Songfacts®:

• Keith Urban's father, Robert "Bob" Urban died on December 5, 2015. The Australian country star had his dad on his mind when he started writing "Gone Tomorrow." However, the track is not so much a tribute to the late Robert Urban as much as a reminder to enjoy life.
  
  Urban recalled to Taste of Country flying from Los Angeles to Nashville, thinking about his father. "When you lose people, I think it shocks you into going, 'Where did they go? I want to believe that there's something more, but right now's still real," he explained. "We're never going to get time back."
• The song started with a drum loop that Urban played the ganjo over. The singer then enlisted producer Jeff Bhasker (Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk") and Cam's songwriting partner Samuel Tyler Johnson to help him finish the tune.
  
  "I just wanted to work with Jeff," Urban said of Bhasker. "My dad was a drummer his whole life so rhythm is such a hugely important part of what attracts me to creative musicians. That sounds like such an obvious thing but there's some producers I think, like Jeff, who are so rooted in an incredibly strong rhythmic sensibility."
• This is the first song that Urban performed during his RipCORD World Tour shows. "When we wrote 'Gone Tomorrow Here Today,' I not only felt like that was the perfect song to start a record, I felt like it was the perfect song to start a tour, as well," he explained. "It's just my own personal love for the things that I like about it, which is the fusion of the ganjo - which is such a crucial part of my sound, but it's presented in a way that I have not done before. The melodic structure of that riff is not like anything in any of my other songs, but the sound is very familiar."
  
  "I like that sense of having something that is very familiar to everybody, but then do a twist on it," Urban continued. "It hopefully has enough familiarity to pull you along, yeah, to pull you along for the journey as well. So, it seemed again like a good opening track for the show."