Let's talk about why Billy Joe jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge....
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- Опубліковано 5 січ 2025
- Ode to Billy Joe: • Bobby Gentry - Ode to ...
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I like your analysis Beau. I think the song is also about how events can nail us to certain places (in this case), or people or ideas or emotions. Bobbie's narrator is 'stuck' to the Tallahatchie Bridge by what happened there. She may be stuck to it partly _because_ no-one else cares, so she feels she has to. Whether you'd call it memorialising or failing to move on is a matter of perspective.
that movie was scary to me as a little kid, but as an adult,the indifference that scares me more.
The movie is called "Ode to Billie Joe" in which he committed suicide after being raped by some drunken "good ol boys".
Saw the title. Had to visit. That song haunted me as a kid back in the seventies.
Joe Dassin did a pretty faithful French version of that song "le pont de la Garrone " or "Marie Jeanne" , the fact it translated so seamlessly into French culture kind of proves your point .
PS captions on both vids get the lyrics wrong yours : " father thought you didn't have a look of sense " and bobby gentry's: "billy joe never had liquor since " which does, you'll have to admit, lend an odd twist to the story.
Well, I must be some kind of freak because I've never wondered what they threw off the bridge. I've always wondered why her parents couldn't SEE her pain sitting there at that table.
They perhaps dismiss it because she is so young & inexperienced. I can relate, i was in love at 16. They blew it off as 'puppy love' ten years later I married that young man I was in love with. We had 7 children then he passed.. When my daughter came home from school at 16 i might add, she told me she was in love with Donny. He came over for supper, after supper I told her if you want to marry him you have my blessings.. They have been married for 20 years and 2 sons.
I believe they knew exactly what she was feeling. The mother mentions the preacher saying he saw "a girl that looked like you" with Billy, and anyone with a passive aggressive mother should be able to see right through the meaning of that. Her mother knew, and likely her father knew, as indicated by him talking about how Billy had no sense, he clearly didn't like BIlly. I think it's a typical case of two parents not approving of their daughter's lover and showing her that, even though they know she's sad about him dying. I think they told her she wasn't allowed to see him anymore, and Billy decided he'd rather die than live without her, and her parents were perfectly fine with that. What they threw off the bridge really doesn't matter.
The whole tune is about the indifference of the adults.
@@richardkennedy8481 The movie was the creation of a screenwriter.
@@timmy707707 Yeah, so? That's the way movies are made. Would you have preferred it to be the creation of the janitor?
I just listened to this song. I want to cry every time. I think you have nailed it. I’m seventy years old I never cared what was thrown off the bridge I always felt bad for Bobby sitting at the table knowing what and why and having to listen to the heartless conversation. All the characters played they’re parts perfectly
Exactly!
Something's symbolic, Was thrown off the bridge.
The bridge, the structure that it was also symbolic. As for me, I really don't care. What was thrown off the bridge? It was the act.
You are talking about characters in a movie. The song came out before the movie so it us up to the song writer to say what it is about. Don't get the song people heard and tried to interpret a meaning with the movie that was made by interpreting a song
I still think he was murdered
The real tragedy is that no one in her family even notices her distress at the table or cares. Is this really family life?
When I was a kid, that song would make me cry, because no one but the girl seemed to love Billy Joe.
This song always makes me very sad from when I first heard it as a child and now as well. I feel bad for the girl because she lost her Billy Joe and for Billy Joe because he felt that he couldn't or shouldn't go on.
Me too
I always imagined Billie Joe as someone older than the narrator -- and that he had somehow taken advantage of her.
Mee tooo
Omgoodness me too and the movie it played in, made it even sadder.😭
And you're right, the small talk around the table is the real horror.
My family is small, and I can vouch for this...
Couldn't stand listening to the song; I understood immediately that the talk was horrible and that was the point -- we care so little for one another.
Small talk, ANYWHERE, ruins lives. 💔
@@veramae4098 Regardless whether alive or dead there's always going to be those so empty and miserable from within that will be talking about others.
The weirdest thing: my uncle died today from Covid. As I cried I was scrolling trying to think of anything else. Gentry's video singing this made me stop and listen. I haven't heard it since I was a teenager. And it's just so haunting a song. Then this video pops up and I watch. Feeling better about falling apart at my loss because at least people cared.
Sending virtual hugs from Australia.
As Bobbie Gentry says , that are messages that come from the unconscious and people seems not to hear.
We could fish what is in the unconscious minds? Not everyone, only yours. Like a mathematician design a magic square, you can use your stones of the game with letters and see how far you may go.
The meaning of thing they have thrown on the Mississippi muddy waters is darker and may the secret has thousands of years. We must solve it. It's not Agatha Christie novel, but she did know this thing.
If you go to congress library, they will go after you. Your only way is to follow your unconscious.
Carl Gustav Jung surely did. His book Aion has to be read with care.
Also Lewis Carroll knew lots about the secrecy behind humanity.
Why would someone wear a dagger? Because Iscariot is the man who bears a dagger? Why would someone give a man as present a dagger?
The most intriguing question: is Judas Iscariot still alive?
The object thrown down the river, then the talk to preacher Taylor who saw the two, then the father catches as strange vírus that's going around.
So sorry for your loss. A year ago. Some people still don't want to acknowledge that so many people died from Covid.
My Brother just died on July 4th from complications of diabetes. I feel your pain
@carmineredd The point I was making is I'm in pain too. Whatever the cause of the loss.
The counter-balance: Listen to the end of the song. After her brother moves away, her dad dies, and her mom has a nervous breakdown, the narrator pays them as much attention as they paid to her. Her focus remains on Billy Joe.
She still grieves, and is locked into that one moment of her life.
Or maybe she learned that her mother prefers grieving in others to be ignored...
Or maybe they're not really human, since they couldn't be bothered to even pretend empathy for others. Would they even understand empathy shown to them?
Back when this song first came out my husband and I were in high school. Two of the big deals to avoid were teen pregnancies and daft notices. But at the time I confess to not having an insight to Billie Joe. Too busy with my girls world.
@@juditrotter5176 Those daft draft notices... 😘
Gentry is a genius. She brings you into her house and introduces you to her family, and sings where her love is. It's Twain level American art.
I'd never seen her perform until I followed up after this vid. I was quite impressed, and I'm more of a prog rocker than a singer-songwriter fan. Quite fetching too!
Artstrology , that was a great comment ! !
You win UA-cam Best Comment Of The Day !
Bobbie Gentry is from Chickasaw County, Mississippi, which is where I’ve lived my entire life. Not a lot of popular stuff comes from this area, so I thought it was cool of you to use her in one of your vids.
