I’ve been writing a series of blogs on the songs that make up my most recent release, a covers project entitled “Through Songs I Was First Undone.”  The moments I’ve had with the artists whose music makes up this album have been sacred moments. These artists and their songs have been central to the necessary undoing of the expectations and limitations I habitually place on God and humanity.

Here is part one of why Tom Waits’ “Georgia Lee” is on the album:

My first knowledge of Tom Waits actually came by way of Primus; a band I listened to incessantly as a teenager.  Wait’s appears on Primus’ dark and quirky 1991 release “Sailing The Seas of Cheese.” He is featured on a track entitled “Tommy The Cat” as the voice of Tommy, who is, of course, a cat.  Interesting bit of trivia: Primus backs Waits on the opening track to “Mule Variations,” the same album from which we get the song “Georgia Lee.”

Waits wrote Georgia Lee with his wife, Kathleen after the body of 12-year old Georgia Lee Moses was found off Highway 101 in Petaluma, CA, just north of San Francisco.  Discovered on Aug 23, 1997, Georgia had run away and was missing for over two weeks before her absence was noticed; a more common occurrence in low-income or impoverished areas.  In fact, just four years earlier, the absence of Polly Klaas, a 12-year old girl from an upper middle class neighborhood in the same county as Georgia Moses, had stirred outrage and action nationwide.  Major celebrities and news outlets committed hours of time to finding her.  Polly’s kidnapper and eventual murderer was arrested and is now on death row.  The man who killed Georgia was never found.

“Not to make it a racial matter,” Waits said “but it was one of those things where, you know, she’s a black kid, and when it comes to missing children and unsolved crimes, a lot of it has to do with timing, or publicity . . . and there was this whole Polly Klaas Foundation up here, while Georgia Lee did not get any real attention.  And I wanted to write a song about it.”

Road-Side Monument for Georgia Lee in Petaluma, CA

I don’t at all mean to belittle the time and energy spent searching for, mourning and remembering Polly Klaas.  Nor do I believe Waits intended to do so.  Quite the opposite in fact; that a child goes missing from their home or neighborhood should be cause for all regularly-scheduled programming to pause.. any child…

And perhaps it was simply “to do with timing” that there was so much attention paid to the finding of one child, while another child’s absence and death can be simply read as the lay of the land. I’m not suggesting that media attention is the most accurate measure of our concern for life but the nightly news is at least some reflection of collective consciousness; some reflection of what things are of value to us;  what things we are watching, listening to and present to.

A year after services were held, Waits is quoted as saying about the service “I guess everybody was wondering, where were the police, where was the deacon, where were the social workers, and where was I and where were you.”

So while it might not be CNN or FOX or even the local paper, it has to be someone, doesn’t it? Isn’t that what our hearts demand?.. that someone is watching, someone is listening, someone is there for the other child? for every child?

“Where were her parents?  What kind of parent allows their child to run away and doesn’t call the police?” we ask.  All the while knowing that parents are not always good parents; sometimes parents are only children themselves, as Wait’s writes:  “A lot of kids are raising their parents.”

“So, If not her parents,” we concede “then what about her neighbors?  What kind of neighborhood lets one of it’s little ones simply disappear?”  At which my own heart sinks because I do not know the names of children who live only a few units away from me.

What kind of world is it, then, in which the in the foundational institutions set in place to facilitate the development of young life so consistently fail?

This progression of questions about the broken nature of things leads us to the One whose world it is… or at least to the places we expect to find Him.  The SF Chronicle reported that Waits attended Georgia Moses’ memorial service, “sitting quietly at the back of the crowded church.”

Why wasn’t God watching?
Why wasn’t God listening?
Why wasn’t God there?

If not the news networks, the families or the neighbors.. If not the world He made, then must not God Himself protect the most vulnerable among us?

Part 2 coming shortly…

You can purchase the song or the album here
You can also find it at iTunes

Last month, I did a short interview with Soul-Audio about the new album.  Here is an excerpt from my conversation with content editor Andrew Greenhalgh:

“Soul-Audio: Earlier, in reference to Waits’ “Georgia Lee,”  you talked about the subject matter of openly and honestly questioning God, i.e, “Why wasn’t God watching, listening, whatever.”  And said that, “I live there a lot of the time. I have a suspicion that many of us do.” Now, I totally concur with that. We do live in that state of questioning, even though we don’t always own up to it. And truthfully, a lot of Christian music doesn’t openly address these questions; rather, they seem to offer up simple platitudes as opposed to tackling the issues head on. Is it important for you to address these kind of questions? And why do you feel as though the industry, the CCM one, anyway, is more reluctant to do so?

Justin: I find a great sense of normality in songs like Georgia Lee; songs that reflect a disconnect between man and God. My experience of faith has been that it is a difficult road to travel on and ‘choosing to believe’ at times is a sacrifice of pride and intellect that I am unwilling to make. To trust God in the face of deep tragedy is most often not as simple or easy as waiting for the tension of minor chords to resolve into major chords which reinforce the soaring, full-throated declaration that “I will praise You in this storm.” While I think that declaration is beautiful and necessary in its place, so is the song that says “My boat sank and I lost everything I cared about.. where the hell were you?”

I would further add that there is something at least equally redemptive in giving legitimacy to these expressions of frustration and doubt. After all, before Job said to God “Surely I spoke of things I did not understand” he.. well… spoke of things he did not understand. It is BECAUSE of his courage to confront God on what he saw as unjust action that he came to really KNOW what he had previously taken for granted.

It’s important for me to voice these things on a few levels. For myself to make my own soul known to me; art serves this purpose in my life.. I am able to read myself more clearly in the things I write, especially as time passes after a recording. I also believe it’s important to create space for the many of us who live here to have a sense of normalcy in our doubts.

As you mention, there is plenty of space provided for those more ‘certain’ about their faith; I am hoping to provide some room for the rest of us.

As regards the reluctance of the CCM to do or not do anything in particular, I can only guess; not knowing very many people working in its ranks anymore. I know that it is that it’s much harder to sell a story that makes people uncomfortable; a complicated or unresolved story. The CCM industry is just that: an industry. It’s not a church and we often expect of them the same principles we do of our local congregation. The job of an industry is to sell things. A Christian industry sells Christianity. A Christianity shrouded in mystery is a hard sell. Certainty? Well, that we can do.”

Read the whole interview here