“Gone Away” by The Offspring

"Gone Away" is the darkest turn on the Offspring's 1997 album Ixnay on the Hombre, a Dexter Holland song tucked in at track seven and sent out as the record's second single. Holland has said the idea came to him while the band was cutting Ixnay, not long after he and his wife had to dive for cover when gang members opened fire on an ice cream shop they were in. Nobody died, but the near miss left him brooding on grief and on what losing her would feel like.

Dave Jerden produced and mixed it, and the band plays it heavy and slow: Noodles grinding away, Greg Kriesel and Ron Welty pounding underneath, Holland wailing over the top. It became their first No. 1 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, Welty later named it his favorite to play live, and Holland eventually reworked it on piano, first on stage and then on 2021's Let the Bad Times Roll.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.