Always enjoy hearing your insights! Take care!
As a child i always thought they threw a dead child off bridge ,just my memory you probably fill in what you want to believe,lived in Mississippi ex wife was from delta
Mark or Shania?????
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 isn’t that important.
“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. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.”
Exactly!!
That's what I always thought was the worst thing about the song... their inability to see what was right in front of them
Yeah, I'm thinking they totally realized Billie Joe's girlfriend was at the table. They were sending her a blunt message.
Dad mind was in work. The brother didn't even know that he knew...he mentioned how Billie Joe and he put the frog down her back, even though she hung out with and liked Billie Joe.
Mom knew...that's why she mention the young preacher and what he saw....and he's now coming to dinner. Mom knew that is why she called her out on not eating her food.
Whatever was thrown off the bridge affected Billie Joe enough that he jumped off that same bridge.
Been decades since I've watched that movie with my mom, so I can't really remember more.
I always wondered if they KNEW she was his actual girlfriend... and maybe thought they were just friends when in reality she was much more. Maybe they had to keep their relationship under cover because he wasn't good enough for them/her/whatever going by the way her father spoke and the father being the head of the house so to speak. Maybe whatever it was that was thrown off the bridge was the cause of the end of their relationship and she feels guilty because if they hadn't broken up, he would not have died... hmm you go around and around in circles with this.
I remember being very very upset by this song as a youngster (6-ish) asking, more pleading, to my mother why no one cared about Billie Joe. My mother's reply: "ugh. you're just so wierd."
She taught me without teaching me. I definitely understood why Billie Joe jumped.
I don't. He sacrificed his life for no good reason, falsely believing that he would get back at those who had hurt him by making them be sorry they caused it. But they didn't feel sorry and now he is dead.
@@karenryder6317 That's why suicidal depression is a mental illness. I hear it's sometimes caused by bullying. Billy Joe was a minor stuck in a town of jerks.
@@karenryder6317
Ascribing malice to his otherwise unspecified intentions & your utter lack of empathy is very telling about the kind of person you are.
We've worked with hundreds of suicidal patients, some of them with decades of survival. Yes, SOME people are fixated on revenge, or "miss me," but most suicidal patients feel the opposite: grief over the harm their suicide may cause, but seeing it as the lesser evil to the impossible burden they saw themselves as.
Please, never assume that the person discussing suicide is trying to CAUSE HURT, they're trying to ESCAPE HURT.
Robbie Benson 😊
As a woman, I assumed that she'd had a miscarrage. But I agree that the tragedy was that the girl was invisible to her family.
I always thought it couldn't be a baby since the family would have known.
@@GrowSomeLabia Some women can hide it well. I had a cousin who did just that. Hid it till it came because of what everyone would say.
@richardkelley3644 True, and my niece actually did it too. But she lived in Vermont and could wear baggy winter clothes. The Billy Joe gal lived in Mississippi snd in a rural, highly judgmental town. It's unlikely her boyfriend was a secret, and covering up a pregnancy would have been, I expect, near-impossible.
It was absolutely a baby or a miscarriage (fetus), as I explained in my own comment.
It was an illegally aborted fetus.
The interesting thing here is, I knew as a child that the point of this song was how everybody cared WHY Billy Joe jumped off the bridge, but nobody cared THAT Billy Joe jumped off the bridge. And even when you try to point it out to people, they still don't. "That's not the point," you'll say, and they go "well I still want to know." It's like Yogi Berra said - some people, what they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Caliban Darklock I was thinking the exact same thing. My mom thought it was cute when I was like 7 and asked how come her family didn’t care that her friend died? I think children are way more perceptive than we tend to give em credit for. Our culture tends to wanna validate aggression and mute sensitivities, which only turns down the ability to empathize with others as we age. 😒
@@hollyballa8110 I agree. I know this will sound petty, but I think one example of this lacking of empathy is the show The Office. It's all cringe humor. Total and complete cringe humor. I personally can't stand the show, I have to leave the room whenever my brother plays it because I'm so embarrassed for them, and I wonder why they're all so mean to each other.
The news is filled with horror after horror, and the newscasters just... Talk about it with a placid smile on their face. Every time I watch the news, I feel my soul get heavier. Not just because people died, but because no one cares. The newscasters jump from 10 deaths, 5 missing, and 16 in critical condition, to what Kim Kardashian wore to the [big event] last night.
It almost feels deliberate.
We're made to not care, or to laugh when other people feel bad.
And... I don't know why.
@@aldenheterodyne2833 Ah! I posted a comment to the OG. But if you want to know why, i might be able to add some light. Try taking the Myers-Briggs personality test. I suspect you might come up INJT or INFP - these people go around in life wanting to either enable others to have a good time, or wanting others to have a good time. We kinda avoid confrontations because of this, we dont want to make life unpleasant for others. I often misunderstood this to mean we care too much of what others think of us. But its not that. We just want others to have a good time. CRINGE is THAT unpleasantness. We see people in discomfort for the simple lack of good communication skills... which are often easily taught.... Is that about right?
@@gepisar Hmm... It's not that I necessarily want to fix them, I just feel embarrassed for them. I feel sad when I see other people sad. I feel angry when other people are angry, I feel frustrated when other people are frustrated. I feel pain when they are in pain.
I feel more comfortable feeling fictional people's emotions than I do my own. It's a method of catharsis: I don't want to be sad because I have a paper due next week, I want to be sad because I'm feeling grief for the dead mom of my favorite character.
I don't want to necessarily make other people happy, but I don't like it when I'm expected to watch people be mean to each other. I like when I'm expected to empathize with the characters, not laugh at their pain.
@@gepisar I got "Architect" which is... INTJ-T... I would find out what that means, but the Myers Briggs test feels more like a BuzzFeed quiz than anything, so I'm not sure how relevant the answer would be.
I wanted to thank you for what you said about "Ode to Billie Joe". I was only 10 years when that song came out, but I have always known that the point of the song was that most folk just go about their business following a suicide. The only folk that hurt are the ones who cared all along. Thank you for validating the thoughts of a young girl, even after this long.
You were wise beyond your age.
Ode to Billy Joe is one of the most haunting songs I have ever heard. It gets into your soul and doesn't leave.
Never, Billy Joe has affected my life, I've mourned him all this time, still do.
I heard this song for the first time when I was 9. And you are right. It never leaves. I am 63 now, and I still really wonder what she knew (or saw).
2 sets of flowers at the end ... one for Billy Joe, one for the baby. She couldn't talk about the baby,.... at least girl missed him ...Good analysis! Good point, only hurt those you love...
