The song was released as a single in 1973. It was a major hit in Hall & Oates' home market of Philadelphia and peaked nationally at No. 60 on the BillboardHot 100 chart. Nearly three years later in 1976, after Hall & Oates had moved to RCA Records and had scored the hit "Sara Smile", Atlantic Records re-released the original single under a different number. This time, "She's Gone" was a hit, peaking at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. On the R&B chart, the song peaked at No. 93. On the Radio & Records airplay chart, the song debuted at No. 37 on the August 13, 1976 issue; after six weeks it reached a peak of No. 8, staying there for three weeks, with four weeks in the top 10 of the chart and thirteen weeks on the chart in total. The single version is included in Hall & Oates' 1983 greatest hits compilation Rock and Soul Part 1 and the album version is included in numerous other compilations such as The Singles, The Essential, Looking Back: The Best of but the song is missing on the albums The Very Best ofDaryl Hall & John Oates and . 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 : "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."
Promotional video
To promote the song, Hall & Oates were asked to lip sync “She’s Gone” for a teenage TV dance show broadcast out of Atlantic City, New Jersey. They refused, because they didn’t want to pretend to sing the song. A story was crafted that, they were not available to appear live that day for the show, but that they would be willing to instead videotape something for them to air. They asked if it would be possible to come in and shoot something at their WPVI Philadelphia studio prior to the show. The promotional video for "She's Gone", directed by John Oates' sister, opens with shots of the "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 and a man dressed in a shiny red devil's costume 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, while John Oates does lip sync his solo parts. Towards the end of the video, Oates rises, dons a penguin jacket and proceeds to emulate the song's guitar solo. 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. According to Oates, the dance show declined to broadcast the video. "The dance show disliked the video, they refused to run the piece, called Atlantic Records and told them that we were insane and would never be allowed on Philadelphia TV again and they also threatened to try and get the record banned on Philadelphia radio stations." According to John Oates, it’s the best Hall & Oates video of all time calling it "a timepiece that really illustrates just how experimental we could be." The video was described by Mental Floss as "the craziest Hall & Oates video ever."
In 1974, the American R&B vocal group Tavares covered the song for their album, Hard Core Poetry. The brothers' version of the song became a hit, topping the U.S. R&B chart and peaking at No. 50 on the Hot 100.
Chart performance
Other versions
Before Tavares cut their version, Al Wilson had cut a version. It was intended to be released as a single for him but instead was song was given to Lou Rawls to record. Wilson ended up having "La La Peace Song" released, which was recorded at the same session. Between the Wilson and Rawls recording sessions, Tavares had their version recorded. Rawls's version peaked at No. 81 on the Billboard Soul chart.
