DO YOU REMEMBER? Billboard #1 HOT 100 (This Week in 1967) Bobby Gentry: Ode to Billie Joe Ode to Billie Joe is a 1967 song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry (born July 27, 1944), a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller. The song is ranked #412 on Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The recording of Ode to Billie Joe generated eight Grammy nominations, resulting in three wins for Gentry and one win for arranger Jimmie Haskell. The song is a first-person narrative that reveals a quasi-Southern Gothic tale in its verses by including the dialog of the narrators family at dinnertime on the day that Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Throughout the song, the suicide and other tragedies are contrasted against the banality of everyday routine and polite conversation. The song begins on June 3 with the narrator and her brother returning, after morning chores, to the family house for dinner (the noontime meal in Southern homes). After cautioning them about tracking in dirt, Mama says that she got some news this mornin from Choctaw Ridge that Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge, apparently to his death. At the dinner table, the narrators father is unsurprised at the news and says, Ol Billie Joe never had a lick o sense; pass the biscuits, please and mentions that there are five more acres in the lower forty I got to plow. Although her brother seems to be taken aback (I saw him at the sawmill yesterday.... And now you tell me Billie Joe has jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge), hes not shocked enough to keep him from having a second piece of pie. Late in the song, Mama questions the narrators complete loss of appetite (Child, whats happened to your appetite? I been cookin all mornin and you havent touched a single bite,) and then recalls a visit earlier that morning by Brother Taylor, the local preacher, who mentioned that he had seen Billie Joe and a girl who looked very much like the narrator herself and they were throwin somethin off the Tallahatchie Bridge. In the songs final verse, a year has passed, during which the narrators brother has married and moved away (bought a store in Tupelo). Also, her father died from a viral infection, which has left her mother despondent. The narrator herself now visits Choctaw Ridge often, picking flowers there to drop from the Tallahatchie Bridge into the muddy water flowing beneath. Questions arose among the listeners: was the narrator the girlfriend of Billie Joe, what did Billie Joe and the narrator throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge - if anything, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Speculation ran rampant after the song hit the airwaves, and Gentry said in a November 1967 interview that it was the question most asked of her by everyone she met. She named flowers, a ring, a draft card, a bottle of LSD pills, and an aborted baby as the most often guessed items. Although she knew definitely what the item was, she would not reveal it, saying only Suppose it was a wedding ring. Its in there for two reasons, she said. First, it locks up a definite relationship between Billie Joe and the girl telling the story, the girl at the table. Second, the fact that Billie Joe was seen throwing something off the bridge – no matter what it was – provides a possible motivation as to why he jumped off the bridge the next day. When Herman Raucher met Gentry in preparation for writing a novel and screenplay based on the song, she confessed that she had no idea why Billie Joe killed himself. Gentry has, however, commented on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference: Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of peoples reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown when both women experience a common loss (first Billie Joe, and later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief.” The rather chilling air of the musical piece might also suggest another scenario in which the narrators own sanity is questioned. Although this aspect might not have been mentioned or implied, the taunting she experienced earlier might have led to his murder by her hand. The fact that she may have been the actual person with Billie Joe that day, mentioning nothing of it to anyone and that she comes across at the end as unresponsive, non-chalantly dropping flowers off the bridge may reinforce this postulation. The bridge mentioned in this song collapsed in June 1972. It crossed the Tallahatchie River at Money, about ten miles (16 km) north of Greenwood, Mississippi, and has since been replaced. The November 10, 1967 issue of Life magazine contained a photo of Gentry crossing the original bridge. Ode to Billie Joe was originally intended as the B-side of Gentrys first single recording, a blues number called Mississippi Delta, on Capitol Records. The original recording, with no other musicians backing Gentrys guitar, had eleven verses lasting seven minutes, telling more of Billie Joes story. The executives realized that this song was a better option for a single, so they cut the length by almost half and re-recorded it with a string orchestra. The shorter version left more of the story to the listeners imagination, and made the single more suitable for radio airplay. Bobbie Gentry
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 22:50:01 +0000
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