An Ode To Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode To Billie Joe’

This song tells the story of the fictional Billie Joe McAllister, who kills himself by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge. There really is a Tallahatchie Bridge in Money, Mississippi, but Gentry made up the story. The Tallahatchie Bridge, which spans the Tallahatchie River, collapsed in 1972, but was later rebuilt.

In this song, a family finds out about the death of Billie Joe and shares gossip about him at the dinner table along with their other mundane concerns. Bobbie Gentry explained: “The message of the song revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. The song is a study in unconscious cruelty.”

The message in the song would become even more relevant in the digital age when social networks and other tools made it easy to comment on newsworthy events. It quickly became clear that there were many folks who lacked empathy for suffering that didn’t directly affect them, and these people now had many forums to share their opinions.

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More about Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe”

When Record Mirror asked Gentry in 1967 what was thrown from the bridge at the end of this song, she replied: “It’s entirely a matter of interpretation as from each individual’s viewpoint. But I’ve hoped to get across the basic indifference, the casualness, of people in moments of tragedy. Something terrible has happened, but it’s ‘pass the black-eyed peas’, or ‘y’all remember to wipe your feet.'”

A movie with the title spelled Ode to Billy Joe was released in 1976. The film was based on this song, with a fictionalized Gentry (named “Bobbie Lee Hartley”) played by Glynnis O’Connor. Gentry was not in the film, but re-recorded “Ode To Billie Joe” for the soundtrack. This turned out to be some of Gentry’s last work high-profile work, as she disappeared from the public eye soon after.

(source)

“Ode to Billie Joe”

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 walked back to the house to eat
& mama hollered out the back door, “y’all, remember to wipe your feet!”
And then she said, “I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

And 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”
And 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 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?
“I’ll have another piece-a apple pie; you know, it don’t seem right
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe’s jumped 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 want to do much of anything
& me – I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Son Of A Preacher Man – Dusty Springfield