Posted on 03/01/2010 12:42:43 AM PST by JoeProBono
If that guitar were any smaller it’d be a ukulele.
Nice thread, but it would have been better if you had waited until June 3rd.
Born Roberta Lee Streeter. Now lives in Los Angeles.
Story
This song is a first person narrative that reveals a quasi-Southern Gothic tale in its verses by including the dialog of the narrator’s family at dinnertime on the day that “Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.” Throughout the song, the suicide and other tragedies are contrasted against the banality of everyday routine and polite conversation.
The song begins with the narrator and her brother returning, after morning chores, to the family house for dinner. After cautioning them about tracking in dirt, “Mama” says that she “got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge” that “Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge,” apparently to his death.
Tallahatchie River bridge at the Lafayette-Marshall county line in MississippiAt the dinner table, the narrator’s father is unsurprised at the news and says, “Well, Billie Joe never had a lick o’ sense; pass the biscuits, please” and mentions that there are “five more acres in the lower forty I got to plow.” Although her brother seems to be taken aback (”I saw him at the sawmill yesterday.... And now you tell me Billie Joe has jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”), he’s not shocked enough to keep him from having a second piece of pie. Late in the song, Mama questions the narrator’s complete loss of appetite (”Child, what’s happened to your appetite? I been cookin’ all mornin’ and you haven’t touched a single bite,”) yet earlier in the song recalled a visit earlier that morning by Brother Taylor, the local preacher, who mentioned that he had seen Billie Joe and a girl who looked very much like the narrator herself and they were “throwin’ somethin’ off the Tallahatchie Bridge.”
In the song’s final verse, a year has passed, during which the narrator’s brother has married and moved away. Also, her father died from a viral infection, which has left her mother despondent. The narrator herself now visits Choctaw Ridge often, picking flowers there to drop from the Tallahatchie Bridge onto the murky waters flowing beneath.
Trivia
Bobbie Gentry’s song, “Ode to Billy Joe” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.
She is from the MS county I am from. Use to keep up with her.
Personal Quotes
[on “Ode to Billie Joe”] 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 people expressed in the song.
Country singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry was born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1944 in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. Gentry grew up in poverty on her grandparents’ farm after her parents divorced when she was a little girl. She learned to play piano by watching the church pianist. Her grandmother traded a milk cow for a piano so Bobbie could practice regularly. She wrote her first song “My Dog Sergeant is a Good Dog” on the piano; she later used this song as a humorous part of her nightclub act. At age six Gentry went to live with her father in Greenwood, Mississippi, where she attended elementary school. Bobbie next moved to Palm Springs, California to live with her mother. It was during this time she taught herself how to play the banjo, guitar, bass and vibes. She began performing at a country club while still in high school and graduated from Palm Valley School in 1960. At age 14 Gentry took her stage name from the 1952 movie “Ruby Gentry.” She briefly worked as a dancer and singer in a Las Vegas revue show called Folies Bergere before moving back to California. Bobbie studied philosophy at UCLA and subsequently transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where she majored in theory, counterpoint and composition while working as a secretary to keep herself afloat. In 1967 Gentry scored a massive smash hit with the moody and compelling story song “Ode to Billie Joe,” which peaked at number one on the Billboard pop charts for a whole month. Bobbie won three Grammy Awards for this song, including Best New Artist and Best Vocal Performance by a Female. In addition, the Academy of Country Music named Gentry the Top New Female Vocalist of 1967. “Ode to Billie Joe” has been covered by such artists as Sinead O’Connor, Tammy Wynette, Patti Smith, and Ike & Tina Turner. Gentry had only modest success with the offbeat “Okolona River Bottom Band” and a spirited rendition of Doug Kershaw’s “Louisiana Man.” Bobbie recorded three charming duets with Glen Campbell which included a cover of “Let It Be Me” by the Everly Brothers. Bobbie had another substantial Top 30 hit with the sassy “Fancy,” which did well on both the pop and country charts. (Reba McIntire had a Top 10 country hit with her 1991 cover of this particular song.) In Europe Gentry enjoyed a number one hit in England with “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and a Top 40 success with “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.” In the late 60s she headlined her own Las Vegas revue show in which she did the dance choreography, designed the costumes, and even wrote and arranged the music. In 1974 Gentry hosted her own short-lived TV variety show. That same year she wrote and sung the haunting ending credits theme song “Another Day, Another Time” for the terrific redneck exploitation winner “Macon County Line.” “Ode to Billie Joe” was adapted into a movie in 1976. Bobbie was briefly married to both Desert Inn Hotel manager Bill Harrah and fellow country singer/songwriter Jim Stafford. In the late 70s Bobbie Gentry quit the music business and went on to run her own TV production company in Los Angeles.
Could you please do Stairway to Heaven next please.
Every time the wind whispers to me, I never find that stairway. :)
C’était le quatre juin
Le soleil tapait depuis le matin
Je m’occupais de la vigne
Et mon frère chargeait le foin
Et l’heure du déjeuner venue
On est retourné à la maison
Et notre mère a crié de la cuisine:
“Essuyez vos pieds sur l’paillasson”
Puis elle nous dit qu’elle avait des nouvelles
De Bourg-les-Essonnes
Ce matin Marie-Jeanne Guillaume
S’est jetée du pont de la Garonne
Et mon père dit à ma mère
En nous passant le plat de gratin:
“La Marie-Jeanne, elle n’était pas très maligne
Passe-moi donc le pain
Y’a bien encore deux hectares à labourer
Dans le champ d’la caille.”
Et maman dit: “Tu vois, quand j’y pense
C’est quand même bête
Pour cette pauvre Marie-Jeanne
On dirait qu’il n’arrive jamais rien de bon
À Bourg-les-Essonnes
Et voilà qu’Marie-Jeanne Guillaume
Va s’jeter du pont de la Garonne”
Et mon frère dit qu’il se souvenait
Quand lui et moi et le grand Nicolas
On avait mis une grenouille dans le dos de Marie-Jeanne
Un soir au cinéma
Et il me dit: “Tu te rappelles
Tu lui parlais ce dimanche près de l’église
Donne-moi encore un peu de vin
C’est bien injuste la vie
Dire que j’l’ai vue à la scierie
Hier à Bourg-les-Essonnes
Et qu’aujourd’hui Marie-Jeanne
S’est jetée du pont de la Garonne”
Maman m’a dit “Enfin mon grand
Tu n’as pas beaucoup d’appétit
J’ai cuisiné tout ce matin
Et tu n’as rien touché, tu n’as rien pris
Dis-moi, la soeur de ce jeune curé
Est passée en auto
Elle m’a dit qu’elle viendrait dimanche à dîner
Oh! et à propos
Elle dit qu’elle a vu un garçon
Qui t’ressemblait à Bourg-les-Essonnes
Et lui et Marie-Jeanne jetaient
Quelque chose du pont de la Garonne”
Toute une année est passée
On ne parle plus du tout de Marie-Jeanne
Mon frère qui s’est marié
A pris un magasin avec sa femme
La grippe est venue par chez nous
Et mon père en est mort en janvier
Depuis maman n’a plus envie de faire grand-chose
Elle est toujours fatiguée
Et moi de temps en temps j’vais ramasser
Quelques fleurs du côté des Essonnes
Et je les jette dans les eaux boueuses
Du haut du pont de la Garonne
What does she look like now?
Thanks for the memories....
This song was at the top of the charts when I got home from Viet Nam....wow that was a long time ago.
Good post. Love the song.
parsy
I remeber another song she sang and wrote “Glory Hallelujah, How They’ll Sing”. Obviously some memories from her early days in the lyrics.
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