When I'm Gone
by 3 Doors Down
- 74
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 50
- Danceability
- 1
- Acousticness
Todd Harrell said "When I'm Gone" is the only hit 3 Doors Down wrote on the road. Brad Arnold, Matthew Roberts, Harrell and Christopher Henderson wrote it. The band played it in Europe and could tell it was special, Harrell said. From the first night it got the crowd up. Arnold wrote it thinking of unconditional love, for when a loved one is removed by miles, or time, or other obstacles. He said it does not necessarily mean being gone permanently. It asks for love when someone is gone, including when they are coming back.
Released on September 23, 2002, as the lead single from Away from the Sun, it peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. It spent 17 weeks at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, from November 2002 to March 2003, one of the longest runs on that chart. It also reached No. 2 on Modern Rock Tracks and spent a week atop the Top 40 Mainstream chart.
There are two videos. Marc Klasfeld directed the original, in which the band members are buried alive in a swamp while playing. The official video, directed by The Emperor, shows the band playing on the USS George Washington in the Mediterranean on October 2, 2002, and is dedicated to US military personnel.
When I'm Gone runs at 74 BPM, the tempo of soul, trip-hop and half-time hip-hop. In classical terms it sits in largo territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3.24 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 811 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
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