I agree. Kind of like “Angie Baby,” by Helen Reddy.
It was really cold in that garage/shed you were in, wasn't it? My dad committed suicide, not on a bridge, but in our back yard with a gun. He was suffering from clinical depression, a severe mental disease. He died from a disease that is every bit as insidious as cancer. Not from the gunshot wound. Same as Naomi Judd, may God rest her soul.
Pass the biscuits, please...
Sorry for your loss, Susan. Depression is truly a horrific disease. May your dad rest in peace.
Sorry for you and your family. Depression is horrible.
I'm so sorry, Susan. My heart goes out to you and your family and your dad. Depression is a cloud bank of hurt that hides every ray of sunshine and joy. Too often, none of the medications help.
I'm so sorry.
I am sorry for you: it is so hard to louse our loved one to suicide- I am 78 and lost my son when he was 49- the pain never goes away:
This popped up on my list of recommendations today, and sent me down a rabbit hole. Wikipedia has a good article about this song, which includes links to two newspaper pieces from the months after it was released. You give the impression that not even Bobby Gentry knew what was thrown from the bridge, but this isn't the case. An article from November of 1967 points out that "she knew, definitely, what was thrown off the bridge."
She seems to have been perplexed by how much attention was focused on this detail, saying, “But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of people expressed in the song -- and what was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.” She described the song as "sort of a study in unconscious cruelty."
In another piece, published just 5 weeks after the song was released, she states, "In the song I wanted to show people's lack of ability to relate to someone else's tragedy." She goes on to say, "Here's this girl, she doesn't have an appetite, and her mother doesn't understand why she isn't eating. Yet in the last verse, when the mother has lost her own husband, she doesn't seem to be aware of any similarity; and the daughter, instead of consoling her mother, all she wants to do is stick around there up on the bridge. So they've all isolated themselves in their own personal tragedies and never gotten involved with anyone else's."
By the way, the song was released just before Gentry's 23rd birthday. Amazing how wise she was at such a young age.
WIKI SUCKS
You've written a well-researched response. The only error is the song was released as she was turning 25.
@@strawberryseason Oh, thanks for the correction. I wonder where I got 23 from. In any event, still impressive that she had so much insight so early in her life.
@@muzvid Absolutely! What a brilliant song!
@@strawberryseason Turns out the error came from my accepting without question what was published in the LA Times! Thanks again for letting me know.
You've really opened my mind on a topic I've wondered about these past 40 years.
A way of seeing in a new light is always a gift. Thank you.
PS. Bobbi Gentry was a very intelligent woman who went on to get a degree in Philosophy from UCLA.
As a kid I Remember thinking how Utterly Devastating it Must have been for the Narrator to sit there and feign Indifference while her Heart was obviously Breaking 💔
the way the song is played and sung it s like this has hurt and haunted her since the day it happened
@@robinkauffman1034
Yes, and that hurt will never go away, I'm afraid. On the contrary, it may resurface with even greater force later on in her life, as with the years she grows all the more conscious of the uniqueness and fragility of us all.
In my family you always feigned indifference, it was safer. You wore a smile like a mask.
I am a suicide survivor. No one cared why. No one asked why. One person knew and cared. Most everyone else distanced themselves for awhile, like I was contagious. So many people live in their own bubbles.
@@sandy-pf9bb Thank you so much for sharing your story. I think it was very brave of you. I'm so glad you're a survivor. I care. God Bless
@darkskinneddamsel8203 Thank you. It was wonderful of you to take the time to answer. You have no idea what that means to me, I'm actually crying. (The good kind of tears) I hope God will bless you too, He's already given you a kind and loving heart.
At one point, she said it was a “ study in unconscious cruelty “.
That or plan your revenge carefully.
I believe she was talking about how cruel the family was being without even realizing it. "Sister" sits there in the midst of her family, listening to them make meaningless chit-chat over lunch, none of them even noticing her pain over Billy Joe's death.
That makes a lot of sense to me. A pretty brilliant description IMO.
@ Caper. here, Hi. "A Study in Unconscious Cruelty" The only explanation I've EVER heard in decades that actually MADE SENSE to me, You even had me smh YES. Thank You. 🐶 PEACE! 🚭
i always assumed she was pregnant by billie joe, unknown to her family. either aborted or miscarried, they threw baby off the bridge and he suicided later after thinking about it. the fact she added the preacher commenting makes it clear he isnt someone they could confide in..
Bobby Gentry singing (BBC,1968) posted 11 years ago,claims @ 2:22 "She described the song as a 'study in UNCONSCIOUS CRUELTY' ." Human Consciousness is an unfathomable gift AND, if "duty" has meaning, perhaps this gift has an unspoken obligation to make GOOD use of our consciousness ? I fall flat often. B-)
I understand. I'm a book dealer. My best friend, a book dealer I worked with for 20 years died. I stopped selling books. My world broke. It's 5 years later. I'm beginning to heal.
I know and I am 55 years old.
It is 03:05. I needed to hear this video because I am in a bad place right now
Thank you for that. You will never know what you stopped...
Unrelated and useless fact: Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day was named after that song.
His parents had good taste.
pretty cool fact
I don't MIND some early green day but shit, The dude literally has no creative talent anymore, he just puts out one rip off of another rip off. Like he doesnt even try to hide it anymore. It reminds me of Jet ripping off Iggy Pop's big song Lust for life with their song are you gonna be my girl. Iggy took influence from a song by the Supremes or the ronettes, and he used the beat and bass line, but then jet ripped ofd the entire song and said "oh we talked with Iggy and he agreed we sound more like the ronettes song and we were actually taking influence from THAT song", and its sooooooo arrogant, ita like theyre saying "we couldn't have ripped Iggy off if we say we took from the same song he did."
Why would you name a child after someone who was famous for killing themselves. What if he gets depressed and thinks he should find the Tallahatchie bridge.
Almost bought a Green Day CD@ half-price books, I forget which one it was, never have seen it before.
My oldest brother died by his own hand.
It haunts our family to this day.
But years earlier when I was pissed at the world and depressed and confused, he told me that suicide is a violent act.
Against the people who love you.
True
It’s the most selfish act a human can do
It’s been done to me - and it’s cold blooded
The first time I heard this, we were in the throes of the onset of Covid . Beau educated and informed us as we struggled to survive. Sometimes, Beau, you are the best of independent journalism and sometimes an artist with words. Thank you!
I'm 58i remember and love that song. I remember the movie too with Robbie Bensen and Glynnis O'Conner.
I’d like to make a small correction to “you only hurt the ones you love”.. it’s really “you only hurt the ones who love you”. It’s small but important I think.
