‘Don’t That Sound Like a Country Song?’ Dillon Carmichael on New Single ‘She Gone’

When Riley Green cut off his mustache in May, he posted a photo of his clean-shaven countenance with a two-word caption: “She Gone.”

The moment got a good bit of publicity for Green, but it also served as an affirmation for Dillon Carmichael, who was preparing to release a single with that very title, “She Gone.” The fact that it’s grammatically incorrect doesn’t matter. It’s a common colloquial phrase, even if it looks a bit odd in written form.

“If you’re drinking a cup of coffee and you’re in a hurry, you chug it and go, ‘She gone,’” says Carmichael, offering an example. “I just heard somebody say it the other day, totally out of context.”

The original context for the title was larger. Carmichael wrote it May 3, 2021, with Rhett Akins (“Honey Bee,” “Dirt On My Boots”) and Michael Whitworth (“Break It In,” “You Don’t Deserve A Country Song”), and as they shuffled through potential hooks, one of them suggested “Going, Going, Gone.” But that had been done before. Lee Greenwood had a hit with that title in 1984, Kathy Mattea used a revised version of that hook in her 1988 chart-topper “Goin’ Gone,” and Luke Combs would release his own take on that idea in 2022. Akins had also written another “Going, Going, Gone” with Justin Moore, though that particular iteration remains in the vaults.

While Akins protested “Going, Going, Gone,” it was his idea to rewire it as “She Gone,” and he got a quick buy-in from his co-writers. “I was like, ‘Oh, I like that,’” Whitworth recalls.

“She Gone” not only worked as a hook, it also provided a ready-made device for the other primary sections, too. “We started the verses with the same thing, but instead of ‘She gone,’ it’s ‘she gone and left, she gone and did that,’” Whitworth says. “It kind of fumbled out from there.”

They approached it in classic country form, with all three writers playing acoustic guitar, beginning at the top and writing those verses with a simple, three-chord progression. The woman in the song cleaned out her closet, took all the pictures and – by the time they got to the chorus – ripped the rearview mirror off the windshield and left the guy without even a goodbye kiss. A lot of it was familiar country-breakup stuff, so right in the middle of the chorus, they called attention to that fact in the lyric: “Don’t that sound like a country song?”

“It’s just us kind of making fun of that,” Carmichael says.

“I like that line,” Whitworth adds, “Because it shows the song’s kind of aware of itself. It kind of acknowledges, ‘Who hasn’t had this happen to them?’ You know? I feel like it’s a very relatable concept.”

They never departed from the three-chord structure until the end of the chorus, suddenly throwing in a familiar walk-up progression that – because it represented a change in that three-chord context – felt fresh. Akins invented the set-up line that brought it home at the end of that walk-up: “She ain’t goin’, she gone.”

“He kind of put the final twist on the hook for us,” Whitworth says.

After verse one detailed the woman’s physical departure, verse two delved into the psychological response. The singer laments that she “dealt me a cold hand” and reveals that he started drinking again.

“The first verse is talking about the specific items that she took,” Carmichael says. “Verse two is more of the bigger picture, you know, the emotional thing.”

While the woman had left, the song hadn’t addressed by the end of the second chorus whether she might return. So they fashioned a short bridge, with Akins tossing out a few opening words that clarified the situation: “For good, forever.” It’s classic country wordplay, though it’s so subtle that listeners could conceivably never recognize it.

“Sometimes you go ‘For good, forever,’ and that’s too many ‘for’ sounds,” Carmichael reasons. “But then, in some cases, that adds to it and elevates the song. It’s all about instincts.”

The writers put together a simple guitar/vocal work tape, and periodically, they reminded each other that “She Gone” had real potential. Finally, in September 2022, they brought in producer Jared Conrad (Ian Munsick, Randall King) to cut demos of a handful of songs, including “She Gone.” Whitworth mentioned during the session that they should have the band do a one-beat stop at the beginning of the chorus to make it hit a little harder when the musicians came back in on the next beat. It was, the demo drummer noted, a Lonnie Wilson move — citing a drummer who played on numerous ‘90s country hits by Joe Diffie, Martina McBride and Jo Dee Messina, for starters. The solid country treatment they gave it seemed to work.

“Even though it was just a demo, when we sent it around to publishers and Dillon’s label, I remember everyone going, ‘Holy crap, this is really cool,’” Conrad says.

Another 18 months or so later, in spring 2024, Conrad rounded up a bundle of musicians at Nashville’s Sound Stage to cut Carmichael’s Keepin’ Country Alive album, coincidentally including Wilson on drums. The demo was strong enough that they considered it a backup – it could become a master recording if the new session didn’t click. Three or four of the musicians recognized it, since they’d played on the demo. The players willingly tried several alternate instrumental approaches and new fills, but ultimately, they decided to just redo the demo.

Guitarist Sol Philcox-Littlefield and steel guitarist Dan Dugmore split the solo, and Dugmore threw in short, punchy fills that gave it a Brooks & Dunn-like swagger. It was, Conrad decided, a subtle upgrade from the original.

Carmichael cut the final vocals at Conrad’s home during a one- or two-week run when he recorded all his performances for Keepin’ Country Alive. “Dillon just showed up every morning, and we would sing until he was tired of singing,” Conrad says. “He’s such an insane vocalist that he’d show up at like eight in the morning, ready to go, and belt out some huge, powerful vocals. I’d be still waking up with some coffee, and he’s just nailing it.”

That said, Carmichael came back late in the process to fix “She Gone” when he realized that he’d sung “she’s gone” two or three times. Conrad could have cut and pasted the correct pronunciation of “she,” but Carmichael insisted on doing the work.

“I literally had to drive, like, 20 minutes down the road to get in the vocal booth and sing ‘she,’ because I’m too proud to fly one from another place on the song,” Carmichael says.

River House released “She Gone” to country radio via PlayMPE on June 23. Carmichael is optimistic that the timing is right for its classic sound.

“At some point in the near future, there’s going to be a dire need for uptempo and light-hearted, relatable songs,” he says. “I believe in my heart that this song is that trailblazer.”