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Bobbie has no idea either. Here's some stuff I found. Warning: this stuff is LONG.
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The Mystery of Ode to Billy Joe
In 1967 country singer Bobbie Gentry released a single entitled Ode to Billy Joe. The song's breezy bluegrass tune and memorable chorus made it an instant hit, and today it remains one of the most popular country songs of all time.
The song has remained popular for another reason, however. The lyrics of Billy Joe are haunting and mysterious, and recount an odd Southern gothic tale of a young man's tragic suicide. The story is noticeably incomplete however, and the listener is left with many unanswered questions.
This page is an attempt to summarize the controversy.
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Lyrics
The following are the complete lyrics to Ode to Billy Joe. The song is approximately three minutes long. There does not appear to be any truth to the rumors that the song was originally longer but was trimmed for length, and thus that vital lyrics were "cut."
Also note that the spelling "Billie Joe" is often substituted for "Billy Joe," with the former spelling actually being used on the albulm cover.
It was the third of June,
another sleepy, dusty Delta day.
I was out choppin' cotton
and my brother was balin' hay.
And at dinner time we stopped,
and we walked back to the house to eat.
And mama hollered at the back door
"y'all remember to wipe your feet."
And then she said she got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge
Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Papa said to mama as he passed around the blackeyed 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."
Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.
Seems like nothin' 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 Billy Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show.
And wasn't I talkin' 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 Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' 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 somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe.
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 pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge,
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Annotations
Facts we can divulge from the song:
1) The story takes place in Mississippi. Choctaw Ridge, Carroll County, Tupelo, and the Tallahatchie Bridge all exist in real life. The opening line suggests the speaker lives in the Delta religion of the state, which is located in nothern Mississippi.
2) the speaker's father does not care much for Billy Joe, her mother is more sympathetic, and her brother was apparently a friend of his at one time.
3) the speaker apparently had some degree of sympathetic relationship with Billy Joe. She was talking to him at church and was seen with him on the bridge. When she finds out he is dead she loses her appetite (unlike the rest of the family) and later spends "a lot of time" throwing flowers off the bridge in what is clearly some sort of memorial tribute.
4) the family of the speaker is largely oblivious to the relationship she had with Billy Joe, and for some reason she has no interest in bringing it up.
Unresolved questions from the song:
1) What did the speaker and Billy Joe throw off the bridge, and at what time did this event occur? The fact that Brother Taylor visited the speaker's house on the same day Billy Joe died does not necessarily mean he saw the girl and Billy Joe throwing the thing off the bridge on this day as well.
2) What degree of relationship did the speaker and Billy Joe have? Was it sexual? Ages are not given, but it is suggested that the speaker is at the very least a teenager. She lives with her parents, but is capable of doing hard labor in the field. Her brother is old enough to get married and move out of the house. The brother recalls putting a frog down his sister's dress- a rather immature stunt- but this likely happened years ago and is being remembered out of nostalgia.
3) The key question- why did Billy Joe commit suicide, and to what degree was this related to:
-his relationship with the speaker
-talking to the speaker at church the Sunday prior
-he and the speaker throwing something off the bridge
-visiting the sawmill the day before
Themes
Regardless of the unanswered questions of the song's plot, the song nevertheless contains several themes. The first is simply that of a "period piece" of Southern life in the early 20th Century.
The other theme is a darker one, about the indifference we often show towards the loss of human life. The speaker's family talks about a young man's suicide in the most nonchalant way possible. The line "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense/ pass the biscuits, please" is a great example. Aside from the speaker, no one seems to know or care much about Billy Joe. His death is just a source of dinnertime gossip, like the weather.
Theories
1) The most common theory is that Billy Joe and the speaker were indeed involved in some degree of romantic / sexual relationship that was kept hidden from the speaker's family because the father strongly disliked Billy Joe. This in turn is commonly interpreted as meaning the couple had an unplanned child at some point, and they threw the baby off the bridge together rather than deal with this manifestation of their illicit relationship. The guilt stemming from the murder of his own child later in turn caused Billy Joe to kill himself.