Nice distinction!
Not according to the hit song. You only hurt the ones you love.
@@stephenp.6395 Well, if a hit song says so it must be true! /sarc
“You only hurt the ones you love” is a quote from Oscar Wilde - “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”
I remember feeling so bad for Billie Joe. Having fought suicidal urges myself, I knew that he had been in terrible pain, and wracked with misery. He saw no other path out of the dark pit. And in the song, his passing was just a point of gossip over lunch. And not even IMPORTANT gossip at that. Nobody wondered why, or cared that he had been in that bad of a state. I surmised that whatever he and his girlfriend did had given him terrible guilt and shame. But again, no one cared. Even his "girlfriend" managed to keep her composure.
A dark song, for those of us who have gone too close to the abyss.
I hope you never look that abyss in the face. I too know where you are coming from. I have been too close to that edge, and it's painful, and it hurts and you think no one cares. But I hear you.
I don't know you but I'm glad you stepped back from the abyss and hope you continue to have the courage to live on! I've been close myself but was blessed to have family and friends who cared.
@@rksnj6797 Bless you for your kind words to someone you admittedly don't know! Sadly, isn't that the way it goes?
Yes, I do speak from personal experience with the "bonus" of being on both sides of the suicide issue.
Obviously, survived too many attempts, but also, widowed by suicide.
Recently, I saw the perfect comment here, on this channel that seems apropos:
"Try Kindness. It may be the knot at the end of someone's rope."
My own saying has long been;
"Send them flowers while they can enjoy them, not at some stupid gathering of the hypocrites!" 🌼🌹💐🥀
@@elle45789 😭😭😭💕💕💕
@Sandra Nelson ...sorry about you feeling that way, but am very happy you're still with us.
Suicide doesn't stop the pain, it only passes it on to others
Thanks, Beau. Based on the fact that Gentry once said it was a study in "unconscious cruelty," I think you hit the nail on the head. It is ultimately about the disregard we have for our fellow man. Like others, I've focused on the mystery. However, the complete lack of concern for Billy Joe and the family's ignorance about his relationship with their daughter is made even more poignant when you realize that even in death he means nothing to them.
Unconscious cruelty, yes. But Bobbie Gentry also later said in an interview that the song was a tribute to Emmett Till. His death [at age 14] was not a suicide, but a brutal murder. And the killers threw his mutilated body into the Tallahatchie River only ten miles away from where Bobbie [at age 13] was living at the time with her grandparents ["Momma" and "Papa"] and brother. Few white people were outraged by this crime, but Bobbie was, and soon left Mississippi to join her mother in Los Angeles. Years later, she wrote "Ode to Billy Joe." What else could her statement that it was a tribute to Emmett Till mean? Maybe she thought that a black boy coming from Chicago to the deep South without understanding the extreme virulence of its racism was a kind of involuntary suicide? But in any case, was she implying that her grandmother sensed that the news could be a sore subject, and that the two men were unconcerned?
Yeah, you nailed it. I add that what hits me is the way this family can't see that one of their own is in pain is simply horrifying.
I'm old enough to remember when this song came out, and I still think of it from time to time. It was so evocative of a place and time and people, and it made me so sad, how dismissed Billy Joe's death was by everyone, but the narrator. I never really cared about what was thrown off the bridge (I don't mind mystery), but I did care about poor Billy Joe, and thought about the girl throwing flowers off the bridge. Nothing makes me sadder than a young person's suicide - no matter how terrible things may seem at the time, their whole lives still lay before them. But, when you're a teenager, you think whatever is going on, is forever. I once told a high school girl that was being bullied and talking about suicide, that high school was such a short time, and that no matter what was going on, the moment it was over - it was over for good. You never have to see any of those people again - ever. It seemed to help, as she didn't go through with it.
@@sue2613 Wow.. thank you, very much. :)
I thought Billy Joe jumped off the bridge. 🤦🏼♀️
Just young people?
Isn’t it sad when an older person commits suicide? Or is that okay because they don’t have that much longer to live anyway?
Why is it so many don’t ever think about all the things the words that come out of their mouths, other than the specific thing you are saying!! Think dummy think!!
@@moniqueengleman873he did, but earlier he & the girl threw something off the bridge.
@@deborahbarnes6741 My husband looked just like Robbie Benson. They both lost their boyishness 😔
It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton, and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered out the back door, y'all, remember to wipe your feet
And then she said, I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And papa said to mama, as he passed around the blackeyed peas
Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please
There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow
And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And brother said he recollected when he, and Tom, and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
I'll have another piece-a apple pie; you know, it don't seem right
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
And mama said to me, child, what's happened to your appetite?
I've been cookin' all morning, and you haven't touched a 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 Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge
A year has come and gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And brother married Becky Thompson; they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round; papa caught it, and he died last spring
And now mama doesn't seem to want to do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Bobbie Gentry
Ode to Billie Joe lyrics © Spirit Music Group
Thank you. Yazoo, what a word with many different meanings.
Pretty clear , not a single line about Billie Joe's eomotions or charakter or personality.
The psycho terror of being alone.
Your not alone when there is nobody around , your alone when nobody knows you.
It is a brilliant use of a sophisticated short story technique, (show, don't tell) to drive the ballad's narrative.
First time I hear this song- seems pretty straight forward suicide- perhaps due to forbidden love or friendship. She returns to the site of his demise and possibly their special place dropping flowers into the river, a beautifully peaceful contemplation of the loss of a loved one to suicide.
A C okay...so what did THEY throw off the bridge together??...Before he jumped off?
I never thought that the object thrown off the bridge was important. My take was the relationship that was hidden.
Well, the narrator of the story didn't have an appetite at the dinner table when the family was talking about Billy Joe jumping off the bridge. Then the Mother mentioned off the cuff that a preacher said he saw a girl like the narrator with Billy throwing something off the bridge. So most people would assume, whatever it was that was thrown off the bridge must be connected to Billy and the narrator.
@@Hunterchuck Which is honestly what makes it so genius and scary. Even after the mother mentioned that she didn't ask or even think it could be her daughter and the dinner proceeded as usual. It showed how little she cared.
Which leads me to think how the passing of the father and the mother's grief being told later shows a mix of her actually caring about her family regardless while also attempting the same cruelty . I say attempt because she still mentions their ailments and the reasons for them but they're just mentioned off-hand, at least in regards to the song as a whole.
Nobody Gave a Shit about Billie Joe except Her the song writer
It was a still-born dude
I don't think the relationship was hidden, I think her parents knew and didn't want her dating Billy. I think they forced her to stop seeing him and Billy decided he'd rather die than live without her. What they threw off the bridge doesn't matter at all.
