Charli XCX said the song is about "feeling isolated and alone in crowded rooms", as well as anxiety and "learning how to be comfortable with who you truly are".
Music video
The music video for "Gone" premiered on 17 July 2019. It begins with shots of Charli and Chris struggling while tied to opposite sides of a white car atop a stage intercut with the two singing the track and dancing in a room with flashing colourful lights. At the beginning of the second verse, Chris manages to free herself before helping out Charli. As the second chorus starts, rain and smoke appear in the room as the two singers dance on the car's roof. With the beginning of the outro, the rain stops and a ring of fire emerges around the stage. The music video ends with Charli and Chris standing together with flames in front of them.
Live performance
Charli XCX and Christine debuted the track at the Primavera Sound festival in May 2019. They performed the song again at Electric Picnic festival in September 2019, as well as its first televised performance on The Jonathan Ross Show to promote the release of Charli. The duo performed the song on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in September 2019 as well.
Promotion
On 10 July, Charli XCX revealed the track's release date through social media. Several days later, she stated that she had seen "the first edit" of the music video and called it "so good".
Reception
The day of the song's release, Pitchfork named the song "Best New Track". Writing for the publication, Anna Gaca said: "The song bangs like it’s trying to get out of a big metal box, probably because that's how its creators are feeling: 'I feel so unstable, fucking hate these people/How they're making me feel lately,' sings Charli, with typical bluntness." She also notes that the track mixes the "bassy stutters and crackles of Charli’s post-PC Music projects with the kinetic, bilingual funk-pop of Christine and the Queens' 2018 album Chris." Julia Gray of Stereogum wrote that on "Gone", "Charli does what she does best, taking retro aesthetics — '80s drums, '90s synths — and blasting them into the future." She also considered the song "a step in the right direction" compared to previous singles "1999" and "Blame It on Your Love". The website then named "Gone" the best song of the week. Speaking of the music video, Kirsten Spruch of Billboard said that it "emotes the intense feelings of empowerment, sensuality and hopelessness, all wrapped into an electrifying, four-minute long visual." She also felt that the video is "pretty much everything fans would want from the two artists". Pitchfork listed the song at number 4 for the 100 best songs of 2019 and at number 145 for the 200 best songs of the 2010s. The track was also shortlisted for BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac’s Hottest Record of The Year, voted for by the public, and ended up scoring third place, falling behind fellow British artistsAJ Tracey and Sam Fender.
