Did Bobbie Gentry ever reveal what she meant by the line in her 1967 hit "Ode to Billie Joe", "She and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"?

gtho4

In this interview back in August 2005, she said it can be whatever you want it to be. Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe” In August 1967, Lyndon Johnson announced that he was sending 45,000 more troops to Vietnam. Black power advocate Stokely Carmichael called for violent revolution in the streets. Beatles manager Brian Epstein died from an overdose of sleeping pills. But around water coolers, the hot topic was what Billie Joe McAllister and his girlfriend threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge. The mystery created by Bobbie Gentry in her debut single "Ode To Billie Joe" cast a spell over the entire country. Set to a backing of spare acoustic guitar chords and atmospheric strings, Gentry's sensual, Southern-fried voice relates the story of two Mississippi teenage lovers who share a dark secret that eventually leads to the boy's suicide. And nearly 40 years later, despite cinematic details in the song's lyric, we still don't know exactly what happened up there on Choctaw Ridge... The finished version of "Ode" was over seven minutes long. Capitol edited it down to a more manageable four minutes and stuck it on the flip side of "Mississippi Delta." But those were the days when DJs still had minds of their own, and as in the stories of so many classic hits, the B-side became the A-side. It sounded like nothing else on the radio, Gentry's husky voice inviting listeners into a world that was as dark and exotic as a Flannery O'Connor story. Not long after the song's debut, the water cooler talk started. As Gentry told Fred Bronson, "The song is sort of a study in unconscious cruelty. But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of the people expressed in the song. What was thrown off the bridge really isn't that important. "Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge-flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe's girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family." In its first week of release, "Ode" sold 750,000 copies, knocking "All You Need Is Love" out of the top spot on the Billboard chart. It stayed there for four weeks. The song won Gentry three Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist (she was the first Country artist to ever win in this category). http://performingsongwriter.com/bobbie-gentry-ode-billie-joe/ Jul 10 12, 10:00 PM

rupert774

Very interesting reply- got me wondering again, after all these years! Thank you for the info- R Jul 11 12, 9:01 AM