Touching my childhood a bit here Beau reminds me of my father sitting by the fire pit in the backyard watching the flames smoke in one hand beer in the other, that man passed away when I was 22 I am 31 now. I still think about him everyday. The pain I still have for the loss of my father has kept me from making the one mistake you can’t ever come back from because my children are way to young to burden that pain.
I think Bobby was trying to describe the culture of the South and the things life would throw at you and how they handled hardship
Will always be a favorite song of mine, because of what it is. I saw an interview once with Bobbie Gentry where she says this song was a study in passive aggression and how callous we can become to our loved ones. I think I've also seen where she took inspiration from Emmet Till's murder, adapting the social responses into her story of Billy Joe. Good choice to highlight and decode.
Wow, I'd never heard about the Emmett Till connection. Interesting!
I always surmised that the mother knew what was going on or she never would have made that comment to her daughter. Is that the passive aggressiveness she speaks of?
@@vincentzito3933 yes, as well as the father's complete willful ignorance. Families can be very aggressive emotionally in any number of ways.
Way later but i, too, have read articles where she said either the Till murder, or a similar one, was the seed of thought..good call out.
I didn't think anyone listened to this song anymore. I still cry when I hear it.
It still gets me too, that one and The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.
I listen to it very often and cry almost every time.
I still listen to it. It's just one of those songs that gets to ya. Didn't they make a movie based on the song?
@@anotherrandomperson5154 yes they made a movie of it, Starring Robbie Benson.
@@crystalhuber4536 Thx! I thought so.
my husband killed himself
what that did to my children is immeasurable damage. I'm still angry at him for what he did to them.
There is absolutely nothing I can say. I'm sorry for your loss always falls flat and sounds trite. All I can do is offer you virtual comfort in the form of empathy. That and a hug.
💔😔
Bluebelle51 I am sorry for your loss. I have contemplated ending my life a few times when I was going through depression. Honestly, how it would affect my family never crossed my mind at that time. Not even once. I was way too self absorbed. I only saw my pain. Thankfully I was able to crawl out of that tunnel by myself. Now that I have kids I am ashamed of how selfish I had been at that time and how devastated my parents would have been. There is something about mental illness that isolate people even as they stand in a crowded room. It is not willful as much as involuntary.
Anyways, I thought I would share my story with you. 💐
There are no words. I’m so sorry and I understand your anger.
message deleted You show profound compassion - I wish more people could read your response, which I find very moving. While it would not necessarily resonate with everyone, I believe it would help and comfort many who are struggling to accept or deal with the emotions launched by the act of suicide
One of my favorite all time songs, always made me cry…the juxtaposition of the narrator telling the story, feeling the heartbreak, the secret heartbreak of the wretched news being told by people who don’t seem to be bothered by it at all…this song shaped my world view. I was bullied horribly from a young age, by neighbors, classmates, and my own parents. That dad? When he said that about Billy Joe, he could have said it about me…he called everyone a twerp. My sister’s boyfriend died in a car wreck, he was driving, when she was 15 in 1984. Folks didn’t know he was her boyfriend. He had come over to the house once, told my sister, “there’s some twerp at the door for you.” My folks had NO idea what this death meant to my sister, and thought I was just being melodramatic for attention because I was so upset…the conversation around the dinner table the day we found out about that was much the same…mom said it was a shame. Dad asked who that kid was…my sister was falling to pieces and didn’t manage to start living with it until,she was in her 30’s…
When I sat down one night in 1988 to decide whether or not I would continue to live, that song was going through my head…and I decided to take unaliving myself “off the menu,” no matter what because, “eff them, I’m sticking around.” Honestly, that decision gave me so much freedom. I was not worried about anything and did any and everything I wanted. I didn’t go around being jerk, I just stopped caring what anyone said to/about me. I did stuff that could potentially kill me, so what? I have great stories…
Still know song by heart. Life is a lot better now. I still take risks, but no longer with my life.
Glad you decided to stay. You sound like a beautiful person. Much love to you.
I understand completely. I was bullied constantly and I thought about giving up and I refused to let the evil world win.
You didn't perpetuate the evil you endured and that's wonderful. I'm so glad your life is better now. The world is a better place when we figure out the bullies are the real broken ones.
When I was in High School, there was a concert by The Edge. And I started crying during the concert when they sang "Give to Live" by Sammy Haggar. Ric Powell, the bassist spoke to me and asked why I'd been crying, and I told him my friend Lori was suicidal. He spoke to Lori in private, I never knew what they discussed. But he cared enough about a couple of stranger teens to do that for us. She is still alive, and a mother, to this day. But the next year, close to the beginning of school, I was sitting at a table selling flowers for a school fund raiser. I overheard another girl laughing with her friends and she said "did you hear? That stupid band that played a the school? Well, the bass player was in a car accident and died." I was so shocked, and instantly got up and ran off. I don't recall to this day where I went or what I did. The rest of the day was a blank. I considered Ric a good friend, even if I'd only known him a couple of hours, and a hero for helping Lori find the will to live. And this was how I found out about his death? A group of girls laughing about it? That was 1987. A couple of years ago (right before Covid), I saw my former French teacher in the store and we got to talking. She'd been a favorite. Somehow we got onto the subject of that day I heard the news. She mentioned she'd covered for me with all of my teachers, saying I was doing a special project for her. She had no clue where I went or why, but knew it had to have been serious because I never skipped. I was shocked, having been thinking the entire school would have known (a teenager's thinking). I told her what I'd overheard and Mrs. Haynes said she is so glad she covered for me. That no one should find out about a friend's death that way. I still love that teacher, more so now then I ever did in high School. She was a true friend, didn't even know why I'd disappeared, but made sure it wouldn't bite me later. And after all those years, she still felt my pain when I finally told someone what had happened.
No one should ever feel like things are better off un-aliving themselves. I know, I've bee there, too. But most of all, society needs to help these young people learn how to stand up for themselves, love themselves, appreciate themselves. No one read's minds. But young people shouldn't feel so isolated and yet so visible, only to find out they aren't visible at all.
@@oougahersharr ❤️
Bobbie Gentry said it was inspired by the death of Emmett Till. Bobbie also said she knew what they threw off but would never tell because it didn't matter.
How very profound: "The only people who care, are the only people who cared."
Not everyone who ends it does so to send a message to the living.
Sometimes it is just about ending suffering, physicly or mentaly.
i was not thinking of my large family when i tried to suicide at age 16, if anything, the pain i caused my parents and nieces stopped me from trying again.
i'm now 52 and can't believe it's 2020, and sadly most of those mentioned above don't speak to me since i transitioned, somewhat ironic.
