Talk:Ode to Billie Joe/Archive 1

Archive 1

Places in the song

Are Choctaw Ridge," "Tallahatchie Bridge" "Carroll County" and other landmarks in the song real? If so a second on how the song relates to real life landmarks might be in order from someone who knows —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.2.127 (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

As a Mississippi resident, I can clarify some things that might help settle some questions and speculations about the song. First, it is indeed a work of fiction. The Tallahatchie river runs through a number of northern and northwestern Mississippi counties (including Tallahatchie County). Its terminus is Leflore County, where it and the Yalobusha River merge to form the Yahoo River. There is no official "Tallahatchie Bridge", as numerous highways and other roads cross its length.

Knowing Gentry's childhood as being born in Chickasaw County and raised in Leflore County (Greenwood, specifically), she was probably most familiar with the southern end of the Tallahatchie, and most likely drew inspiration from one of the bridges along Highway 7 leading north/northeast. However, Gentry has reportedly identified the bridge as being one in neighboring Carroll County to the east (which could actually mean the bridge was over the Yalobusha River, not the Tallahatchie) but this is unverified. As it can be assumed Gentry wrote the song nearly a decade after moving away to California, it's possible the bridge isn't even one particular bridge, but a culmination of memories of various bridges she was familiar with in these counties.

As for Choctaw Ridge, there is indeed one in Webster County, southwest of her native Chickasaw County, and not far from the Natchez Trace Parkway. This would be the most likely candidate for the one mentioned in the song, but the Choctaw tribe once extended across a significant part of Mississippi, and there may be other ridges known to local residents as "Choctaw Ridge". The Choctaw, specifically the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, eventually established their tribal home in Neshoba County, further south in the state. In modern years, they have thrived there, establishing quality schools and housing for their people, and operating the nation's largest casino complex. (And on a personal note, they are a wonderful, friendly group of people.) While unlikely Gentry knew much about this area at the age she moved away, I'm sure there is a "Choctaw Ridge" or two to be identified around their modern home.

Other details in the song can probably never be verified. "Billie Joe" may have been a young love interest, a friend lost when she moved away, or completely fictional. Gentry did have an older brother, and the city of Tupelo (better known as the birthplace of Elvis Presley) does exist in Lee County in the northeast part of the state. But there is nothing to verify that he married and bought a store there with his new wife. Gentry's parents divorced shortly after her birth, and her mother remarried several times, so the death of "Papa" from a viral infection could be anything from truth to fiction to wishful thinking about one of her stepfathers.

Contrasting this song to others of hers, you find many of her songs to be a mix of memory and fiction. The B-side (which I'm proud to own, on the original Capitol 45), is "Mississippi Delta", a song that is pure reminiscence about her childhood, with some nonsensical phrases (perhaps something a child might chant) thrown in for good measure. "Fancy", which was also a big hit for Reba McEntire years later, clearly doesn't coincide with confirmed details of Gentry's childhood. (Interestingly enough, there were false rumors upon the latter release that McEntire had written the song herself--clearly untrue--and had reached her success through a path of prostitution as described in the song.)

My belief is that Gentry merged memories of her childhood and a creative songwriter's imagination to create the legendary "Ode To Billie Joe". No doubt the inspiration was her own experiences, but I don't find any evidence to support anything other than that it was just a marvelous moment of songcrafting. I welcome any citations that might prove me wrong.  ;-) 75.66.145.31 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC).

This all sounds good, and I agree with the accessment, however, the article still makes an unverified statement that the bridge was in Money, MS. Is there some sort of article or text in which Gentry said the bridge intended was in Money? Or was it just the one used in the film? - Parsa (talk) 23:01, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Why 1953? No year is given in the lyrics http://users.cis.net/sammy/billyjoe.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.220.141.164 (talk) 03:42, 3 June 2004 (UTC)

It was a real incident which happened June 3, 1953.Doovinator 18:56, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Is there a reference on the truth of this story? Did Bobbie Gentry actually know Billy Joe, or did she just write the song about him? ~leif 23:25, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to this page the song is not true, but the place is, and infact the popularity of the song caused many people to jump off said bridge without injury. Where did the idea that it was a real incident come from? ~leif 23:35, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

