On this day (July 10) in 1967, Bobbie Gentry released “Ode to Billie Joe,” the lead single from her debut album of the same name. Weeks later, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100, giving Gentry her only No. 1 on the chart. It stayed at No. 1 for four weeks and put her on the map as both a songwriter and recording artist. It also sparked a debate that has raged on for more than five decades.
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Gentry delivered the thought-provoking first-person narrative of Billie Joe McAllister’s suicide and its impact, or lack thereof, on a family. After hearing the news, the narrator’s mother, father, and brother weigh in on the titular character’s untimely death. Mostly, they looked at his demise as nothing more than another piece of local gossip. They fail to realize how much the death impacted the narrator as they casually chat about it.
While the family is chatting, the mother brings up a “nice young preacher” named Brother Taylor. “He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge. And he said Billie Joe was throwing somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge.” That line sparked a decades-long debate about what the young couple tossed off the bridge. This ongoing conversation contributed to the song’s popularity.
Bobbie Gentry Says People Miss the Point of “Ode to Billie Joe”
“Ode to Billie Joe” was Bobbie Gentry’s way of highlighting the lack of empathy she saw in the world. In a way, the aspect of the song that many people focused on drove home the point of the song.
“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,” Gentry said. “What was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.”
Gentry pointed out that listeners put forward several theories about what the couple threw off the bridge. Some say it was a bouquet of flowers. Others believe it was a ring. Some listeners were convinced that the young couple threw their illegitimate child off the bridge. “Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolved around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide,” Gentry explained. “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,” she added.
Featured Image by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
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