Songfacts®:

• Rickie Lee Jones wrote most of this song in the mid-'80s but didn't record it, in part because she couldn't figure out who it was about. After her daughter Charlotte was born in 1988, Jones decided the song was about her, and finished it up. It finally appeared in 2009 on her Balm in Gilead album. One of the reasons Jones didn't give up on the song is that her mother loved it.
• Jones commented in press materials that Balm In Gilead "is unique because most of it was written over the last 20 years. All the other records, I've written in a year or two or three after finishing the previous one. This one has threads from many, many years." She added that this R&B-flavored opener, "which ended up being about my daughter, was started before (1989's) Flying Cowboys, and it was waiting all these years to finish. For me, the album feels close to a debut, because the only time you ever have to spend all these years writing a song is your first record, right?"
• Regarding the inspiration for this song, Jones told Paul Zollo (in More Songwriters On Songwriting), "I was thinking of that girl in high school that everybody sleeps with but nobody likes. Who is she? What happened to her? And how could I save her?"