She's Gone (Hall & Oates song)

This article is about the Hall & Oates song. For other songs with the same title, see She's Gone (disambiguation).
"She's Gone"
Single by Hall & Oates
from the album Abandoned Luncheonette
B-side "I'm Just a Kid (Don't Make Me Feel Like a Man)"
Released February 9, 1974
(re-released July 1976)
Format 7″
Recorded 1973
Genre Soft rock, blue-eyed soul, jazz
Length 3:24 (single version)
5:15 (album version)
Label Atlantic
Writer(s) Daryl Hall and John Oates
Producer(s) Arif Mardin
Hall & Oates singles chronology
"Good Night & Good Morning"
(1972)		 "She's Gone"
(1974)		 "When the Morning Comes"
(1974)
"Sara Smile"
(1976)
"She's Gone" (reissue)
(1976)
"Do What You Want, Be What You Are"
(1976)

"She's Gone" is a song written and originally performed by pop music duo Daryl Hall and John Oates. It was included on their 1973 album, Abandoned Luncheonette.

Background/Hall & Oates version

The song was released as a single (Atlantic 2993) in 1974. It was a major hit in Hall & Oates' home market of Philadelphia and was moderately successful nationally, peaking at #60 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. Two years later in 1976, after Hall & Oates had moved to RCA Records and had scored with the hit "Sara Smile," Atlantic Records re-released the original single under a different number (Atlantic 3332). This time "She's Gone" was a hit, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the R&B chart, the song peaked at #93.[1]

Daryl Hall, according to some reports, has called it the best song he and John Oates wrote together. Both performers were undergoing romantic problems at the time the song was written. A 1985 article in Rolling Stone said the song was about Hall's divorce from wife Bryna Lublin, while VH1's Behind the Music episode on the duo showed Oates explaining it was about a girlfriend that stood him up on New Year's Eve.

John Oates spoke of the song in a 2009 interview with American Songwriter: "I sat down with the guitar and sang the chorus of 'She's Gone' basically the way that it is. Then I played it for Daryl because I didn't have anything else. It just happened. I said, 'Hey, I’ve got this really great chorus.' And we wrote the verses together. 'She’s Gone' is a song that endures."

Chart performance

Weekly singles charts

Chart (1974) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 60
Chart (1976) Peak
position
Canada[2] 7
UK[3] 42
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 7
U.S. Billboard Hot Soul Singles 93
U.S. Cash Box Top 100 6

Year-end charts

Chart (1976) Position
U.S. Billboard [4] 80
U.S. Cash Box [5] 57
Canada 30

Promotional video

The promotional video for "She's Gone," directed by John Oates' sister,[6] opens with shots of the "abandoned luncheonette" (see note about Album Cover on Abandoned Luncheonette) in which Hall & Oates sit in recliners, Hall wearing a robe and women's platform sandals, Oates wearing a sleeveless tuxedo shirt and pants and singing the song while a woman in a long dress (played by Sara Allen) and a man dressed in a shiny red devil's costume (played by Randy Hoffman, the band's tour manager)[7] repeatedly walk past the pair. Daryl Hall only lip syncs the portions of the song that he sings in harmony with John Oates during the video (none of the parts where he sings solo), while John Oates does lip sync his solo parts. Towards the end of the video, Oates rises, dons a jacket with long cuffs, and proceeds to emulate the song's guitar solo with his hands completely covered by the sleeves of his jacket, which makes it appear as if he has fish fins for hands.[8]

John Oates later explained that Hall & Oates had made the video to be shown at a television dance show based in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The duo had initially been asked to perform the song live on the show, but feeling that it was not the right type of song to perform live for the occasion, they decided to lip sync the song in a unique format instead.[6] (In an earlier Oates interview, he insinuated that they were in fact asked to lip sync the performance of the song in a "live" context, but that they were against that idea and opted to create a video to be aired during the broadcast.)[9] According to Oates, the dance show declined to broadcast the video.[6][9] The video was described by Mental Floss as "The Craziest Hall & Oates Video Ever".[10]

Personnel

Tavares version

"She's Gone"
Single by Tavares
from the album Hard Core Poetry
B-side "To Love You"
Released September 1974
Format 7″
Recorded 1974
Genre Soul
Length 3:38
Label Capitol
Producer(s) Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter
Tavares singles chronology
"Too Late"
(1974)		 "She's Gone"
(1974)		 "Remember What I Told You to Forget"
(1975)

In 1974, the American R&B band Tavares covered the song for their album, Hard Core Poetry. The song became a hit, topping the U.S. R&B chart and peaking at #50 on the Hot 100.[11]

Chart performance

Chart (1974) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 50
U.S. Billboard Hot Soul Singles 1

Other cover versions

In 1975, Lou Rawls covered his version from the same titled album.