Some have gone even further and speculated that because the child was unwanted, it was either stillborn or aborted in some haphazard fashion, and then quietly "disposed" of off the bridge to hide the proof that the pregnancy had ever occurred. I've heard some point to the relevance of the "Child, what's happened to your appetite" line as a subtle key to this. Loss of appetite commonly occurs after giving birth. But it also commonly occurs when someone is depressed.
2) Another theory is that Billy Joe and the speaker are different races. This is consistent with the song's Southern theme and may explain the speaker's motivation for keeping her relationship with Billy Joe hidden. The food being eaten at dinner may be intended to represent traditional black Southern cuisine, and the mother's use of the word "child" to address her daughter is a rather distinctly African-American expression. The speaker similarly mentions picking cotton, which is likewise a chore that has been primarily associated with Southern blacks since the days of slavery. An inter-racial relationship during the period in which the song is set would clearly be a social taboo, and may have led the speaker to break up with Billy Joe, who proceeded to commit suicide. The unwanted child theory can be similarly strengthened by this premise, as a mixed-race baby would be even more socially unacceptable than an mixed race romance.
3) A third theory says that Billy Joe's suicidal tendencies were well-known to the speaker. The thing thrown off the bridge was thus a gun, after she successfully convinced Billy Joe not to kill himself. But then later he jumped off the bridge anyway, proving the failure of her efforts.
Is there a "correct" answer?
It depends. There are two "official" sources you can cite.
1) According to the 1975 movie
In 1976 Warner Bros. made a movie inspired by the song, entitled simply Ode to Billy Joe. It starred Robby Benson as Billy Joe McAllister and Glynnis O'Connor as the speaker, who was given the name "Bobbie Lee Hartley."
The film's tagline was "What the song didn't tell you, the movie will" and thus purported to provide an authoritative conclusion to the mystery.
The movie has been criticized for taking too many artisitc liberties and introducing too much new information that is not even hinted at in the song. Wikipedia provides the following plot summary:
Set in the early 1950s, the film explores the budding relationship between budding relationship between Bobbie Lee Hartley and Billy Joe McAllister.
Hartley and McAllister struggle to form a relationship despite resistence from Hartley's family, who contend she is too young to date. They develop the relationship, despite the odds in their way. One night at a party, however, McAllister gets drunk. In his inebriated state, he makes love to another man dressed in drag, though later he reveals he knew what he was doing. He bids an enigmatical goodbye to Hartley. Overcome with guilt, McAllister subsequently kills himself by jumping off the bridge spanning the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.
<...>
The object thrown from the bridge is the narrator's ragdoll; throughout the book and film she voices her concerns that she will always remain a child. The ragdoll being thrown from the bridge marks the point at which she begins moving towards adulthood.
The reference to the "book" refers to the 1976 movie novelization.
2) According to Bobby Gentry
Bobby Gentry has historically remained coy about the meaning of her song. According to her, the main theme of Billy Joe was simply death and dying, and the ways in which we can be indifferent and oblivious to the suffering of others.
In a 2002 interview with the Florida-based TCPalm.com website, Herman Raucher, the screenplay writer of the Billy Joe film, recalls his encounter with Gentry as he tried to figure out the song's meaning:
INTERVIEWER: the screenplay for the Deep South, song-inspired film Ode to Billy Joe. How did that come about?
RAUCHER: There’s an actor and writer and producer and director named Max Baer, whose father was the world champion. And Max called me because Summer of ‘42 just knocked him out, and he said, I’ve got the rights to Ode to Billy Joe. Now, you have to understand that Ode to Billy Joe was, at that time, the largest selling record in musical history.
I said, ‘Max, what the hell do I know about Ode to Billy Joe?’
He says, ‘I want you to come out here and meet with Bobbie Gentry - I’ll pay your way out here.’
I said, OK. ... Max and I go to meet her, and I ask her what does the song mean?
She said, ‘I made it up. I don’t know what it means.’
I said, ‘You don’t know why he jumped off the bridge?’
She said, ‘I have no idea.’
