‘Georgia Lee’: The tragic story behind Tom Waits’ murder ballad
Tom Waits‘ gravely croons assume the sadness of his subjects, at times both gentle and haunting, bearing a weight that only he can communicate, and his poetry takes on a life of its own, with the singer acting as a communicator between spirits, the known and the unknown.
While classics like ‘I Hope That I Don’t Fall In Love With You’ tackle the ever-present dread of succumbing to affection, the singer-songwriter also has a penchant for writing about the horrors of a life tormented by society’s dark underbelly, which compelled him to put one of his most mournful songs in this vein, 1999’s ‘Georgia Lee’, to paper.
The mystery of Georgia Lee Moses remains unsolved as her younger sister continues to fight to bring her spirit to justice. Deemed missing for just under two weeks, her body was found in a grove of trees by a California transportation worker fixing a broken guardrail off Highway 101, and it is this tragic tale that struck Waits, who wrote the song with his wife, Irish musician Kathleen Brennan, for his 1999 album, Mule Variations. Their lyrics capture the sorrow of a young life brutally taken too soon, but are written with an air of compassion, resulting in a piano ballad capturing the depth of the grief of failings.
We are first introduced to the harrowing scene in which Georgia Lee was found on a cold, desolate night, “And lonesome was the place where Georgia was found,” he sings quietly, “She’s too young to be out on the street”, emphasising her tender age and reminding the listener of her innocence; he is haunted by the image of this girl, all alone and soon, so are we.
“Why wasn’t God watching / Why wasn’t God listening?”, he laments, “Why wasn’t God there / for Georgia Lee?” pondering the wider question of life’s ill-fated mysteries, sounding especially broken, a remarkable sadness overtaking his voice. We can imagine that, with this story being literally close to home for Waits, he is reckoning with how his community could fail this young girl, whose disappearance was widely unknown, outside of her family, until her body was found.
He also reflects on Georgia Lee’s backstory, with her dropping out of school. “I was doing the best that I could,” Waits sings, taking on Georgia Lee’s mother’s perspective, “Oh, but she just kept running away from this world / These children are so hard to raise good”. Later, her younger sister, Angel, who was only seven, revealed that Georgia Lee had been living with a friend’s family and would routinely visit to check in on her, so she knew something was wrong when her older sister hadn’t visited for over a week, and eventually, she would be the one to report her disappearance.
Speaking as Georgia Lee, Waits heartbreakingly imagines the young girl’s last moments before her abduction, through the metaphor of playing a game of hide-and-seek with her friend. “Be sure to find me, I want you to find me”, is an unforgettable plea, where every crack in his voice and every note on the piano reverberates the sadness of her story, ensuring that her memory is never forgotten.
In 2019, Phoebe Bridgers sang a rendition of ‘Georgia Lee’ for the Waits tribute album, Come On Up To The House: Women Sing Waits, regarding which she later tweeted: “This song is about the murder of a 12-year-old Black girl named Georgia Lee Moses. No one published anything about her disappearance until after her body was found. It is important.”
A song like ‘Georgia Lee’ becomes important through Waits’ musicianship, transcending from a corner-of-the-paper news report to the painful story of a young Black girl failed by society, which is where the magic of his hunting balladry lies.
