The album was supported by the Real Gone Tour, playing sold-out locations in North America and Europe in October and November 2004.

Per ANTI-, Written and produced by Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, his wife and long-time collaborator, Real Gone features 15 tracks of funk, Jamaican rock-steady, blues both urban and rural, rhythms and melodies both Latin and African and, for the first time, no piano.

The crash and collide of rhythms and genres within a song creates a hybrid unlike any music he has and the sonic mayhem and nonsense rhyme ride to "Top of the Hill" are both punctuated by a live band and turntable playing along to Waits' home recorded voice percussion.

"Don't Go Into That Barn" was based on a New York Times story about a slave jail in Kentucky.

The article quotes Carl Westmoreland: "It was a slave ship turned upside down," a line echoed by Waits.