The first verse is me speaking to my father. My father just passed right after I had the baby, and it was during Corona and nobody knew it was going on and so I didn’t want to let anyone in my home, because with the baby. So one day, I was rocking the baby in the rocking chair in his room. And I do not normally even have the phone when I’m rocking him. […] But anyway, that day the phone rings, I see it’s my father, I normally would not have picked up, ‘cause I don’t like to be on the phone with the baby there. But I picked up, he was very happy, he said “Baby, I can come on Monday”, 'cause he had been waiting to be able to come to Cali’ to be able to help me. But I knew if he’d come to be with us we were gonna be happy, he’s a great person. But so that was Friday, and then we went to bed, and sometime late while we were all asleep, the phone rang, and it was my mother telling me my father was in an accident. And then everything started spinning. […] So I opened the album with talking to my father. And then I begin to explain the time from my mother first calling me to her calling me telling me he didn’t make it. And the second verse I’m talking as the inner child. […] It was so scary to release the song, I always feel like I have to give my core fans an update when I come out with an album, and I think that’s why it took a lot longer because of the events that took place between the albums.

—Nicki Minaj, via Apple Music

“Are You Gone Already” debuted and peaked at #60 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the chart week ending December 23, 2023.