Posted on 04/21/2021 4:59:12 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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 at 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-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"
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 and 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 want to 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
She married three times with each marriage lasting less than two years. One of those marriages was to Jim Stafford (of "Spiders and Snakes" fame). Another marriage was to Bill Harrah (of the casino chain). The other guy she married I don't know anything about.
She has been mostly a recluse in recent years.
Bobbi Gentry was not fond of performing publicly and even though she appeared often on TV to perform her big hit, you can tell she wasn’t into it.
That was the way I saw it also.
She hated performing. She stopped making records so she wouldn’t have to go touring and performing.
Well... It’s a good thing she didn’t sing about a higher bridge.
Southern Gothic are stories and songs that point out the darker parts of Southern society, usually in a veiled way. The short stories of Flannery O’Connor are a good example.
I was going to say that sounds like the same type of song, southern gothic!
I like that she avenged her brother!
Yup. I was gonna post sumthin similar. Stupid movie.
Well, the song only says that he jumped, not that he was killed!
+1
☺🤪
This teenage boy from the suburbs of Boston had never heard anything like it. The song *still* send chills up my spine.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the song when it came out (I was 16 at the time and much more into CTA, BS&T, psychedelic rock), but it really grew on me in later years. The orchestration behind her guitar strumming is quite remarkable and the ballad lyrics are really spellbinding and mysterious.
The 60s was an incredible decade for an enormous variety of “pop” music and this really typifies that variety and innovation both in the music and lyrics.
What was amazing about the 60s was how literally new musical styles emerged from month to month.
Just look at how much changed from January 1966 to the end of the year.
A haunting song centered around quintessential southern food and a hard day’s work, on the farm.
If some of ya'll never been down south too much
I'm gonna tell you a little bit about this
So that you'll understand what I'm talkin' about
Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods
And in the fields looks somethin' like a turnip green
And everybody calls it polk salad, polk salad
Used to know a girl lived down there
And she'd go out in the evenings and pick her a mess of it
Carry it home and cook it for supper
Cause that's about all they had to eat, but they did all right
Down in Louisiana, where the alligators grow so mean
There lived a girl, that I swear to the world
Made the alligators look tame
Polk salad Annie, polk salad Annie
Everybody said it was a shame
Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang
(A mean, vicious woman)
Every day 'for suppertime, she'd go down by the truck patch
And pick her a mess of polk salad, and carry it home in a tow sack
Polk salad Annie, the gators got your granny
Everybody says it was a shame
Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang
(A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin' woman)
(Lord have Mercy, pick a mess of it)
Her daddy was lazy and no count, claimed he had a bad back
All her brothers were fit for was stealin' watermelons
Out of my truck patch
Polk salad Annie, the gators got your granny
Everybody said it was a shame
Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang
(Sock a little polk salad to me
You know I need me a mess of it)
And there were so many offbeat novelty songs (like Ode to Billy Joe) thrown into the mix. There were no bounds.
It’s a decade to never be repeated in musical originality.
That’s a good one.
I had heard that “You’re So Vain” was an ode to Warren Beatty who had reportedly slept with every beautiful woman in Hollywood and left a lot of them heartbroken. In the version of the song I’ve got, that’s Mick Jagger singing chorus.
I guess she didn’t like Spiders and Snakes.
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