Ode To Billy Joe

[boodie]

While I was trying to sleep last night, this song came on my iPoo and I remember when it first came out I thought it was a damned creepy song,

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 of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you 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 'n' 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 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




When I first heard it, like everyone else I wondered just what the hell she and Billy Joe had thrown off the bridge and why and was it connected to why Billy Joe had decided to throw himself off the bridge later that day.

And then I saw the movie, and that really didn't answer anything at all.

Just going by the song lyrics, what do you think that the girl and Billy Joe were throwing off the bridge, and if you've seen the movie, did what they throw off the bridge fit in with your preconcieved idea of just what it was?

*This might be a question no one but us oldies will answer, but I hope someone does, because I'd like to think I wasn't alone in what I immediately thought of that she and Billy Joe had thrown off the bridge.

Comments

[funnelwebkitten.livejournal.com]

And my immediate thought was that she and Billy Joe had thrown a new born baby off the bridge, or that she'd had an abortion or a miscarriage, but that it was definitely a baby of some form.

[thirteenthmoon.livejournal.com]

That was mine too :(. haven't seen the movie though.

[crims0n-tears.livejournal.com]

I guess I never thought too much about it...I reckoned they were throwing rocks like a lot of people do.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

This is something I've always thought, too.

[tempe-rivka.livejournal.com]

Didn't see the movie, but every time I heard that song, I tried to figure out what else it could be other than a baby (or fetus).

[crims0n-tears.livejournal.com]

But I was fairly young when I first heard this soooo...

[lordgary.livejournal.com]

*shakes his fist* darn that icon, I thought my monitor was infested :) It's really cool. I sort of remember that song from my childhood, it was from a movie I think.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Great song. I heard that the author said originally the song revealed what it was they threw, but someone talked her into leaving it a mystery.

[funnelwebkitten.livejournal.com]

I've seen the movie and it really doesn't make THAT much sense, they throw off a doll, her favourite doll, which I am sure is a metaphor for something!

[funnelwebkitten.livejournal.com]

which is probably why they picked such a lame thing to throw in the movie, metaphors are great, but only when people can parse something OUT of the metaphor.