[4] Judith Lynne Sill was born in Studio City, Los Angeles, on October 7, 1944, and spent her early childhood in Oakland, California.

Either during high school or after her graduation (depending on the source), Sill and a man she had met committed a series of armed robberies of businesses such as liquor stores and gas stations.

When Sill moved back to California, she resorted to sex work and crime to support her addiction, including robbery, forgery and fraud.

[6] A string of narcotics and forgery offenses sent her to jail, and she learned that her brother Dennis had suddenly died of a liver infection.

Heart Food was released in March 1973 and was critically acclaimed, but sold poorly, leading to the end of her association with Geffen and Asylum Records.

Sill's friends have said that she lacked the resilience to cope with poor album sales and bad reviews of her work, and that she was dropped after she refused to perform as an opening act, a task she disliked.

[16] Their relationship came to an end after Sill, who was openly bisexual,[7][8][17] allegedly referred to the then-publicly closeted Geffen using a homophobic epithet (whether this occurred onstage, or on the radio, and what exactly was said is disputed).

Twenty-six years after Sill's 1979 death, the unfinished songs were mixed by Jim O'Rourke and released, along with a collection of rarities and home demos, as the album Dreams Come True on the Water label.

[6] She married Samir Ben Taieb Kamoun, a Tunisian actor, mime, and Charlie Chaplin impersonator, on January 24, 1979, in Clark County, Nevada.

[23] After a series of car accidents and failed surgery for a back injury, Sill struggled with drug addiction and dropped out of the music scene.

[4] She died of a drug overdose, or "acute cocaine and codeine intoxication", on November 23, 1979, at her apartment on Morrison Street in North Hollywood.

By the time of Sill's death, she had become so obscure that no obituary was published, and for many years, a number of her friends were unaware she had died.

[7] The critic Barney Hosykns wrote that her songs "suggest a hippie update of the cosmic epiphanies of William Blake or the metaphysical ecstasies of Henry Vaughan".

[19] The Washington Post described her music as "intensely devotional... she wrote her own sort of hymns — guileless, urgent, naked, absolutely personal".

[4] Although Sill's music was not commercially successful, a number of later songwriters have been fans of her work, including Andy Partridge, Liz Phair, Warren Zevon, Shawn Colvin, Steven Wilson, Robin Pecknold, Daniel Rossen, Bill Callahan and Terra Spencer.

[4][7] Nick Lowe said that "Jesus Was a Crossmaker" was an influence on his Brinsley Schwarz song "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding".

[30] In 2022, the documentary film Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill, by Andy Brown and Brian Lindstrom was completed.

[31] Nine years in the making, it is the first work combining all available biographical information about Sill, including newly unearthed interviews and personal journals.