@@amandagardner565 aww man, I'm so sorry..
@@amandagardner565 wow. I am sorry. But if they arent around im sure that means you're better off without them. Sometimes it is that way.
@@amandagardner565 This is what I'm trying to put my finger on. Those people that they tell you to think about so you don't do it?
They don't always think of you. Maybe we should start thinking of others BEFORE they reach the brink.
And we should stop expecting the impossible of people who are in that situation.
That's why I have to stay alive until I outlive my wife and my mom. Life is awful, and I've never wanted to live, but I have to spare them that pain. Sometimes not wanting to hurt the ones you love is the only thing that keeps you going.
It's the honorable thing to do.
Indeed, I am the same. I hate the world it is too evil and uncaring, but I cannot hurt the people I love....So I am still here.
@@clarestubbs9303100% 😢
Oh if my mom wasn’t here, ty Jesus, I’m not quite sure where I’d be! She’s 72 and I’m 54. I’ve lost two husbands and she’s been with my stepdad for 34yrs. I could not put her through all that pain and have to be strong enough to not have her hurt in any way!!!!❤
I feel the same way. Dying (and living) have just never held the importance for me that it does for other people. I’m afraid of the change from living too dead, but it’s more like the apprehension of jumping into cold water. It’s the initial shock that scares me. I’m estranged from nearly everyone in my family…severe mental illness…but it would still destroy my adult daughters. I can’t do that to them. But the pain in my psyche is so bad that I’m not really very helpful to them either. So, I just take it day by day and try to stay on the planet, just praying for an “acceptable” death.
This song bumped a Beatles song from the top spot. Pretty damn good.
I'm old enough to remember this song but at the time it came out, too young to worry about the meaning but old enough to understand what you're saying today.
@Adymn Sani ;
Always thought Mick Jagger due to his background vocal and his penchant for scarfs at the time.
@Adymn Sani three names been kicked around, Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty, David Geffen.
@Adymn Sani -if your talking about the song "your so vain" by Carly Simon, she was talking about Warren Beatty whom she had been dating before he dumped her.
Ditto. Lot of us Gen X in here.
It had to be a Jukebox box favorite. Like Crazy.
You are very good at analyzing things. You picked apart every lyric of the song and gave a deeper meaning to it, that it was more than just some rhyming words to make a hit song. And it was more to it than what we thought the plot was about. It's almost like you wrote the song yourself, and I agree with your analysis. Bobbie Gentry song sounds like Folk Music, which I love, because Folk Music always tell a good story. This song is sweet, but sad, and it always touches me. Thanks, take care, and stay safe.✌
"Let's talk about [Insert title]" videos from Beau, make me rethink everything, or even correct an oversight on my part, which I truly enjoy and appreciate. Thank you!
I lived two houses down from Janis Joplins brother in Colonia Solana neighborhood in Tucson Arizona.
Its pretty obvious - he felt ashamed of his homosexual encounter with his boss.
Yes. That conversation around the dinner table. It's so beautifully written.
Another insightful video. Beau your channel and videos are always thought provoking and riveting. You are a voice of reason in an environment of din and obfuscation. Keep up the great work. Thanks.
THANK YOU! I have fought with people over this since the song came out. I was a kid but I remember thinking how heartless these people were. I was too young to understand the boyfriend part, but these people are so unfeeling how can you not see? My take has been that people are so wrapped up in their own world that they don't care about other people outside their family, but the same idea. Now I have a video to show the naysayers. Thanks once again for your insight Beau.
Bobby Gentry said what they threw in the water nor why Billy Joe jumped, was not important, it was the family's indifference to his death/suicide
I always disliked that song. However, I have lived with a daughter who suffers from depression. She has been on medication for over 20 years but it is there. I don't claim to understand depression. I'm grateful for the medications that have provided my daughter with a good life. I have much sympathy for those who suffer from all kinds of medical issues. I salute you for bringing this subject up. Thank you
Did you know that some vitamin and/or mineral deficiencies can cause depression? In my opinion, the first thing doctors should do when a patient walks in, no matter the complaint/problem, is to do a complete viramin and mineral tests to determine if any deficiencies exist. It would be so sad if people died because their magnesium was low or their vitamin d/etc.
@@sandrafreeman515thanks for the info
One of the great eerie songs of all time-still listen and love it.
For Mama, it's interesting dinner-time gossip. Mama thinks that it's a shame but not worth losing one's appetite over and Papa just doesn't care.
At the end when she sings "I spend my days picking flowers up on Choctaw Ridge", the sound of those creepy ascending violins sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.
It's brilliant and very effective. The only song I can think to compare the violins to are the accusatory tones of the violins in "Eleanor Rigby", a song that saved my life when I was deeply grieving and slowly killing myself. My late BFF came in a dream and said Really babe? You wanna be Eleanor Rigby?! OMG I said, this is where all the lonely people do come from. NO. I won't be one of them.
The larger story is how Nashville wrote off Bobbie Gentry. I remember the song growing up in the 60's and in all the record shops here in Houston we all wondered what happened.
What a genuis way of presenting your message. I remember when that song came out. I remember having dinner with my family. I always felt the tragedy was in the conversation at that table. Thank you! ^i^
When Billy Joe said “I ain’t right “ it was powerful. He discovered an aspect of his nature but the world and religion told him to be ashamed …but of course nature rules and is much older and always truer and more honest and trustworthy than the opinions of fearful man. I loved it also that he had the integrity to not say who is was. I love you Billy Joe. Your story is not lost on me ❤️
That was the movie, not the song.
You are correct in saying "The only reason that meaning gets picked up is because it's true."
You also neglected to point out that:
1) No one is more hated than they who tell the truth, because
2) People do not WANT the Truth. We would rather believe a pleasant fantasy.
By focusing on what was thrown off the bridge, we get to avoid looking at the truth.
I've always found this song hauntingly profound, especially about the way the family talks about his death and are so unaware of their daughter's distress. But I had never looked at that being the bigger picture itself or looked at it from that perspective either. Thank you for such an insightful understanding, your empathy and wisdom and for sharing that with us. : ) Love your vlogs.....and Janis 💜
Exactly. The saddest part is the life that was cut off before his time.
My mom didn’t know how to accept the pain I was in when my husband died, until her friends husband passed 2yrs later and her friend is lost and shut in , for the moment
This cat gives quite the dramatic presentation!
