Ode to Billy Joe

[Minimus]

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out chopping cotton and my brother was baling hay.
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat.
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet,"
And then she said "I got some news this morning from Choctaw Ridge,"
"Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the black-eyed peas:
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please."
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow."
And Mama said it was a shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothing ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge.
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

And brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe,
Had put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn't I talking to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie; you know it don't seem right.
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge,
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

And Mama said to me: "Child, what's happened to your appetite?
"I've been cooking all morning and you haven't touched a single bite.
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today.
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way.
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge.
"And she and Billy Joe was throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

A year has come and gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe,
And brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo.
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring.
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything.
And me, I spend a lot of time picking flowers up on Choctaw Ridge.
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

[NightTrain]

1. What got me about that song wasn't what they threw off the bridge...

...but rather, the matter-of-fact way that the family discusses Billie Joe's suicide as they eat dinner. How insensitive can you be?!

[Minimus]

3. "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please."

Yep pretty insensitive.

[saltpoint]

6. I'm not surprised that you get to the essence of it as --

-- always, night train -- but it gives me delight all the same.

Thanks.

[donheld]

2. I love that song

very haunting, great voice.

[Maple]

4. Whose baby was it?

Tom's, her brother's, Brother Taylor's?

[last_texas_dem]

7. I'm not sure

if Bobbie Gentry ever explained what the song was supposed to mean. If she did, I'd definitely be interested to hear.

In the movie, they make Billie Joe be gay and have him throwing a rag doll off the bridge, for reasons I no longer remember (saw the movie three or four years ago).

[Maple]

9. I'm guessing

it was Tom's

[AlienGirl]

8. Is THAT what they were throwing?!

I always thought they were throwing something in the water to fake Billy Joe's death!

Tucker

[last_texas_dem]

5. Good song

And the lyrics were cryptic enough that they managed to make a whole movie out of attempting to explain what it was all about!