When the song came out I was a teenager and there was much discussion about it. I recall very well reading (though I don't recall where; it may have been Newsweek) that the song was based on a true incident from June 3, 1953. I have reason to remember this, because it was the day I was born. Bobbie Gentry never would reveal anything else about the song or any of the many details in it--if the boy's name was really Billy Joe or if the Tallahatchie Bridge was really the bridge he jumped off or what was thrown off the bridge or anything else--but she clearly claimed that the relevant incident took place on June 3, 1953. In the movie, IIRC (I don't have a copy on hand) the vehicles all have 1953 plates, so at least from the viewpoint of the movie the 1953 date certainly stands. Doovinator

Hmm, personal memory... sounds like a fair source I guess :) But now that I linked to that discussion page, that says the song is fiction, maybe there should be some kind of mention in the article about the possibility that names and places may have been changed from actual events. The current wording makes it sound very factual. I'm not going to do it myself right now though.. Thanks for your description of events btw, more interesting than I expected! ~leif 05:32, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good point. I'll tweak the wording a little. Doovinator 11:45, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If it helps any, this page shows the cover of a paperback version of the story from the early-mid-1970s (17th printing in 1976), and you can clearly see the 1953 date specified on it. -- Random visitor browsing through

Some of the speculation in "The story" section does not square with the realities in the lyrics. As a white male raised in the South during the time period of this song, I can say that Billie Joe could NOT have been a black boy. If Billie Joe had been a black boy, he and the narrator would NOT have been allowed remain together anywhere in public; Billie Joe would NOT have been allowed in the Carrol County Picture Show with white children; Billie Joe would NOT have been playing a prank, with or without the narrator's brother, on a white girl anywhere, PARTICULARILY in public (merely emphasis, not being strident, folks!) AND Billie Joe would NOT have been in the same church as the narrator's family---IF Billie Joe had been a black boy.

The "baby" speculation is too far-fetched for life in the South in that period. IF the girl had been pregnant and unwed, she would have gone away "to visit her Aunt",... if you get my meaning. That's how things like that were handled in those days; none of this hiding a pregnancy under baggy clothes until full term (or anything near it).

The place of "Brother Taylor" ("That nice, young preacher...") is plain when the lyrics are attended to closely: HE brought the news to "Mama" that morning ("I been cookin' all mornin'"), when he visited the narrator's home; HE saw Billie Joe and, obviously, the narrator "throwin' something off" the bridge. Now, IF that "something" had been large enough to require BOTH of them to throw it off, there would have been grown-ups on them--as they say down South--like a duck on a June bug. No, they were each throwing the same "something"--flowers--off of the bridge. (As a boy in the South, you did NOT pick flowers with the girls or you WOULD rue the day it was told!)

To borrow from the song, "Oh!, By the way!..." Brother Taylor may well have had his eye on the narrator, thus he noticed she (or someone like her) was up on Choctaw Ridge with a possible rival, Billie Joe,... and "Mama" had her eye on Brother Taylor as a 'maybe' husband for the narrator ("That nice, young preacher..."). "Nice" as in, "I approve of him."

Folks, that's how things were. If you didn't like the arrangements being made for you, you kept your mouth shut anyway,... and ran off to the city when you got the chance.

I don't have time right now to tidy up "The story" section and I don't want to rush the work. I'll look in later. Muh prose ain't 'xactly uh thang o' beauty. :-)

Makuabob (talk) 01:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think the "bad guy" in the story is Papa. Billie Joe and the narrator wanted to get married, but Papa didn't approve (he thinks BJ "never had a lick of sense"). After making a pledge of undying love on the Tallahatchie Bridge, which involved casting a token of their love (the "something") into the water, BJ despaired that he and his sweetheart could never get married and that he could never honour his pledge, because her Papa would never allow it, and so he killed himself. I'd be interested in knowing whether this view has been discussed anywhere else. It makes sense to me because it makes Papa's death in the last verse seem all the less gratuitous; it becomes a piece of tragic irony, for as it turns out, BJ's hopes of marrying his sweetheart weren't quite as far out of reach as he'd thought – He need only have waited a few months and the ogre would have been out of the way. Kelisi (talk) 01:18, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone considered that the original spelling used on the album cover was "Bille Jo" and that this is a female gender spelling. This would explain the picking flowers part of the song, the possibility of a lesbain relationship has been overlooked. This would also explain why she did not care to tell her family that she had a relationship with Bille Jo as this would have made her entire family social outcasts, baned from church and anything else within the area. this would have been extremly taboo in the 50's and even more so in the Mississippi Delta area. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.181.247.149 (talk) 17:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

