What exactly did Billy Joe McAllister throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge? Thanks.
Nobody knows. It’s the big mystery of the song, on purpose.
Well, another big mystery is why he jumped (though a major speculation is that the narrator of the song rejected him), but it could have been flowers - the last lines of the last verse are:
“And me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers
up on Choctaw Ridge.
And drop them in to the muddy water
of the Tallahatchie Bridge”
I heard it was a gay thing. People speculated that he threw a love letter or somesuch off the bridge (before he threw himself off the bridge). The singer is throwing funeral flowers. At least, that’s how I heard it.
I only vaguely remember the song, but I always thought it was a body.
RR
Wasn’t there a movie about him? i think there was some kind of negative “gay incident” befor he did it. Plus he had a rat face.
In the movie, he threw a rag doll off the bridge. I don’t remember why.
In the song, it’s not just him throwing something off the bridge, it’s him and a girl who “looks like” the narrator of the song. The comment is made to the narrator that she looks surprised/shocked at the news, too. One common interpretation I’ve read was that the narrator (a girl his age most likely) and Billy Joe were on the bridge tossing in sticks, stones, or flowers, and talking. He confesses his love, she says she doesn’t love him, and he later drowns himself. The song is her recounting hearing the news of his death over dinner, trying not to show a reaction since she feels guilty (under this interpretation), and bringing flowers to the site of his death later.
A gay thing?
The narrator in the song is a woman (a girl at the time). Billie Joe is a boy. There is an implied relationship between the two. What was thrown off the bridge is a McGuffin (sp?). Speculation abounds. Also, an important point: both the girl and Billie Joe threw whatever it was away…
“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 throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie bridge.”
Darn you, FerretHerder.
Ah, but you had the quoted lyric, so I’d count that as a better answer. 
Yes, that was Ode to Billy Joe, starring Robbie Benson. There seemed to have been a veiled “gay incident” in the movie but I can’t remember the details.
In my crowd when the song came out, it was regarded as a fetus or baby. The debate was over which and how come.
Since this is about a song, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.
Read Ode to Billy Joe years ago and if memory serves:
Girl and Billy Joe throw her rag doll off bridge some days previous to Billy Joe jumping off bridge. He is despondant over gay incident, cheating on girl with a same-sex encounter.
Cyn, I believe you’ve GOT IT!
What I heard was that Billy Joe survived the bridge-jumping incident, changed his name, made his way to Athens, Ga., where he got involved with the club scene and finally hit it big as a bassist for the B-52s.
That’s why she’s throwing flowers in the water.
No doubt, but the book is just a novelization of the movie. I don’t think Gentry ever gave any indication that the contents of the movie were what she had in mind when she wrote the song. (It’s making me feel old that I have to mention this, but no, the song wasn’t written to accompany the movie. The song came first, and the movie years later.)
There was a good thread on this topic not that long ago, but I don’t have time to search for it right now.
I know when I first heard the song, my first thought was that he got the girl narrator pregnant out of wedlock, and she either stayed thin enough to have it in secret and then they killed it by throwing it off the bridge, or she had it aborted and they threw the aborted fetus off the bridge. Then Billy Joe, overcome by guilt, killed himself.
Don’t know what the writer of the song intended, however.
There was another thread last month that discussed this at length(and then some).
Check it out too, for various opinions.