It’s not about Bobbie, it’s about someone in her life she protected and portrayed in first person to protect them. The biographical information isn’t aligned. The Preacher is involved, the timing of the meal proves it.
This was heavy and timely. A song saved my life and I commemorated it on my skin, forever, today. Just a couple of hours ago.
Roz Smith , Blessings to you ...
@@hippiecowgirl4231 I appreciate that.
@Donald McCarthy it's not a story I share beyond what I did here. Thank you for the reminder that that's ok.
the damage that ensues from idle gossip!
Interesting. I was 15 when this came out. I don’t remember wondering about what they threw off the bridge. I remember crying because no one in her family cared that a boy had died or even recognized how deeply she was hurt by the news. I think it was because I felt that my family would be the same.
I’m glad this was pointed out, about the way his death was treated like small town gossip. Even with the mother’s recognizing the girl’s upset, no comforting gesture was made towards her. The one who loves you will miss you. It’s an ominous song, through and through.
I always thought that Billy Joe and his girlfriend were just messing around and goofing off on the bridge and he slipped off the bridge and couldn't swim and drowned. The bridge ain't that high! Come on! Yeah the tragedy is that nobody really cares or sees that the girl is so hurt. It is one awesome song! Bobby Gentry just had to retire soon afterwards! Thanks Bobby Gentry for this masterpiece!😊
Real fans are aware that there is another verse that wasn’t used in this song. It didn’t really work and was probably best left out since it also made the song run a little long.
I wouldn’t dare dream of writing as well as Bobbie but I humbly present a verse I think could insert Before the last one in the song.
“There was a girl come new to town in mid or maybe late July.
We all seemed to know her but no one cared to wonder why.
Some say Sally Jane knows much more than she’ll ever tell.
But she stays awful quiet and most say this is just as well.
Though they never found no body in the water or up on Choctaw Ridge.
People still believe that Billie Joe jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
I think youre right, still. That's how I explained this song to my father when I was 7 and he asked me why it made me cry and what I thought it meant, which ended up making him cry. All these years later I realize the only thing that keeps me alive is the desire not to cause hurt to those I love and those who may love me. Label me completely disillusioned with everything else.
I recently lost a cat I had for 14 years. She was the best pet (dogs, cats, turtles, etc.) I ever had. She had a stroke and went paralyzed in her lower half. She was old and I struggle with the decision of putting her down but knew it was best for her. It's been one of the hardest goodbyes and I'm still not over it.
What has been harder for me is seeing the callousness of another family member over her death when she lived with her just as long as I did. She was a family member and it just didn't seem to bother her. It opened my eyes to a truth I didn't want to see.
In many ways she is a gentle soul and loves who she loves but you can't expect people to care even in your deepest sorrow. It's just the nature of us as beasts. We love but sometimes we just don't. It can't be forced. That's what makes love so precious.
I want to support you in your devastation about your cat. After having one cat run over because I wanted him to have freedom, I always kept mine inside after that. So they all lived long lives and had to be put down when they were so old they had no quality of life. It was devastating every time, but I wasn't going to let an animal I loved suffer through to the bitter end. Each time it was a decision squarely on me when to take them to the vet to be put down. That was very hard. The indifference of others is hard to witness but marks a hole in their life where love and understanding should be. As Queen Elizabeth II said, "The price of love is grief."
@@margaretlouise6200 Thank you for your support. Most people who have had or have pets feel mercy for their loved ones and understand. And everyone, like you or I, who have had to make that final ride with that loved one to the vet understand. A big part of you yells "no!" but deep down inside you know its the right thing to do. I still miss her. I wake up pretty early and study. At my desk I have a warming mat for my feet during the colder months. As November draws near I was thinking I was gonna pull the mat out soon. Reminded me how she would make her way over and lay on my feet with the warmth of the mat. Amazing how the simple things can bring a tear to the eye.
@@Rueuhy A very good friend who would not lie told me this story. She was always kinda psychic and so was her mother. She had to put down her two dogs who were both elderly and was of course quite distressed. One night she saw I guess the ghosts of both dogs lying at the foot of the stairs where they loved to sleep. She was so stunned she woke her mother and told her about it. Her mother said, "yes, they've been there for 2 weeks." I don't know about you but I believe animals have an afterlife like people. (Not one like traditional religion says with a heaven and hell.) I wonder if some of my pets followed me out of the vet as I couldn't hold back the tears, and were thinking, "What's wrong?? Did someone die?" I hope so.
Just watched this again and saw your breath in the cold, I am glad you have a better place to film now.
I loved hearing your thoughts on this. You are absolutely right. Suicide only really hurts the ones you love. Nobody else is going to suffer any lasting regrets, pain, or unanswered questions.
Thank you Beau. This video just removed a corner stone for the reason some folks ponder suicide. Your right, most people won't care, they will just want to know why. I see so clearly now, that to overcome these thoughts, get your (my) head back right and live is the solution! I have so much to give, even to the people that don't care. Thank you again.
Thank you, Beau. I never heard the part about them throwing something off the bridge. All I heard was her grief and their indifference and ignorance. Grateful to be someone who actually heard what she was saying . God bless.
The Ode is perfect because we all identify with it. We all have that moment when we realize that life goes on despite death. I was in fifth grade when a boy I had a crush on died. The hearse drove by, everyone stood still, it passed and everyone went back to what they'd been doing. I wanted to scream at them, "Stop! Mourn him!" In my mind, I've always wondered why she didn't tell them how she felt. I think she felt to blame. I think Billie Joe had loved her always and when he declared his love, on the bridge, she cruelly rejected him. He equally cruelly hurt her by dying. Everyone else's lives went on but she spent hers saying she was sorry with flowers of remembrance. Wasted lives. Thanks for the video!
That sounds good it would explain the ring theory. but if you rejected a guys engagement ring, you would be throughing something. The song goes " She and billy joe were throughing something off the Tallahatchie bridge". That mades it seem like it was something they both wanted to get rid of.
@@godessofthisage It’s not necessarily something they wanted to get rid of but likely just casually tossing off the bridge. In the end she “ spent a lot of time, picking flowers…and, throwing them into the muddy waters …” not getting rid of anything, per se.
And that is likely what she did Billy Joel did together. Flowers often represent youth (the bloom of youth) because they grow, bloom, and then they get old and wither and die. Throwing a flower off of a bridge is very meaningful and ominous. It is cut off from the natural process and dies in its bloom.
This video and many of the comments completely seem to miss so many important points even if they don’t make the mistake of conflating the song and the movie.
I missed this video when it first came out. "Pde to Billy Joe" is an amazing song and you're one of the few commentators who I think has done it justice. Thanks.