There's a lyric that says in reference to Billie Joe, "wasn't i talking to "him" after church last Sunday night". Definitely not a lesbian thing. Nice try though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.25.240.217 (talk) 19:14, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

The film is to blame for the Blair Witch aspect of the story. They promoted the idea that it was "based on a true story" (called Semi-Fiction by scholars) in the film posters. I was a teenager at the time and saw the film. However, before the film came out, the song experienced a bit of a comeback and was frequently played on the radio. It had all the kids intrigued and the popular theory was that the girl, played by Glynnis O'Connor in the film, had concealed a pregnancy, given birth in the woods with Billie Joe as the father and the two of them cast the infant, either alive or stillborn, into the river. So convinced were were of this that when we heard rumors of copycat baby tossings on other bridges via letters and gossip from friends and relations in rural areas, it further cemented our belief that an Infanticide was at the bottom of the story. When we saw the film and watched the screenwriters "gay panic" suicide theory, we were angry and disappointed because we just didn't see why one drunken sexual experience of that type would make a guy toss himself off a bridge. Now, I know we aren't supposed to talk about our own feelings here so I'm offering the above only as evidence of how powerful media suggestions can be. You must recall that two of the biggest teen actors of the day were in this film, it was heavily promoted in teen magazines, on television and radio AND this was before Cable and other entertainment distractions for it's targeted audience. Therefore, the word-of-mouth marketing campaign was deliberate. They wanted kids gossiping about the song, the film and the alleged real event. The film based on this song is just one of the films from the 70's that claimed to be based on a real event that was NOT. ANother was the exploitation film Cannibal Holocaust. of course, unlike Blair witch and Cannibal Holocaust, this film didn't say it was "found footage" but the fiction that it was based on a true story created a similar fervor and concern that a real crime had been committed and covered up.LiPollis (talk) 18:01, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

If the song is fictional, then I think trying to figure out what happened and why is a red herring. All that matters is that the narrator knows something that others are oblivious to. The song is about what it's like to know a dark secret, but it doesn't matter what the secret is. Richard K. Carson (talk) 04:57, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I love the song, and BG states that there aren't any answers to the questions everyone has about it, but my son and I came up with a solution that fills all the blanks, but doesn't make any statements about the time and southern lifestyle that could be disputed BECAUSE of the time and lifestyle. Billie Joe and the narrator went joyriding in Billie Joe's daddy's car without permission the day that Brother Taylor saw them on the bridge together. Billy Joe was driving and a small child ran out in front of the car and was killed. Billy Joe and the narrator throw the dead child off the bridge together to hide it from the authorities, and the next day Billy Joe can't live with himself. This also matches with the "found" verse in that Sally Jane could have been the dead child's mother. My version of events don't require an interracial relationship, a lesbian relationship, or a "hidden" pregnancy.Wes1960 (talk) 16:39, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

==

One of my pet peeves regarding the discussion of this song is people using the novel and movie as references for their ideas/theories. The movie is based on the novel, and the novel was written without Bobbie Gentry's involvement, although she did meet with Herman Raucher and Max Baer I address that later. So neither of them would hold any answers to the story of the actual song. A good friend of mine, Steve Wilkinson, is a well known song writer who spends a lot of time in Nashville. Steve was friends with Jim Stafford, who was married to and had a son with Bobbie. Steve and Jim would often have what they called 'storm sessions' where they would get together, sometimes with other writers, and just play guitars and write songs off the cuff. During these sessions they would often discuss the process of song writing, where they get their songs from , where other writers get their songs from etc... At one of these sessions Jim brought up the subject of one of the saddest stories he knew of that became a song, a story from his former wife Bobbie's childhood.

