She’s Gone – Tavares | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning

Chart Performance: Pop (#50) & R&B (#1); 1974

Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne

Growing up, the Tavares brothers learned everything from traditional folk songs of the Cape Verde Islands, birthplace of their grandparents, to doo-wop. By the mid-1960’s, five of the siblings were building a following around their home base of New Bedford, MA. as Chubby and The Turnpikes. Following a tour in Italy as Tavares – their grandparents thought Italians would never be able to pronounce “Turnpikes” – the siblings professionally adopted the family surname. In 1973 the title tune from their first album, Check It Out, kicked off a string of Top 10 R&B singles. Single number four, She’s Gone, was penned by Daryl Hall & John Oates, who’d released their version in 1974 to little notice. Eighteen months later they reissued it, and it began a long three month climb to #7 on the Top 40. On the soul side, both Lou Rawls and Tavares took notice and put out dueling discs of She’s Gone. In the end, Tavares won the R&B race, leaving Lou far behind at #81.

This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2023 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.

Produced by:

• Arif Mardin

Lyrics Written by:

• Daryl Hall
• John Oates