Dee Dee Bridgewater recorded the song as "He's Gone" for her 1976 eponymous debut album.

The Captain and Tennille and Dionne Warwick covered the Hall & Oates version in 1977, as a live duet between Toni Tennille and Dionne Warwick, on The Captain and Tennille Show. The lyrics' pronouns were changed to the perspective of a woman losing her man (i.e the song became 'He's Gone').[12]

In 1996, Hall & Oates band member Daryl Hall re-recorded the song from his solo album "Can't Stop Dreaming", the album was originally released in Japan but it was later re-released by U.S. for a re-issue of the solo album in 2003.

In 1998, the song was covered by Matthew Marsden featuring Destiny's Child.

In 2000, Jacksoul covered the song on their album Sleepless.

In 2008, Hall and Oates themselves sang a parody of the song entitled "He's Gone", about Alan Colmes leaving the show Hannity & Colmes, for The Daily Show.

In 2010, The Bird and the Bee covered the song for their tribute album Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates.

In 2012, Emm Gryner released a cover of the song for her EP She's Gone: A Hall & Oates Tribute EP.

In 2015, Morgan James released a cover of the song for her LP Hunter.

Usage in media

Their version of the song was featured for The Bird and the Bee in the Halloween episode of Outsourced (Season 1 Episode 6), when Asha and Todd were slow dancing.

A version of the song was sung during a sketch on Late Night With Conan O'Brien by O'Brien and his house band. The sketch featured Conan's longtime trombone player Richie "LaBamba" Rosenberg being so upset by Conan's glowing reception for Rosenberg's replacement for the previous week that he left the studio. Heartbroken, Conan starts to sing a version of the song titled "He's Gone", while a montage of LaBamba leaving the studio and living on the streets of New York played. After being forced to eat his own trombone, LaBamba returns to the studio, which Conan responds to with a more triumphant reprise of the song titled "He's Back."

"She's Gone" is also featured in the 2004 movie "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy." The song was more recently mentioned in the 2015 movie "Pixels," with Hall and Oates appearing on screen and "She's Gone" referred in relation to Earth being destroyed by alien attacks.

Dan Dorian (played by Tom Cavanagh) sings a sorrowful version of the song in the Scrubs episode "My Common Enemy" after Elliot breaks up with him.

References

  1. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 242.
  2. ↑ https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/rpm/028020-119.01-e.php?&file_num=nlc008388.5110A&type=1&interval=50&PHPSESSID=rmfaovmr01svjrf5qh0mjjc5e3
  3. ↑ http://www.officialcharts.com/search/singles/She%27s%20Gone/
  4. ↑ http://www.musicoutfitters.com/topsongs/1976.htm
  5. ↑ http://50.6.195.142/archives/70s_files/1976YESP.html
  6. 1 2 3 Locker, Melissa (2015-07-09). "Q&'80s: John Oates on the Legacy of Hall & Oates' 'She's Gone'" Retrieved 1-16-2016.
  7. ↑ "John Oates’ favorite Hall and Oates video might surprise you: ‘One that we did totally on our own’". Something Else!. 2014-12-05. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  8. ↑ Singh, Amrit (2008-01-29). "Video Hangover: Hall & Oates – "She’s Gone"". Stereogum. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  9. 1 2 Ryan (2009-08-14). "John Oates: The Losanjealous Interview: "The Mustache is Not Me, and I’m Not the Mustache…"". Losanjealous. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  10. ↑ Higgins, Chris (2012-04-26). "The Craziest Hall & Oates Video Ever". Mental Floss. Retrieved 2015-10-12.
  11. ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 567.
  12. ↑ "Dionne Warwick & Toni Tennille- He's Gone (CAT 1977)". YouTube.com. Retrieved 30 April 2016.

External links

Preceded by
"You Got the Love" by Rufus		 Billboard Hot Soul Singles number-one single (Tavares version)
December 21, 1974 		Succeeded by
"Boogie on Reggae Woman" by Stevie Wonder
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