Jim told Steve how Bobbie had grown up in a strict baptist family with her father and step brother on her grandparents farm just outside of Woodland Mississippi, near Cane Creek. Bobbie had been good friends with a young man named William who cleaned the church they attended and also worked at the local saw mill. At the time they met Bobbie was 9 and William was 16, but William had developmental issues and was said to have the mind of a 6 or 7 year old. Over the years Bobbie and William had become very close and spent a lot of time together. No one thought much of it because William's disability made them seem closer in age than they actually were. Two days after Bobbie's 13th birthday (some time in the early 30s) William, who was now 20, approached Bobbie after church and said he wanted to give her a birthday gift. They went into the woods and eventually ended up kissing and making out. It got as far as Bobbie's top coming off and William fondling her breasts when a girl name Anne, who went to school with Bobbie and followed them into the woods after church, yelled out for William to stop.

Bobbie, scared and embarrassed, ran off back toward the church and then went home with her grandfather saying nothing about what happened. Later that evening, sometime after dinner, William came to pick up Bobbie in his father's truck to drive them to a church social where Bobbie played piano during gospel sing alongs. Instead of going to the social William drove to a side road that lead to a bridge over Cane Creek. He stopped the truck near the bridge and when he and Bobbie got out of the truck he pulled back a tarp and Anne's body was under it. William was crying and freaking out, and Bobbie also began crying and freaking out. William told Bobbie that after Bobbie ran from the woods at the church Anne began hitting him and yelling at him that he was bad, and saying she was going to tell everyone what she saw. William panicked and pushed Anne and she fell and struck her head on a large sharp rock and died. Even though it was an accident William and Bobbie knew others would be enraged and want justice, because of how people with William's developmental disabilities were viewed back then. They decided to throw Anne's body off the bridge over Cane Creek and hope others believed it was an accident. What they didn't know was that the priest from the church was fishing off the creek side just a little ways from them and saw what they did.

When William and Bobbie drove off the priest walked down toward the bridge to see what they had thrown over and saw the body. He immediately went to Bobbie's grandparents farm and told her father and grandparents about it. They called Bobbie outside to talk with her and grilled her about it. She initially denied knowing anything, but eventually broke down and told the truth. As she and William suspected, her father, grandparents, and the priest were enraged and yelling that William had to pay for his sins. Bobbie's father and grandfather assured the priest they would deal with it and the priest left. The next day Bobbie's father and grandfather went to the saw mill that William worked at. They told the owner of the saw mill what had happened the night before and the mill owner allowed them to take William away with them. They took William to the bridge on Cane Creek, pulled him out of the truck, and beat him severely, told him to leave town, and threw him off the bridge. William never got the chance to leave town though because, due to the injuries from the beating, he was unable to pull himself out of the creek and ended up drowning. The story that was told to Anne's parents and other people in town was that Bobbie's father and grandfather were fishing at the creek when they saw William throwing Anne's naked body from the bridge. The father ran to grab William while the grandfather ran to Anne. The grandfather yelled to the father that William had beaten Anne to death and the father then beat William and threw him from the bridge. The people in town believed the story, and eventually William raping Anne was added to the story, and felt that Bobbie's father was in his right to do what he did to William and justice had been served. The next week Bobbie was sent to live with her mother in California so she would be far from what happened.

Fast forward many years... Bobbie writes Ode To Billie Joe as a form of therapy to get a long carried weight off her shoulders. She wanted to tell the story as close to the truth without actually telling the full story, for obvious reasons. The original version had eleven verses and told a lot more of the story. The first verse that dealt with Anne's death, but only mentioned her not being seen in town, was removed, and five verses from the end that told the rest of the story were removed. While the last five verses mentioned the father and grandfather confronting William/Billie Joe, they left out the beating and throwing him off the bridge, and left it at William committing suicide out of shame for what he did to Anne (named Sally Jane in the song), but the verses alluded to the real truth stating that no one really knew if William/Billie Joe jumped from the bridge or was thrown. Capitol Records knew the song would never get airplay due to the length of it, and also because of it's very dark tone, and had the song heavily edited. Bobbie wasn't happy about this, but knew she had to do as the record company wanted if she wanted a contract.

