Ah. I’m from New York, and I think of Motown when I think of black singers. “Ode to Billie Joe” is probably the first, and for a long time, only Delta Blues song I ever heard. My parents didn’t play country stations, but “Ode to Billie Joe” played everywhere.
I guess style has a lot to do with it. I didn’t realize “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” was Dionne Warwick, probably because the song is by the very white Burt Bacharach. And I was too young to know the history of it and the connection to the movie Valley of the Dolls, when I was little, and it was still getting a lot of radio play, even in like 1972 & 73.
Actually, now that I think about it, it probably got play during the Manson trial, because of the Sharon Tate connection. That’s pretty morbid, but back then, you just listened to whatever the DJs played on the radio. When I was three, I could sing a lot of popular songs I heard on the radio.
Personally, I like that Ms Gentry never explained what was thrown off or why. It fuels the tone of the song and make it stick in your head. I hadn’t thought of the indifference angle but now that’s been pointed out, I can clearly see it. It’s almost a Tennessee Williams play in a song.
I think whatever was thrown off is a MacGuffin-- that is, there is no answer. Bobbie Gentry doesn’t have an answer, because she never got that far. In fact, we don’t even know for sure it was the narrator-- it’s just a girl who looked like her, although, I’m pretty sure we are supposed to believe it’s her-- but I don’t think Gentry had anything fixed in her mind. The line is just there to show that she knew Billie Joe better than her family is aware that she did. People throw stuff off bridges. They throw rocks, coins, flowers, sticks. It’s the kind of thing you do when you live in a place where there isn’t much to do, and you get bored.
Contrast with, say, “You’re So Vain,” which Carly Simon maintains refers to an actual, single person, although she won’t say who.
I’ve kinda wondered if the guy in “You’re So Vain” might’ve been a MacGuffin-- or not even that-- it was just a song that was a work of fiction, but so many people assumed it must be real, the idea sort of took on a life of its own, and Carly Simon played along. Yes, I know about her eBay auction, but she could have settled on a name for the hell of it in the intervening decades.
Yeah, but you should also think of Stax (Memphis) and all the great soul music cut at the Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama. From there came black singers who were indeed Southern.
“Ode” was much more successful on the pop charts (#1 for several weeks) than it was on the country charts, where it peaked at #17. Frankly, it’s surprising it did that well, considering how out-of-step stylistically it was from the country music of the day. But it’s proof that a compelling story, very well-performed and arranged, can win out over all objections.
To quote myself and the ONE true contribution I ever made to that chestnut thread way back at the end of 2000…
''According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits…
Quote:
Those who wondered about such matters missed the point of the song, according to Gentry. “The song is a 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 people expressed in the song. (…) Everybody … has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge - flowers, 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.”
I think she may have been mistaken for black because she’s a 2nd alto, associated with blues, associated with black. When my kids were little and I’d sing around the house they’d say You sound black! It was a compliment. I like notes so low it sounds like you’re digging your toes in the ground in order to bring them up.
Maybe… but I think it’s more that her southern US/Mississippi accent and some of the lyrics of the song are usually associated with black culture and history.
For example,
FTR, I don’t think she sounds black but on relistening I see where the mistake could be made.
See, again, I’m from New York, and I lived in a mixed neighborhood when I was really little (Morningside Heights). I knew lots of black people, and none of them talked like that. I don’t think I even knew cotton was a plant until I was pretty old.