ode to billie joe

Bobbie Gentry built a mystery and became a household name with this sensual Southern Gothic narrative.  Born Roberta Lee Streeter in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, she  taught herself guitar, banjo, bass and vibes and began writing songs at the age of seven.  She took her stage name from the film 'Ruby Gentry'.  Gentry studied at the Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles and got her demo tape to Capitol Records.  

Kelly Gordon produced the session at studio C in the Capitol tower where Gentry recorded 'Ode to Billie Joe' in less than an hour.  Arranger Jimmie Haskell was asked to add strings to her acoustic guitar performance, adding only two cellos and four violins.  The original version had eleven verses and ran over seven minutes; so the label edited it down and made it the B-side of her debut single 'Mississippi Delta'.  The DJ's knew better and chose it over the A-side.  Her sultry voice and the song's enigmatic storyline had the country buzzing.  Gentry considers:  “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.”

 'Ode to Billie Joe' went to number seventeen on the country chart, eight on the black singles chart, seven on the adult contemporary chart, and number one on the pop chart.  The song sold seven hundred and fifty thousand copies in its first week and knocked the Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love' out of the number one spot.  The accompanying album 'Ode to Billie Joe' became the album to end the fifteen week reign of 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' at the top of the US album chart.  The success of 'Ode to Billie Joe' led to eight Grammy nominations, winning Best New Artist for Bobbie Gentry as well as Best Female Pop Vocal Performance; plus a win for arranger Jimmie Haskell.  It has sold over three million copies worldwide.   The song was adapted into a novel and screenplay by Herman Raucher, which became a television movie directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr.  in 1976.  








http://odetobobbiegentry.yuku.com//New-Bobbie-Gentry-Web-Site









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











extra 'lost' verse:

“People don’t see Sally Jane in town anymore
There’s a lot of speculatin’, she’s not actin’ like she did before
Some say she knows more than she’s willin’ to tell
But she stays quiet and a few think it’s just as well
No one really knows what went on up at Choctaw Ridge
The day that Billy Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”