They made a movie based on the song starring Robby Benson, who was a heart throb of mine in my gay youth. The movie's plot line needed an "acceptable" reason for Billy Joe to commit suicide. A miscarried or aborted fetus was too controversial. What they came up with was regret over a homosexual encounter, while drunk at the county fair. Billy Joe could not live with himself after having been with a man as he would a woman. The scene involving the encounter depicted Billy Joe as so intoxicated that he was beyond any reasonable ability to consent. So he wasn't really gay gay, but he had crossed the line of no return. Back in those days society's message to gays was "do the right thing and kill yourself." Kill yourself if you have any respect for yourself, your family, or society. We were degenerates, a threat to humanity. I went to the movie because I liked the song and was attracted to Benson. I am sure lots of young gay men did the same. I have always wondered how many took the message and followed Billy Joe off the bridge. In the movie the object thrown off the bridge was a teddy bear given to the girl by Bobby Joe that she dropped while they were fretting over his changed status a queer sinner. The song is like an abstract painting. It does not have a meaning, message, or explanation. It has, it evokes a feeling, a mood. Don't ask what it means. Ask yourself what it makes you feel. The song makes me feel that I feel her loneliness better than the people around her, but the mysteries in the song make me understand that we cannot completely know each other, that we are all fundamentally alone in the world. A song that affecting is a pretty dam good song.
Yeah, that movie was awful. A big disappointment. I'm not sure it's even possible to capture the atmosphere of that song in any movie, it's so chilling and there's that stark, raw pain, suffering in silence. But that movie made a dog's breakfast of it.
I saw the movie when I was a teen, back in the 70's.
@@d.d.9636Me too, I just loved Robby Benson. I’ve seen the movie so many times.
@@StellaWaldvogel That is one of the best movies ever. What are you talking about?
@@rebeccakleitz3177 You mean you liked it. Some people did, but I'm not talking about that. It's an objective stinker. No awards, no cult following, mostly bad reviews. The only reason it made money was that people wanted to know why Billy Joe jumped and what they threw off the bridge. The song is what sold that movie.
The acting was OK but the script was what ruined it. That rag doll was an obvious toning down of the idea people had that they threw a baby (which doesn't really add up either.) It would have made more sense for them to argue and throw away rings or something. And the message that gay encounters lead to suicide is just offensive.
Literally heard this song my whole life... but thanks Beau, this was the first time I actually listened to it
I lost a friend to suicide. He was a person everybody liked being around. Whoever knows the why? It's too late to ask now. I sure wish we knew before he did it. Everyone would've helped him.
My mourning does include all those before and after.
There is no suicide. There is murder. The police should investigate each case.
From reading the book twice always thought he jumped bc of what his boss did to him at the county fair.
Are you sure it isn't more of a Romeo and Juliet scenario. He was from a "lower class" so he could never be with the girl he loved?
Just listened to this song for the first time since I was a teen, something like 15 years ago. I don't recall my reaction to it then very well, but now when Bobbie sang the lyrics 'Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please.' I felt like someone had just slapped me across the face. The amount of apathy the narrator's family projects is truly horrific. It gave me the same feelings of horror that A Rose For Emily by William Faulkner did. It truly belongs in the Southern Gothic family.
I so love this channel and most of the people here. It gives me hope because it shows that there are still really intelligent people in the world. Sometimes I feel like all the smart people jumped off with Billy Joe.
This reminds me some are still with us.
Thanks so much.
I think the sad part of this story is how everybody left the farm and only the mother and daughter were left on the farm, to me that means the farm ceased to be a farm and the potential of the mails was lost, the father died, the brother got married and moved away, to me this is a story of community and how they are so fragile and that only strength of character will keep communities together. his is not a song of today its a story from a different era, the era before mobile phones and the net from a time went people were isolated and the Billy Joe's were important , I don't see these people as cold or insensitive I see them as people in hard times that can't afford to mill around wondering why he did it when they have fields to plough and cotton to pick, this is a time before the convenience store.
I think the theme is more about the family's indifference to the narrator's suffering. They don't see her, their own daughter, has lost a loved one.
WOW! Your analysis is profound. It makes complete sense and does, as you say, identify a darker truth about human nature than any other interpretation I've ever heard.
You've nailed it. The song is a mirror for everyone to see within themselves - the gossipers did not care at all about the young man that was lost forever from this world.
The mystery of the song is not the tragedy of one death, the mystery is how many people focus on it all after it is too late.
Save a life, show empathy to people before they are stuck with the view that jumping is the only way out.
Billie Joe walks amongst us every day.
Wake up and see him in every stranger you ignore or denigrate on your own self important day.
Empathy is a coin that becomes worthless when hoarded.
That is what makes a great song. 100 people can listen to that story sung and you'd probably get 100 different impressions. I hope anyone who has not heard it will listen too it. I am 60 and consider myself very lucky to have grown up with music the music I did. And also sitting around the table for dinner with the whole family there (a MUST) and most of the time I couldn't wait to get away from the table. Now I have to go and listen to it. And thank you Justin, for including the link to make it easy for us.
According to the book, they loved each other, but one drunken night Billy Joe found himself with another man He tells her he could not promise that it would not happen again. While talking she drops her innocence, a little rag doll she had since childhood, into the water. To her, this is his grave, and everyone in the town just assumed she had been pregnant somehow and he killed himself over it.
Oh, Billy Joe, what beautiful blue eyed babies we would have had.
This is the only interpretation of the song that really makes any sense. Thanks, Beau. I was 6 when this was released and I can remember understanding what the narrator was really saying, and wondering why her parents and brother couldn't see it, or chose not to. As I watched your vid, I kept thinking, "yes - this is true, this is it".
I grew up watching Robby Benson movies , we are about the same age , I appreciate ur thoughts. ...Bravo .!
Thankyou, Beau For finally putting the cap on that. I think you are right.
I love how you make me think and look at things in a different light.
Dam Beau, put a jacket on. See? I care.
LOL, I always wonder why he doesn't record in the house on cold days.
@@tabbyalien Probably his kids...
@@tabbyalien He has lights in his garage, which means he has electricity. Maybe he has a space heater tucked down out of sight.
Haha. Yeah. My first thought was "What's he smokin?"
@@donnarowe8618 Sherlock Holmes stuff there!
Boy, do I miss your real shed, with the visible breath, the thundering sound of rain, the neighbor’s tractor. It was real.
I thought the heartbreak was his being gay, and everyone not knowing or caring about you.
That movie was one of the saddest movies ever made. I only watched it once back when it first showed on tv.
Wow, my man! You hit it on the head with this video.
Thank you!