“Gone Home” is a bluegrass gospel song written by the country entertainer Bill Carlisle. A meditation on death and the promise of heaven, it is built around the consoling refrain that departed loved ones “have gone home” — the kind of plainspoken comfort that runs through much of the bluegrass sacred repertoire.
The song was introduced on record by Carl Story and his Rambling Mountaineers in the mid-1950s. Story, often called the “Father of Bluegrass Gospel Music,” built much of his career on sacred material, and “Gone Home” became one of the numbers most closely tied to him.
From Story’s recording the song passed steadily through bluegrass gospel singing, valued for its tight quartet harmony and its reassuring message. It has been recorded by many later artists.
