It was released under the Mercury subsidiary label Fontana and became a number-one pop single on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1969, and remained on the charts in early 1970.

[1][failed verification] Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer wrote a blues shuffle version of the song in the early 1960s when they were members of a doo-wop group from Bridgeport, Connecticut, originally called the Glenwoods, then the Citations, and finally, the Chateaus, of which Leka was the piano player.

[4] "I said we should put a chorus to it (to make it longer)", Leka told Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits.

In February 1983, UK girl group Bananarama released the song as a single from their album Deep Sea Skiving.

By the end of the video they return to the playground wearing leathers and this time make the group of men move away.

In 1987, Canadian quartet the Nylons released an a cappella version of this song as a single under the shortened title "Kiss Him Goodbye".

A 1970 cover by the Canadian R&B/funk band Wayne McGhie and the Sounds of Joy had no chart success on its own, but has been sampled in numerous hip hop recordings.

[34] When the band's long-forgotten album was reissued in 2004, Canadian music critic Bill Reynolds wrote that their cover was so good it should be used at sporting events instead of Steam's original.

It is generally directed at the losing side in an elimination contest when the outcome is all but certain or when an individual player is ejected, disqualified, or more often in baseball games, a pitching change is made during an inning (which is when Faust would play it).

[37] The song is featured prominently throughout the 2000 biographical sports film Remember the Titans, which is based on the true story of the 1971 T. C. Williams High School football team from Alexandria, Virginia.

[44] In 2020, American singer-songwriter and pop star Katy Perry sampled “Goodbye” in the song Not The End Of The World off her 5th studio album, Smile.