I started this yesterday and had it 95% percent written when I accidentally deleted it. I always take the position that the Lord had some more things for me to add so He gave me another day to perfect it. So, after my initial irritation, here we go again. I climbed into my Honda Fit in Houston at 5 AM three days ago for the ten hour drive to Wichita to spend Thanksgiving with my brothers and their families. As I cranked the ignition, the song Ode To Billie Joe was running through my mind for reasons unknown and it stayed there for several hours. It sparked my doing a google search on the ballad and the singer/songwriter, Bobbie Gentry, when I arrived in Kansas. Its haunting lyrics and American Southern roots sparked much conjecture about the meaning of every nuance. Similar to the parsing of each word in Don McLean's American Pie and Carly Simon's You're So Vain, musical sleuths attempted to read between each line in the mystery of the unexpected suicide of one Billie Joe McAllister. A sparse arrangement and Gentry's earthy and haunting vocals added to the intrigue which bordered on obsession. What was thrown off the bridge? Why did Billie Joe take his life? What was the relationship between the deceased and the narrator of the Ode? Here's the lyrics so you can decide in the slim chance you've never heard them:
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."
'n' 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"
'n' 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.
'n' 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."
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."
'n' 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 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
'n' 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 wanna 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.
Gentry, a virtual unknown who had grown up in Mississippi in the immediate area referenced geographically in her song, became famous overnight, eventually landing her own tv show and having other success as both a writer and performer. Since 1975, she's essentially disappeared from public life. A movie about the song was made but really answered no real questions as to Gentry's analysis of her work. Rumors that Ode was originally eleven verses but cut down to five to make it fit on a 45 record have been bandied around for decades but no one has able to produce a copy. The best summation I found about the song which has been called a Southern Gothic tale came from Gentry herself. Professing that she had no idea what was tossed into the river- and she was the writer-, Gentry said the theme of the story that made her a celebrity was indifference. A family eating lunch, discussing the mundaneness of life interspersed with the tragic taking of the life of a young man they all knew from the community and church while ignoring the clues linking the sister to the dead Billie Joe. Gentry also in her interview tied in the death of the boy with the soon after death of the father to a lack of empathy between the two ladies in the tale. My interpretation has become the interpretation of Bobbie Gentry. Author knows best.
Indifference and lack of empathy, two banes of modern life. We are so engulfed with the speed and enormity of life that we almost become hardened to others' heartaches. We say we agree with John Donne's no man is an island sentiment but deep down, we really believe we cannot afford to. James 2:16 speaks of paying lip-service to those in physical need but going on with our lives without lifting a hand to help. The emotional needs of mourners are no less real than those with physical trauma. We move on quickly while those affected cannot. Those dealing directly with death, especially sudden death, can't just walk away. Bobbie Gentry's voice in Ode To Billie Joe, could not. Jesus taught in the Beatitudes introduction to the Sermon on the Mount that those who mourn will be blessed as they will be comforted. I'm not sure that I adequately play any real sort of comforting role. A note on Facebook or a quick hug in the hallway sometimes passes for my condolences. Being there matters, physically when it's possible. Otherwise, it's just pass the biscuits, please. In my life as a friend, neighbor, Christian brother, or biological relative, I don't want to simply be the reflection of a long ago song. But I still wonder what was up with Billie Joe.
To listen to Ode To Billie Joe, click or copy/paste the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOr60MxIvvE
Applicable quote of the day:
Euphemism is a euphemism for lying.
Bobbie Gentry
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
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