"Georgia on My Mind" - a song written in 1930 by Stuart Gorell (text) and Hoagy Carmichael (music). Stuart created it for sister Hoagy, Georgia, but the lyrics can be taken more as a reference to the US state of Georgia than to a woman named Georgia. In his autobiography from 1965, Sometimes I Wonder, Carmichael explains the circumstances of the song, when his friend suggested: "Why would not you write a song called 'Georgia'? Nobody lost much writing about the afternoon. "
The song is probably best known by Ray Charles, who released it on his album The Genius Hits the Road in 1960. His version of "Georgia on My Mind" on April 24, 1979, was established by the state song of Georgia. In 2004, the song was ranked 44th on the list of 500 songs from the entire Rolling Stone magazine.