Fast forward a little more... Herman Raucher and Max Baer meet Bobbie to discuss the book and movie. Bobbie shows them the full two pages, eleven verses, of the original version and tells them the story behind the song. She told them she wished for the book and movie to follow the original full length version song, because she wanted those involved in the true story to know the incidents still affected her, without giving away the full story to those not involved. Raucher and Baer agreed that the book and movie would be as close to her wishes as possible, but they would need to utilize some creative license to make the book and movie appropriate and entertaining for that time period. When the book and movie were released Bobbie was not happy with the finished products at all, because of how they totally twisted the story and strayed so far from her wishes. She felt betrayed by both the music industry and by Raucher and Baer, and over the next few years it had a huge affect on her. This is why she eventually became a virtual recluse and very private. She deliberately donated only the first page of the full lyrics of the song to the University of Mississippi because she felt that, after how the story had been treated in the past, no one deserved to know the full story.

The story behind Ode To Billie Joe is a big part of why Bobbie's marriages didn't last long. She told Jim Stafford that her first marriage was her seeking the father figure she never had. She said she quickly learned she had made a mistake and quickly got out of the marriage. Her second marriage ended because of the nightmares she still had from her childhood, and how it affected her. The same happened with Jim Stafford, although he stated he still loved Bobbie very much, but it was difficult to deal with what she went through and not be able to help her. --PapaWolf65 (talk) 21:50, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

References

Movie answers

This article currently claims that the questions about the real-life incident Bobbie Gentry alludes to were answered by the 1976 movie. Based on what I've seen of so-called reality-based movies, I can't help thinking that statement is wishful thinking on the part of fans, not encyclopedia-worthy fact. Is there even a single credible source for such a claim? (And, no, song lyrics webpages and IMDb, which can be edited by Joe Q. Public, do not constitute credible sources. I'm talking about non-fiction books or other respectable print sources.) — Jeff Q 15:37, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, it's been a long while since I saw the film, but so far as I remember, it doesn't actually follow the song exactly, and even contradicts it at some points. It could be said to be a possible answer, I think, but nothing for certain. --MockTurtle 02:36, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've tried to track down more information on the above question, coming up with the following:

• The 1976 movie was based on the book by Herman Raucher, a 1976 paperback printing of which is mentioned above by "Random visitor browsing through" (24.225.166.231).
• The book cover states that it's a novel (i.e., fiction), although its back cover implies but doesn't explicitly claim it to be a true story.
• Raucher is known for writing other notable fictional stories, most notably The Summer of '42.
• The U.S. Library of Congress doesn't appear to have a copy of Raucher's book.
• The movie isn't currently available through Netflix, so I can't rent it to see if it makes any unambiguous claims about its historicity.
• The IMDb plot outline implies the story is true, but it sounds rather similar to the blurb on the book's back cover, which leaves room for doubt.

The lack of any supporting evidence thus far that this movie actually provides accurate answers to the mystery behind Bobbie Gentry's song suggests that it's simply one of those many fictional stories that are played up as if they're true, without actually claiming to be so. I will therefore rephrase the text accordingly. It will still be ambiguous, because I don't know that it's not true. Could somebody track down the movie and see what it says? — Jeff Q (talk) 21:39, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I just saw the movie last night. Billie Joe is in love with Bobbie Lee. He gets drunk and has an affair with a man. After sobering up he realizes it won't be a one time experiance and believes he is in fact homosexual. He can't deal with living his life that way and commits suicide. Bobbie Lee and Billie Joe were seen together on the bridge and the thing that was thrown off was Bobbie Lee's rag doll.

The movie isn't all that great but I know the song so I watched it. Angela Rae 19:58, 24 August 2005 (UTC)Angela Rae

The movie's not based on a novel. The book is, strictly speaking, a novelization. Raucher wrote the book and novelization concurrently, and the novel's release preceded the movie's by a few months.PacificBoy 00:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Who did the arrangement?

Much is made of the tasteful string arrangement on Bobbie Gentry's version of this song, but I have been unable to find out who did it. Does anyone know who is responsible for the string arrangement on this record? Rich 03:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Why are the LP and song on the same page?

