Better Off Gone

Album: Rough & Tumble (2011)

Songfacts®:

  • This song about driving away from commitment was inspired by the Gene Pitney song "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa," which John Waite was thinking about when he wrote it. Waite explained: "This is a great American highway song about just leaving. It's about a white Lincoln Continental. There's one I keep seeing. It's such a beautiful car. It sort of inspired the basis for the lyric." >>
    Suggestion credit:
    DeeTheWriter - Saint Petersburg, Russia Federation
  • Waite wrote this in Nashville with Kyle Cook, a songwriter who is also the guitarist in Matchbox Twenty. It was the first song they wrote together; they connected through a mutual friend in Indiana. During much of this first session, they were testing the waters, getting to know each other. After kicking around some ideas, they hit on a guitar chord they liked that sounded like driving, and went from there.

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