But she is not telling.

until tonight, I didn't realize she also wrote and preformed 'Fancy', Reba Mac Entires' cover was the one I knew. Huh, learned something today...

Radio, of course, music of course...I grew up Motown, the first religion, Tiger Baseball was second, then your church was 3rd in the mid/late 60s in Detroit for a lot of us. (CKLW for music, WJR for baseball, WJLB for summer night music...anyone? please? )

Many's the day I would sit outside with my transistor radio listening to CKLW! It was the coolest station around.

have been since 1969. I well remember CKLW.

all kinds of reasons for jumping off a bridge. i wondered, what did she look like? how old? what time of day or night? who found her? or, was billie a he?

"He put a frog down my back at the Carroll County Picture Show."

I was headed from Tennessee to Georgia and crossed a pretty low bridge. I thought that Billy Jo would have really regretted that move if this was in fact the bridge, but I don't know where Choctaw Ridge is from where I crossed that little river. I can't even remember if I was in Mississippi, or Alabama when I crossed it.

I tried to remember if that song stated why he jumped. Had not thought of that song in many, many years.

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Billie_Joe

That nice young preacher Brother Taylor stopped by today.
and he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh by the way...
He said he saw a girl, looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge,
and she and Billy Joe was throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

And that's why he jumped.

and he couldn't take it.

(This has always been my conjecture, FWIW...) She broke up with him, and he lost it and took the big dive.

There's a girl in this harbor town, and she works laying whiskey down


So you tell me - where does Brandy live?


As for Billie Joe -- I've always assumed a woman was to blame.

Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles butt up together. It's the only port complex in the US that could possibly deal with a hundred ships a day.

They won't be dealing with 100 post-Panamax container ships a day, but I don't think there are 100 of those ships in the first place.

...and yes - shipping has changed a bit since Brandy's day.

Astoria and Seattle would work. Oakland would work.

And by stretching "western bay" out as far as you can, Western Harbor in Gloucester, MA, would work too.

well inland.

...or maybe it's truckers....

you may know them as Lyric and Rhythm, respectively.

Unless there was someone there to see, they wouldn't know if he jumped or fell or was pushed. Falling is unlikely, since they obviously spent a lot of time on this bridge. And since the preacher is bringing the news that he "jumped" -- chances are the preacher pushed him off because he wanted the narrator for himself.

Or, maybe it's all just songcraft, and the line sounds dramatic and enigmatic, and if the story had been clear, people wouldn't have wanted to hear it over and over looking for clues. That's what mysteries are all about.

Or, as Bob Dylan once told Jimmy Thudpucker, "Man, I just want it to rhyme."

The Preacher did it

now, I am really spooked out.

I will never listen to that song the same way again.

heavy, dude. that is real heavy.

Since I lived in Mississippi at the time it was a blast being "famous." Bobby Gentry was royalty. Darned fine song, too.

That really made me laugh!

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I remember it was her doll they used to play with when they where kids . Saw the movie 30 years ago so my memory is fuzzy.

the girl in the story turned him down.

Seven years ago.

and that is why he eventually jumped. (At least, that is what is in my hazy memory.)

Mama said to me, "Child what's happened to your appetite?
I been cookin' all mornin' and you haven't touched 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 Billie Joe was throwin' somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

... but it's hard to figure how she could have been pregnant without her mother (and that nosy preacher) knowing about it.

Metaphorically, it was probably their dreams of getting out of town they were throwing off the bridge.

Anyway, I always figured he jumped because the narrator wouldn't marry him. Hadn't thought about the preacher wanting her for himself.

-- Mal

Specifically, that Billie Joe committed suicide after he and the unnamed narrator murdered their newborn child in order to conceal her ever having been pregnant. I mean it's ambiguous, but I've assumed from early-on it was a murder ballad. In HS, I had an English assignment where we were supposed to take a popular song with a narrative quality and write an interpretation of the lyrics. It was supposed to teach us about critical analysis of media and writings.

Mine was on "Ode to Billie Joe."

All I know is that song scared the fuck out of me back when I was five years old.

Stuck in a mine. "Oh God what did we do?" Everyone was wondering what Timothy was. Some said he was a guy, others a mule.

They ate him! Poor Timothy!

...he would sell his soul for just a piece of meat." "...The only ones left to tell the tale were Joe--and me..." (A mule wouldn't've been telling the tale anyway. Who would care if they ate a mule to survive? Had to be a human Timothy.)

take out a big life insurance policy on him, and they were gonna fake Billie Joe's death and split the money, until Becky and Preacher Taylor realized splitting it two ways would be better than three. But it was sorta strange nobody ever found Billie Joe's body

Bobbie Gentry played by Edward G Robinson?

And me I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Chocktaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy waters off the Talahatchee bridge.

My take on the song is much more simple. It was just teenage love and they used to while away the time picking flowers and dropping them off the bridge. (that's what they were seen doing there)
Now she does it alone to remember those good times.

I think there was a TV movie made of the song, I never saw it but I heard they implied Billy Joe committed suicide because he was gay.

It was relatively new back then, and, well, not everyone realized, and well, you know the rest.