That’s a damn good country song right there.
Lukas Nelson and his band The Promise of the Real shared the stage with his dad, the legendary Willie Nelson, to sing “(Forget About) Georgia” at Farm Aid in Hartford, Connecticut back in September.
The song itself is absolutely stunning, which is not really a surprise, considering that Lukas is an absolutely stellar wordsmith and songwriter.
Also, the play on words referencing Ray Charles’ classic 1960 hit “Georgia on My Mind” is brilliant.
Just look at this verse and chorus:
“And each night I pray, I’ll forget about Georgia
She’ll never love me like I know a love’s supposed to be
Each night I pray, I’ll forget about Georgia
But a part of me hopes that she’ll never forget about me
Oh, a part of me hopes that she’ll never forget about me
We made love for the first time in a hotel in San Francisco
A night so perfect I try to forget about it now
And Ray Charles is singing her name like rain on my window
And I want to release her but I can’t begin to know how”
The song is actually a bit of an oldie from the band’s 2010 album Promise of the Real, and was a solo write by Lukas.
He introduced it with the story of how it came to be:
“A while back, I went out with this girl. Her name was Georgia.
And I was out with Dad playing music every night, and, uh, when we stopped seeing each other, it was kinda of a bitch. So, I wrote a song called ‘(Forget About) Georgia.'”
The studio version:
And, as a bonus, Lukas, Willie, and Willie’s other son, Micah, played “Georgia on My Mind” in that same set, too.
Willie famously covered the song himself on his 1978 Stardust album, where it went #1 on the country charts:
