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 Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas,
'Well, Billie 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 a shame about Billie Joe, anyhow."
"Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge,"
"And now Billie 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 Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billie 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.
4 comments:
Teen pregnancy, murder and suicide all wrapped in such a macabre little song.
Major props to SGordon -- you go, girl, for using "macabre" in my blog. You rock.
I'd like your theory on what you think the song is about. In our years of friendship, I don't think we've ever discussed this song. (BTW - I'm sure you knew that Bobbi Gentry also wrote the awesome "Fancy")
There could be a few interpretations, but I think it's about a young girl who hooks up with a hot little "undesirable" boy in the county and gets herself pregnant. She manages to hide the pregnancy from her parents who are so busy working on the farm they didn't have much time to notice anyway. After the baby was born they knew they couldn't care for it, so they tossed it off the bridge. Billie Joe couldn't take the guilt or the pressure, so a few days later he jumped off the bridge himself.
The girl, who was obviously good at hiding secrets, never told a soul, but would throw flowers in the river in memory of Billie Joe and the child.
Maybe that wasn't what Ms. Gentry had in mind when she wrote the song, but that's what it always meant to me.
My take on the song is a bit different -- I think Billie Joe is female, never mind Robby Benson starring in the title role in the 70's movie by the same title. I think Billie Joe and the singer were best friends, and Billie Joe was the one that got pregnant and the singer helped her and they both threw the baby off of the bridge, and then Billie Joe couldn't handle the guilt so she jumped off the bridge. It leaves alot to interpretation, unlike Bobby Gentry's awesome "Fancy."
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