He proceeds to explain that since the song apparently lacked a "true" meaning, he simply made up his own storyline to explain the lyrics.
Bobbie Gentry is still alive, but has largely fallen from the public radar screen. She has never published an autobiography, so today it is difficult to determine if she has ever made any more authoritative statements on the meaning of "Billy Joe." There is no reason to deny Raucher's story. Many musicians, notably John Lennon and the Beatles, have frequently made similar statements indicating that their songs' lyrics don't have a firm meaning and it is instead up for the listener to determine their significance.
It does seem a bit odd to me that Herman Raucher would travel all the way to meet Gentry in person just so she could tell him the song has no meaning. Couldn't a simple phone call have sufficed?
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Spin-offs and parodies
Bob Dylan- Basement Tapes (1975)
Bob Dylan is said to have hated Ode to Billy Joe. His song Clothesline Saga (track nine of the Basement Tapes album) was clearly an attempt to create a sarcastic parody of Gentry's original song. Clothesline is a largely nonsensical, go-nowhere song that tells the story of a kid who is helping his parents hang up the clothes to dry. Along the way, he and his parents have dull back-and-forth conversations. Here's an excerpt:
The dogs were barking, a neighbor passed,
Mama, of course, she said, "Hi!"
"Have you heard the news?" he said, with a grin,
"The Vice-President's gone mad!"
"Where?" "Downtown." "When?" "Last night."
"Hmm, say, that's too bad!"
The song closely mimics much of the style of Ode to Billy Joe, and features many similar expressions and phrases. Unlike Billy Joe however, the lyrics of Clothesline contain no deeper meaning or mystery, and are instead excruciatingly mundane. One gets the impression Dylan regards the Billy Joe song as enormously over-rated.
Austin Lounge Lizards- Small Minds (1995)
The Austin Lounge Lizards are a Texas-based country / bluegrass band who sing largely humorous, satirical songs. Track one on the Small Minds album is called Shallow End of the Gene Pool. The song tells the story of a guy who is mentally and socially inept in every conceivable way. At the end he decides to explore genetic engineering as a way to "fix" himself. The final line in the song is "And that's why Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge," sung in the exact same manner as the Bobby Gentry song. This line makes no sense within the context of the song, and appears to have only been included as a sort of nonsensical piece of musical filler. The two songs have sort of similar tempos, which makes the line "fit" musically.
Ode To Billie Joe By Glen Hannah
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So what did Billie Joe MacAllister throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge?
What the Lyrics reveal
The 1967 song by Bobbie Gentry (written by Gentry) is a bittersweet tale of young love and its tragic consequences in farmland America. The urban myth that grew up around the song was that the lyrics suggested Billie Joe McAllister, the troubled title character, threw a baby off the Tallahatchie bridge; the result of an illicit union with a young girl; but do the lyrics substantiate this? What other mysteries does the song contain?
To best appreciate this article readers may wish to view the original lyrics. Open the following link in another window for easy reference.
See "Ode To Billie Joe" Lyrics
The song is told from the viewpoint of a young girl (Verse 4 - "Child what's happened..." and "Saw a girl that looked like you"), but how young or old is not clear.
The unnamed Girl sings about how she heard about the death of Billie Joe while having an everyday family meal. The Mother announces the news of the suicide of Billie Joe MacAllister to the family, but it doesn't disturb their appetite for black-eyed peas, biscuits and apple pie, suggesting that the family wasn't particularly close to the boy. The Father's comment "Well Billie Joe never had a lick of sense" (Verse 2) confirms this.
The only person who seems affected by the death is The Girl. Her lack of appetite (Verse 4) suggests the news hits her deeper than the rest of the family. The family's indifference also suggests that they are unaware of the true extent of her feelings for Billie Joe, as there is no attempt to console her or for that matter, convey the news with any sensitivity. It's just blurted out at the dinner table like any other piece of local gossip.
Verse 3 confirms that The Girl was "talkin' to him after church last Sunday Night", and Verse 4 conveys the hearsay that Brother Taylor also saw them together on Choctaw Ridge. Although the actual line is, "He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you" (Verse 4). This leaves room for speculation that Billie Joe was with someone other than The Girl; the implication is, in the context of the rest of the song, that it was indeed she.
