"Georgia Lee" discussion

[Joe]

Hi all,

The Cottars' song "Georgia Lee" is filled with a lot of emotion. Let's talk about some of the imagery in the song.

1. How old is Georgia Lee?

2. Who is Ida?

3. What does the verse regarding hide-and-seek mean?

4. The lyric "somewhere a baby is crying for her mom" is very powerful. Who is (was) the baby's mother?

[elizarose]

admin said:

Hi all,

The Cottars' song "Georgia Lee" is filled with a lot of emotion. Let's talk about some of the imagery in the song.

1. How old is Georgia Lee?

2. Who is Ida?

3. What does the verse regarding hide-and-seek mean?

4. The lyric "somewhere a baby is crying for her mom" is very powerful. Who is (was) the baby's mother?

oh I hope I am doing this right

1. She could be about 16

2. single mom?

3. trying to recapture a bit a childhood's happiness and innocence, but realizing that you need to ask to be looked after (found) or you need to do it yourself. It's sad.

4. honestly it could be anyone or even Georgia Lee. To me though I don't feel it's Georgia Lee at all. I feel in a way it's telling you what Geogia had been feeling like, that she cried for her mamma never got enough or the right love and went off to find something she needed in the wrong place.

[Joe]

admin said:

1. How old is Georgia Lee?

2. Who is Ida?

3. What does the verse regarding hide-and-seek mean?

4. The lyric "somewhere a baby is crying for her mom" is very powerful. Who is (was) the baby's mother?

Hi Elizarose

Thanks for your reply...I really like your responses! Here's mine...

1. I think Georgia Lee was 17 when she died.

2. Ida is Georgia's mother (not married). "Ida couldn’t keep Georgia from dropping out of school...I was doing the best that I could. The male voice is Ida's boyfriend.

3. The hide-and-seek reference means that the mother wants return to a time when Georgia loves to play games.

4. The baby is crying for her mom...I believe that Georgia just gave birth.

[Adam]

Well I'll play along.

1. I have always though of GL as being as a teenager
2. Ida has to be the mother of GL, I think. The verse where it goes "Ida couldnt keep Georgia from dropping out" ends with, ifd I remember, "it's so hard to raise these kids good."
3. Agree with Tom on this one
4. As for the baby crying, I never thought of the baby as related to the story. I thought of the cross as the gravesite of GL and the baby crying was a symbol of lost innocence/grevience of the situation.

Adfmittedly, I haven't heard the song in quite a long time so my remembrance of the song may be fuzzy. Also, I am more famillar with the original (it's a Tom Waits penned tune) than the Cottars. Waits' style is much different than the Cottars' (Wairs has a very low voice and his music is very very very moody!) and the two versions could also change meanings a bit....how a song is put together can change a lot.

[faerie]

And here are my thoughts

1. She's a teen
2. I dont think Ida is her mom, nessesarliy, I thought of her as just an older women, who kinda looks after kids, maybe like a foster home wheres there is a bunch of them?
3. Again wanting to be a kid, and wantiong some one to help her because shes tired of being alone.
4. like adam said I didnt think it was related to the story, again with what I said for number 2, a bunch of kids, in a foster home, or orphange.

I've heard Tom Waits vergion of this as well, and its good, but I like the cottars better to me their was more emotion in it, could be because they're kids themselves. But my uncle said he liked Tom's better because he's older and has more experience of the world. Have any of you heard any of the other songs that the cottars have done by tom waits? I like his briar and the rose one..

Tia

[Ginny]

I was thinking along the same lines as Joe (as usual ;D)

I've always thought that GL was a teen who lived a hard life growing up, possibly with Ida, the single mom. I wonder if maybe she dropped out of school because she was pregnant, or because she had just had her baby.
How do you think she died? I'm guessing maybe suicide, or a drug overdose. Any other suggestions?

Ginny

[afanoffiona]

Doesn't the song say that they found her in a small grove of trees? Maybe she was attacked and left to die because she got in with the wrong crowd? Just a guess.

God Bless,
afanoffiona

[elizarose]

I feel as if Georgia Lee was a kid who had no direction. She felt alone in the world and probably fell in with a bad group, because she may have felt more included and it led to her to push away any real help and as the song says she kept running away from this world. I think you can get to a point when you can no longer deal with the world as you see it and if no one knows how to help you and help is either too late or not known, you will run away from it all. I work at a mental health facility I see this kind of stuff all the time. It's bad enough to see adults going through mental illness, but to see children and teens who feel that there is no way out is just so sad. Alot of these kids come from very poor backrounds, unfortunately the area in which they come from is considered the ghetto, so drugs and abuse are rampant and they are desperate for any kind of support, love or acceptance, we have a few gang problems in this area as well. I think this song can be seen in so many different ways depending on your own view of the world.

[Joe]

Hi everyone !

Thanks so much for this excellent discussion !

Joe

[Caitlin]

Hi everyone!

I've come up with a bit of a twist on the song. A while ago I read a novel entitled "The Way the Crow Flies" and interwoven in the story is a story about these children who say they were playing hide and seek and they couldn't find one of the girls. It turns up that that girl was accidentally murdered by the other girls. I imagine that the baby crying for her mom is the little girl who is scared and dying.

I'm not sure who Ida is in "my" story though...

That's what I think of everytime I hear this song.

<3 Caite

[Joe]

caite said:

I imagine that the baby crying for her mom is the little girl who is scared and dying.

Hi Caite

That's very interesting! The crying baby could be Georgia Lee; she is still her mother's baby however old she is.

Nice to see you here again Caite

Hugs,
Joe

[lindsayb]

Hi, I know this thread is pretty old. I happened to find it while looking for the Cottar's version of this song. The original song is by Tom Waits and it is about a twelve year old girl named Georgia Lee Moses, who was brutally murdered in California in 1997.

You can actually read about her story and Tom Wait's reason for writing this song here:

www.tomwaitslibrary.com/lyrics/mulevariations/georgialee.html

What happened to this poor little girl is just unimaginable. I'm so glad the Cottars' sing this song so beautifully and help to keep Georgia's memory alive. Her murderer has never been caught.

[Joe]

Hello LindsayB,

Thanks very much for this. It's good for us to know the full story behind the song.

Wow...what an incredible first post! Please, post some more when you can.

Thanks again,
Joe