-titled album in August 2017. Sent to country radio on April 27, 2020, "Gabrielle" is the lead single from his fifth studio album, Sunday Drive.
• Eldredge co-wrote "Gabrielle" with Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, the co-producers of Kacey Musgraves' Golden Hour album. It was the first song they recorded for Sunday Drive and it introduces the piano sound, which is a common feature throughout the record. The piano they used is an old upright they found that dates back to the 1920s. "It just had this sound, and it became this thing," said Eldredge.
• Brett Eldredge gave the song its live debut on the April 21, 2020 episode of Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The country star appeared via video with a stripped-down performance from his home.
• Brett Eldredge returned to his alma mater, Paris High School, to film the video in the gym and the hallways of his former high school. The singer and his band perform the song as memories of long-lost love keep flashing across his mind.
  
  "We started the day filming this video in the basketball gym that my grandfather, father, brother and myself all played in and ended the day in an open field watching one of the best Midwest sunsets I'd ever seen," said Eldredge. "The visual is so raw and honest that it feels like I'm still there in that gym. I can almost hear the lights buzz as they warm up before turning on completely and smell the old wood of the gym floor."