Songfacts®:

• Montgomery Gentry's follow up to their crossover hit "If You Ever Stop Loving Me" is a breakup song with Troy Gentry on lead vocals.
• Gentry starts off by explaining his lover has walked out on him and is definitely not coming back.
  
  This ain't no temporary, typical, tearful goodbye
  his ain't no breakin' up, then wakin' up and makin' up one more time
  This is gone (gone), gone (gone), gone (gone), gone
  
  For the rest of the song, Gentry uses a series of similes to illustrate how his baby has certainly departed forever. She's gone like a:
  
  Freight train
  Yesterday
  A soldier in the Civil War
  A '59 Cadillac
  And like all the good things, that ain't never comin' back
• Bob DiPiero and Jeffrey Steele wrote the song. Speaking to The Tennessean, DiPiero explained that he and Steele had arranged a writing session at his place on the Florida Gulf Coast. After a fruitless morning, DiPiero wanted to come up with something simple and quick so they could go to lunch. He suggested they write a song with a one-word title and two chords that tip a hat to old time country tunes. They came up with "Gone."
• The song is an example of lyrical dissonance, with an uptempo rockin' tune and very sad lyrics. DePiero admitted to The Tennessean it was totally a case of "one and one equals three."
• James Otto originally recorded the song, but his label told him the arrangement is "too rock and roll" and wouldn't get played on country radio, so he never released it.
  
  However, when Montgomery Gentry recruited Steele to co-produce their You Do Your Thing album, he played them "Gone," and the duo got it straight away. "They were that act at that time that was a country act, but they had a big rock and roll backbone," said DiPiero. "They were just really a dynamic live act, and both of their voices were so great together, and they just nailed it."
• Released as the third single from You Do Your Thing, "Gone" peaked at #3 on the Country chart, and #53 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• Ivan Dudynsky directed the video, filming it during Montgomery Gentry's 2004 tour.
• Scotty McCreery sang the song during the Top 5 – Songs from Now & Then episode of American Idol Season 10.