This makes no sense to me. Why doesn't the song have a separate page from the LP that was built around it? Especially because there is a chain at the bottom of the page linking to Billboard chart-topping songs. Cheemo 02:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Good point; I'd never noticed that. I've separated out the single and album into different sections, but if there's enough information about the album (beyond the single) to make a page, it should be broken out separately. Travisl 16:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Authorship question

On NPR's "Fresh Air", singer/songwriter Nick Lowe talked about songwriter Jim Ford and said the following: "He claimed to have written "Ode to Billie Joe"... and really, in the light of what Bobbie Gentry's done - I mean, it's such an extraordinary song and so typical of a Jim Ford song, and Bobbie Gentry's never really done anything that's remotely like that - I think he, you know, it might be possible." According to Ford's entry on allmusic.com, Bobbie Gentry was once his girlfriend.

Just because Nick Lowe says it, doesn't make it true and frankly, have you looked at what happened to Jim Ford? A recent religious conversion and comeback attempt may be behind any claims that he wrote the song. He had been down and out and living in poverty until a fan scraped him up off the floor and helped him get back on his feet. He may have some bitterness of Gentry's success. Gentry herself is no longer in the public eye so I don't know if she's had time to respond to such an attack on her character. If Nick Lowe believes this and he can prove it, he should sue the woman on Jim Ford's behalf. I'll look around and see if any reliable sources comment on this but Nick Lowe is merely reporting hearsay and his own opinion.LiPollis (talk) 18:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

The Un. of Mississippi has just posted some of the original rough drafts of Ode to Billie Joe (written in Bobbie's own hand) on their web site.They show the creative process of constructing the song with crossed out lyrics and some of the discarded verses that Capitol Records edited out of the original recording sessions. Bobbie donated the papers to their Faulkner room in 1973. skytorchSkytorch (talk) 03:27, 7 September 2010 (UTC) Sept 2010

Follow-up song

I belief there is a follow-up song. Which is one year after the jump. Can someone let me know who sung this and what the title is. 82.170.200.186 13:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)Peter Bee 08 nov 2007 (peterbee.nl@gmail.com)

Bob Dylan, recorded an answer song to "Ode to Billie Joe." Nowadays, it's better known as "The Clothesline Saga" from the Basement Tapes, but it's original title was simply "Answer to Ode." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.202.220 (talk) 19:26, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic

The following sentence is unencyclopedic and should be altered:

Cary Sheldon's warm and expressive voice provides sweetness to combine with Kaiser's gently dissonant, psychedelic guitar work for exactly the right spooky effect.--Filll (talk | wpc) 17:05, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, go ahead an remove it if it's not a quote from somewhere. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 00:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Covers

This is ridiculous. The "cover versions" section is so long that it needed to be broken up into decades. None of these covers are notable, even the ones from major artists, like Sinatra. And it includes covers by unknown artists, many of whom probably added themselves just to get on the 'pedia. I vote we nix the entire section, every decade. None of these versions listed in any of the charts, matched or even came close to the popularity of Gentry's version. They are just noise in the article; they don't improve it. Unless anyone has any reasonable justification for keeping the section, or even just part of it, I'll remove it in the next few days. If you do object, please state your objection here. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 00:07, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I vote to keep it in. It shows the history of the song over the decades, and I learned some stuff I did not know, which surely is the point of an encyclopedia tuxlie 20:29, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Could someone please replace the covers section or put it on a separate page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.164.202.220 (talk) 19:24, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

There is no Question of Authorship:

There is no question Bobbie Gentry is the true author of Ode to Billie Joe. First of all, the imagery of the song is based on her own unique childhood recollections. Choctaw Ridge and The Tallahatchie Bridge are real places that existed in her life. The vivid imagery of harsh southern life on a farm ,in the song, is also an important part of her life story. . She wrote both Ode to Billie Joe and Fancy as short stories before setting them to music. The original short stories are housed at the University of Mississippi with all her other papers. Most obvious, is the song is written from the perspective of a young girl ,not a male. There is a subtle sexist text to the question of true authorship. It is a modern classic written by a woman in the 1960's. Some male egos may have had a problem with that. Bob Dylan wrote his parody, Answer to Ode: Clothsline Saga, partly out of envy. In 1967 he had yet to match that massive worldwide success. Bobbie was one of the first,if not the first, women to have a self-penned song and album go #1 pop. Bobbie wrote nine of the ten compositions on her debut album. A huge rarity for a woman in the 1960's. It is commendable that she never tryed to duplicate the song for quick profit. She never wrote another song like her other classic ,Fancy either. Ode to Billie Joe is also one of the most profitable songs of all time. It has generated well over 100 million dollars in revenue. If someone else had written it, they would have challenged Miss. Bobbie Gentry in court, not gossiped to friends about it. In over 40 years, that has never occurred. Skytorch06:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your opinion. If you can't find verifiable references for any of that, we can't add it to the article. — Frecklefσσt | Talk 15:24, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The King Curtis Cover

