"My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" is a song that was performed by the Canadian group

Chilliwack Chilliwack ( )( hur, Ts'elxwéyeqw) is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Chilliwack is surrounded by mountains and home to recreational areas such as Cultus Lake and Chilliwack Lake Provincial Parks. There are numerous outdoor ...

. Co-written by bandmembers Brian MacLeod and Bill Henderson, it was released on the band's 1981 album ''

Wanna Be a Star ''Wanna Be a Star'' is the ninth album by the Canadian rock band Chilliwack, released in September 1981. At this point, the band had collapsed into a trio, without a full-time drummer, but leader Bill Henderson and guitarist/keyboardist/drummer ...

''. In Canada, the song spent four weeks at number 3. In the United States, it reached number 22 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100.''Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990'' -

Background

Guitarist Brian MacLeod invited singer Bill Henderson onto his boat to sail around the coast of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, fish, and write songs. MacLeod was playing some chord changes on a

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...

keyboard and singing the melody "down down down down down d-down". He thought it was a bad idea, "like the Beach Boys, but with a lot of weird chord changes going on." Henderson saw potential, and decided the words were "Gone gone gone she's been gone so long, she's been gone gone gone so long." From there, MacLeod came up with chords for verses and chorus, and Henderson came up with the melody and made up a story around a girl being gone so long. The song was written in a day, the demo was recorded on Henderson's 4-track cassette studio recorder, and he added the bridge and a cappella that night. In the studio, the band was under contract with

Mushroom Records Mushroom Records was an Australian flagship record label, founded in 1972 in Melbourne. It published and distributed many successful Australian artists and expanded internationally, until it was merged with Festival Records in 1998. Festival Mu ...

, whose owner died, and in the asset-selling confusion that followed, the label wouldn't let Chilliwack record. Under a pseudonym, they snuck into the studio and recorded anyway, then shopped "My Girl" and other songs around. This got them a deal with

Millennium Records Millennium Records is a defunct record label run by record producer Jimmy Ienner from 1976 to 1983. During its RCA-distributed years, a significant portion of its output was content licensed from Canadian record labels. Hits The label's best-sell ...

in New York, breaking them into the mainstream after eleven years. Brian MacLeod pressed his face so close to the microphone to sing the intro that he would saturate it with moisture, the microphone would cut out, and they would have to stop every five words or so to wait for it to dry.

Reception

In their native Canada, writers MacLeod and Henderson were nominated for the

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

for 1982 Composer of the Year, as well as Single of the Year for "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone).". In January 2019, the song became certified Platinum (in excess of 100,000 copies sold) as a single in Canada.

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

In popular culture

On the April 23, 1982 episode of the

sketch comedy Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

TV series '' SCTV'' during the skit "Pre-Teen World Telethon," the fictional adolescent

garage band Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The sty ...

The Recess Monkeys, as performed by Stephan Seely (

John Candy John Franklin Candy (October 31, 1950 – March 4, 1994) was a Canadian actor and comedian known mainly for his work in Hollywood films. Candy rose to fame in the 1970s as a member of the Toronto branch of the Second City and its '' SCTV'' ser ...

) on drums and backing vocals; Paul Rey (

Eugene Levy Eugene Levy (born December 17, 1946) is a Canadian actor and comedian. From 1976 until 1984, he appeared in the Canadian television sketch comedy series '' SCTV''. He has also appeared in the '' American Pie'' series of films and the Canadian ...

) on guitar, backing vocals, and tambourine and Steve Applebaum (

Rick Moranis Frederick Allan Moranis (; born April 18, 1953) is a Canadian actor, comedian, musician, songwriter, writer and producer. He appeared in the sketch comedy series ''Second City Television'' (''SCTV'') in the 1980s and several Hollywood (film indu ...

) on guitar and lead vocals; do a very amateurish cover of the song.

References

External links

* 1981 singles 1981 songs Chilliwack (band) songs Millennium Records singles Songs about loneliness Torch songs {{1980s-rock-song-stub