The final line of Verse 4 is the ambiguous one:
"And she and Billie Joe was throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge". The "Baby" interpretation is not supported by the lyrics. Scandalous though it may be, it is really a misinterpretation.
This line clearly states that Billie Joe was not acting alone, and that they were both participating in the "throwing". This could mean that they were both lifting and throwing the same object OR that there were a number of identical objects and they were throwing these separately. For instance, together they could have been throwing a big log from the nearby sawmill OR each of them could have been throwing stones together. The line fits either way.
The answer appears in the final verse (Verse 5).
It is a year since the suicide, and life has changed the family - the Brother is married and has left town, the Father is dead and the Mother has lost some of her will to go on. It is, in fact, the anniversary of Billie Joe's death, and the Girl sings about "pickin flowers up on Choctaw Ridge" and dropping them off the Tallahatchie Bridge. This could be interpreted as an act similar to laying flowers at a grave site, and it is, but there is more to it.
This is where some speculation comes in.
Billie Joe and The Girl have known each other for a long time. The incident in Verse 3 about putting a frog down her back at the Carroll County picture show is the mischievous act of children, so we can deduce that they have grown up together, and seen a lot of each other in passing. Billie had developed strong feelings for The Girl over the years, but she was unaware of it. What Brother Taylor saw on the bridge that day was probably the time when he expressed his love for her.
They had been throwing flowers off the Bridge that day ("And she and Billie Joe was throwin' flowers off the Tallahatchie Bridge"). Why? Probably just to watch them float down stream. It was the youthful, carefree act of two backwoods teenagers enjoying each other's company. The mood took Billie Joe and he told The Girl of his love for her. Unfortunately, she didn't feel as strongly for him, and told him so. The pain of the rejection was too much for him to bear, and rather than live without The Girl's love, he chose to commit suicide. He chose to jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge to send a message to The Girl. She and she alone, would know exactly why he took his own life.
In light of this, the final two lines of the song reach a deeper level of poignancy.
("And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge")
The Movie
In 1976, a film version of "Ode to Billie Joe" was made. Bobbie Gentry received a co-writing credit on the movie, but that does not mean...
a) That she had a hand in writing the actual screenplay
b) That the screenplay expanded on the original meaning of the song.
More likely, as is often the case, she was given a writing credit as a matter of form, as the bare bones of the song's story were used in the film. The screenwriter then expanded the story into feature film length adding sub-plots, additional characters etc. The film version ads another dimension to the story not found in the song. Billie Joe in the film is a repressed homosexual. He confesses his love for The Girl (called Bobby Lee in the film), only to cover his growing fear that he may be homosexual. After a sexual encounter with an unnamed man, he is unable to live with his guilt, and jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
None of this story line is evident in the original song, and it is unclear if this was Gentry's original vision, or just the work of a professional scriptwriter trying to film up 100 minutes of movie time.
The Longer Version
According to one source, the original song actually ran closer to 7 minutes, but as this didn't fit in with radio station formats in 1967, the song was shortened to its current length. This may explain the lack of detail about what was thrown off the bridge. If the song was originally longer, additional verses may have shed more light on their relationship between Billie Joe and The Girl.
When was the song shortened? At the rehearsal stage? The recording stage? After the recording stage? It's possible that somewhere out there, the original 7 minute version exists on tape.
A final mystery
A final mystery for your consideration. Why isn't Billie Joe really Billy Joe? Does the song suggest that the title character is really a girl? Listening to the song again in this context, it takes on a completely different meaning. A lesser known opinion is that the tale is actually one of young lesbian love. However, hidden in the lyrics, Billie Joe is quietly referred to as "him" ("Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe. Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show. And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?") So, Billie Joe is clearly a young man. Right? Not if you interpret the line as Brother actually saying "And wasn't I talkin' to TOM after church last Sunday night?"
Copyright Glen Hannah (c)2000
Themestream Contributor
July 7, 2000
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