I noticed that the most successful cover of Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe is not mentioned. Future rock&roll hall of fame artist, King Curtis, took his stunning instrumental version of O.T.B.J to #6 r&b, and #26 pop in the fall of 1967. It rivaled his smash ' Memphis Soul Stew' as his biggest hit ever and sold about 750,000 singles. It was this cover that pushed O.T.B.J to the #1 song position of 1967.( the Gentry single alone was #3 for the year) The Gentry and Curtis singles sold a combined 3 million copies, the other four charting covers of 1967 sold over 300,000 singles. Bobbie Gentry had a shared publishing arrangment with Larry Shayne Music and her own ' Super Darlin' Publishing' Company. They were bought out in the 80's by NorthRidge Publishing who in turn was bought out by Universal , who holds the valuable license today. Larry Shayne Publishing claimed over a 100 worldwide covers of the song in the late 70's and over 30 million in record sales. One more note about the shameless remarks questioning authorship. I was talking to a friend of mine who has a doctorate in English. He stated it would have been "extraordinary" for a man to write any lyrics in the 1960's that were written for a woman in first and third person. He mentioned Bob Dylans infamous 1960's remark about history never producing a great female poet.( ignoring Dickenson, Plath, Sexton, Rich and many others) It's telling that after Joni Mitchell, Carol King, and hundreds of talented women singer-songwriters that this stigma ,in any form, might still exist . It would also be worth mentioning in your article that Bobbie Gentry was awarded the ' Grammy Hall Of Fame' award for Ode to Billie Joe in 1999. Skytorch 06:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Speculation

I'm moving the entire speculation section from the article as well as a paragraph from the Recording section because there are no references and some of it seems to be original research. Some of this could go back in the article, but there should be references. Here it is:

More than one source claims the rumor that the song was originally longer is false. This is supported by the simple fact that no missing lyrics have ever been published, even though the recording supposedly exists, having been edited down by the record company. Ironically, this rumor adds to the appeal of the song.

Speculation

The mysteries surrounding the characters in the song created something of a cultural sensation at the time and at least one urban legend. In 1975, Gentry told author Herman Raucher that she hadn't come up with a reason for Billie Joe's suicide when she wrote the song. She has stated in numerous interviews over the years that the focus of the song was not the suicide itself, but the rather matter-of-fact way that the narrator's family was discussing the tragedy over dinner, unaware that Billie Joe might well have been her boyfriend.

A popular speculation at the release of the song in 1967 (unsupported by either the song's lyrics or the culture of that area and time period) was that the narrator and Billie Joe threw their baby (live, stillborn or aborted) off the bridge, and Billie Joe then killed himself out of grief and guilt. This version of events is accentuated in the Sinéad O'Connor version, where a baby is heard to cry at the moment the mystery item is thrown off the bridge. There was also speculation that Billie Joe was black, having a forbidden affair with the white narrator, although the culture of that area, in that time period, made it extremely unlikely that a black man would have had any part in the events described in the song's lyrics (a frog down the narrator's back at a public movie theater, socializing with the narrator's family after church, or being seen together throwing "something" off a bridge in public).

