Songfacts®:

• Eddie Vedder wrote this song in his hotel room on September 30, 2005 after a show in Atlantic City. Pearl Jam had another show at the same venue the next night, so they debuted the song there. They played it a few more times before recording it for their self-titled album, released in May 2006.
• Vedder explained this song in the Pearl Jam book Twenty: "The idea was that this guy was leaving Atlantic City and needing to find a new life without his past, without his possessions, and not really looking for more possessions."
  
  Gambling towns like Atlantic City are usually where people go when they're looking for a reset or just lost, but Vedder wasn't the first to write a song about someone going the other direction: Sheryl Crow did it in her 1993 hit "Leaving Las Vegas."
• Another Pearl Jam song that takes place in a car with the driver looking to get away is "Rearviewmirror" from their 1993 album Vs. In "Gone" there's just one tank of gas though. "I think this car is a hybrid," Vedder said. "I want him to go far."
• The refrain, "If nothing is everything, I'll have it all," is lifted from the 1971 song "Let's See Action" by The Who. Vedder is a huge fan of Who guitarist Pete Townshend - they've often performed together. That line comes from Townshend's guru Meher Baba, who uses it as a mantra. Another way to put it is: desire nothing but desirelessness.