In this lone hit song for Bobby Gentry, I’ve always been puzzled by one part of the song. There is a reference to the narrator of the tale (the singer that is) and Billy Joe throwing some off the Tallahachie Bridge a few days before Billy Joe kills himself by jumping off the bridge?
Just what was it that was being thrown off the bridge?
We had a thread on this earlier, but I’m too lazy to look it up, and I don’t think we came to any definitive conclusions anyway.
Me, I always figured the song was a veiled reference to an illicit abortion, and that Billy Joe wound up feeling so guilty about it that he killed himself. That’s just a wild guess, though.
Thanks, I’ll look for this in the archive. I thought an abortion of some type was likely.
I think they should sell Cliff Notes for this particular song.
I once asked my mom about this, and she said Billy Joe was gay, and couldn’t handle admitting it. So he jumped.
This URL sheds a bit of light:
Darn songwriters and their lack of intent. Bobby Gentry’s just like Don McLean. We want answers here, not moody introspection!
Incidental footnotes:
The song was recorded on July 10, 1967 in less than an hour, with Gentry accompanying herself on guitar. Violins and cellos were added later. It originally ran more than seven minutes and was shortened so as to be put on a 45 rpm as the “B” side of ‘Mississippi Delta’.
(Source: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits)
Haven’t you guys seen the movie? Yeah, it’s a real cheesy late 70’s classic. Starring Robbie Benson, with his gay love portrayed by the guy that played Sherrif Roscoe P. Coltrane on the Dukes of Hazzard. To tell you the truth, after seeing the movie, you’ll wish you could go to the time when it had your own personal interpretation to it and not some movie studio’s.
Yeah, that movie also features Robbie Benson delivering perhaps the worst fake southern accent in cinematic history.
Did the longer version of the song contain any extra verses that might shed some light on the mystery?
I was always told it had something to do with drugs. Damned long-haired hippie freaks…
Roughly a month after the U.S. release of SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND.
Maybe they were throwing the album off the bridge as a symbolic protest of overt psychedelia in popular music.