Gobonobo ^{T C} 04:41, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

The Jim Ford Rumor of Authorship

I want to point out some of the inconsistencies in Jim Fords claim of authorshp. According to Nick Lowe, Ford claimed to be the sole author. According to Jim Fords family he claimed to have co-written it with Bobbie(his first cousin states this claim on SongFacts). Bobbie Gentry attended the California Conservatory of Music. She studied point,counterpoint and music theory. She was proficient on piano, base, banjo, organ. She studied psychology at U.C.L.A taking advanced studies in nonverbal communications(which Ode to Billie Joe is a case study of). She took her art very seriously. She was writing and producing her own songs in the 1960's. Clearly the legal and ethical burden of proof was on Jim Ford. He never came close on either front. I have no doubt he influenced her art but for a person to lay claim to the work of another artist without any proof is shameless and destructive to that artists reputation. Jim Ford died in 2007 This unproven claim will forever be a stain on his great creative legacy of unique gifts. skytorch70.226.122.105 (talk) 06:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC) Sept 2010.

I wanted to use a quote from Nick Lowe from the linernotes of Jim Fords cd' Sounds of our Times'" Jim Fords reputation was not the best. He told a lot of terrible stories and use to bend the truth a bit" Enough said about his bogus claim of authorship Skytorch Oct 2010Skytorch (talk) 04:29, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

"She studied point"? WTF is "point"? And it's "bass", not "base".

74.95.43.249 (talk) 01:05, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Longer Version

The entry quotes the existence of a 7 minute long version as fact, but there seems to be little evidence for this - and it would seem remarkable that it has never been made public. I think the reference to it should be removed or at least caveatted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.194.44.248 (talk) 17:34, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

• Unfortunately I can't find an online source but I read in a magazine article that the demo version was longer, but the recording does not survive which is why it hasn't surfaced. That said, you'd think the longer lyrics would have survived, unless Gentry chose not to publish them, decided they sucked and buried them or whatever. That or the added length was instrumental breaks or alternate interpretation of the words which is possible too. 70.72.223.215 (talk) 02:46, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Just FYI, there is a link at the University of Mississippi (http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/matinee/filmedinms1.htm) which appears to have one of the lost verses. The page contains a JPG image of a hand printed manuscript on a single sheet of yellow lined paper, with the caption "Original song lyrics written by Bobbie Gentry for Ode to Billy Joe.". The new verse precedes the current first and second verses, which are close but not identical to the published version, and a few lines on the page have been struck out or altered (in the same hand).

It looks good to me, but I don't really feel qualified to judge, so I thought I'd just put it in the record here. The new verse goes like this (the transcription is mine, but the printing is very clear):

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

173.68.62.133 (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

2019

Further to this discussion, podcaster Tyler Mahan Coe recently mentioned the fabled longer version in the Bobbie Gentry episode of his podcast "Cocaine & Rhinestones". He also commented that producer Kelly Gordon reportedly trimmed the song down from a longer original version of about 7 minutes. According to all reliable sources, the song as released is simply Bobbie's original guitar/voice demo, onto which the Jimmie Haskell string arrangemnt was overdubbed at Capitol. The note above regarding the manuscript lyric with an extra verse lends credence to the view that Gordon did trim it slightly, and that was a sound choice, imho, since it keeps the mystery intact by removing the 'reveal' of the narrator's name. Also, in context, that 'missing' verse is rather redundant, doesn't really add anything significant to the narrative, and it throws out the 'chronology', if you will, by starting in the 'present' and then flashing back to the previous year's events. I think it works beautifully the way it was released, and I'm sure an artist as smart as Bobbie would not have permitted it if she didnt thinknit imporoved it. I haven't yet checked Mahan Coe's sources (only heard the show yesterday) but it is well sourced and he carefuly cites all his research, so it seems legit. Dunks (talk) 02:53, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Interpretation in Swiss german dialect by female singer Sina

Hello, I simply missed the mentioning of a european version of this song that goes 'under the skin' as the original; it's sung by the walisian singer SINA in her dialect of the canton of Wallis in Switzerland; unable to give dates - estimate around 2000 thanks hoppls — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hoppls (talk • contribs) 18:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Cover versions

So let me get this straight - someone up and decided to censor the list of covers of this song, but left the parodies section in? Explain that one to me. 70.72.223.215 (talk) 02:48, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Lyrics?

It seems to me that any article on a pop or folk song should contain at least an example of the lyrics, if not the full lyric. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 01:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Full lyrics would often be copyrighted (and if not copyrighted, might be more appropriate for Wikisource)... AnonMoos (talk) 19:06, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

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