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(4,691 posts)Great song! Still sends chills down my spine.
Mr_Jefferson_24
(8,559 posts)...it really is a great one.
ailsagirl
(22,899 posts)Perhaps there IS no answer and she has deliberately left (most of) us hanging??
TexasBushwhacker
(20,219 posts)Some think it was a baby, and Billie Joe killed himself out of guilt.
But then the movie implied that Billie Joe was gay (still shocking in 1976). I don't think Bobby Gentry ever said what she intended. Maybe it's like the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.
I do wonder how Bobbie Gentry felt about the gay story line in the film. BTW, it was directed by Max Barr Jr. AKA Jethro Bodine!
Mr_Jefferson_24
(8,559 posts)...one of the results:
Ode was recorded on July 10, 1967 at Studio C in the Capitol tower. Accompanying herself on guitar, Bobbie nailed a keeper take in 40 minutes. Arranger Jimmie Haskell told MOJO, I asked Kelly, What do you want me to do? He said, Just put some strings on it so we wont be embarrassed. No one will ever hear it anyway. The song sounded to me like a moviethose wonderful lyrics. I had a small group of stringstwo cellos and four violins to fit her guitar-playing. I was branching out in my own head for the first time, creating something that I liked because we thought no one was ever gonna hear it.....
. . . .
....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 isnt that important.
Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridgeflowers, 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 Joes girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family."....
Source: http://performingsongwriter.com/bobbie-gentry-ode-billie-joe/
ailsagirl
(22,899 posts)But she still doesn't tell us what it was!
I noticed, of course, the way the family was chatting about the suicide over dinner-- and how dinner
was discussed so much-- I mean, I think we all got that. It's just that phrase, "She and Billy Joe was
(sic) throwing something off the...bridge," that intrigued everyone.
As I said, perhaps she didn't know herself! I mean, nothing makes sense really.
Mr_Jefferson_24
(8,559 posts)...thrown off the bridge, nor does she answer questions about what led up to the suicide, or offer any endorsement of the movie's interpretation of the song.
I guess a great song with great lyrics is understandably expected by many to be telling a complete story, but sometimes it just isn't.