Ode to Billie Joe

Ode to Billie Joe is a 1967 song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry, a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a massive number-one hit in the USA, and became a big international seller. The title song is ranked #412 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

1 The story
- 1.1 Mystery craze
2 Novel and screenplay adaptations
3 Cover versions
- 3.1 1960s
- 3.2 1970s
- 3.3 1980s
- 3.4 1990s
- 3.5 2000s
4 Parody
5 Chart positions
- 5.1 USA
6 References
7 External links

[edit] The story

Although the song is recounted as a first person narrative, the Southern Gothic tale is revealed through the dialogue of others.

As the narrator sits down to a meal with her family, "Mama" casually states that the word from Choctaw Ridge is that "Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge," apparently to his death.

None too surprised, family members exchange memories about Billie Joe, and Mama notices the narrator's loss of appetite. Mama casually recounts her visit with the local preacher, Brother Taylor, that morning. Brother Taylor saw Billie Joe and a girl who looked a lot like the narrator throwing something from the Tallahatchie Bridge not too long ago. A year passes. The narrator's brother has married and moved away, her father has died and her mother is despondent. The narrator herself often visits the bridge to drop flowers from it.

[edit] Mystery craze

The mysteries surrounding the characters in the story created a cultural sensation. 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 rather the matter-of-fact way that the narrator's family was discussing the tragedy over dinner, unaware that Billie Joe had been her boyfriend ("Then Papa said to Mama as he passed around the black-eyed 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....'"). "Ode" was so popular in 1967 that Frank Sinatra, who loved it, asked jazz great Ella Fitzgerald to sing a few verses for his TV special. The recording of "Ode to Billie Joe" generated eight Grammy nominations, including three wins.^{[citation needed]} A popular speculation at the release of the song in 1967 was that the narrator and Billie Joe threw their baby (either stillborn or aborted) off the bridge, and Billie Joe then killed himself out of grief and guilt. This version of events is made clear on the Sinead 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 a black man, having a forbidden affair with the white narrator.

[edit] Novel and screenplay adaptations

The song's popularity proved so enduring that in 1976, nine years after its release, Warner Bros. commissioned author Herman Raucher to adapt it into a novel and screenplay, Ode to Billy Joe (note different spelling). The poster's tagline, which treats the film as being based on actual events and even gives a date of death for Billy (June 3, 1953), led many to believe that the song was based on actual events. In fact, when Raucher met Bobbie Gentry in preparation for writing the novel and screenplay, she confessed that she herself had no idea why Billie killed himself. In Raucher's novel and screenplay, Billy Joe kills himself after a drunken homosexual experience, and the object thrown from the bridge is the narrator's ragdoll.

As an archetype of the gay suicide myth, Billy Joe's story is analyzed in Professor John Howard's history of gay Mississippi entitled Men Like That: A Queer Southern History.

[edit] Cover versions

[edit] 1960s

Joe Dassin, American-French singer, recorded a French version in October 1967, translated by Jean-Michel Rivat and Frank Thomas. In the French version the central character is Marie-Jeanne Guillaume, who jumps into the Garonne.
The Ventures, released another electric guitar instrumental version of the song on their $1,000,000 Weekend album in December 1967.
Nancy Wilson (singer) featured a cover of the song on her 1968 album Welcome to My Love. The track is notable for a funky, driving arrangement by Oliver Nelson. It was used by David Holmes in an Essential Mix he produced for BBC Radio 1 in 1997.
Margie Singleton, country music singer, recorded a version of the song in the late 1960s, and made it a Top 40 Country hit.
Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald did a cover of the song on Sinatra's TV special-"A Man And His Music-And Ella" in 1967

[edit] 1970s

Karin Krog recorded a version with Dexter Gordon on the album Some Other Spring in 1970.
Bluegrass and rock guitarist Clarence White, a latter-day member of The Byrds, performed an electric guitar instrumental version of "Ode to Billie Joe" with the band Nashville West on their 1976 album of the same name.
The late guitar great Danny Gatton and pedal steel legend Buddy Emmons traded licks on a funkified version of "Ode to Billie Joe" on live recording titled "Redneck Jazz" (NRG Records, 1978).
The Fifth Dimension recorded a version before a live audience, with the five group members individually performing the Narrator, Mama, Daddy, Brother, and the Preacher. This version was released on the group's "Live!" album.

[edit] 1980s

The British band Torch Song covered the tune for their 1984 album Wish Thing. They released it as a single in 1985.
Danish post-punk band Sort Sol covered the song on their 1986 album Everything That Rises Must Converge
Bonnie Hayes covered it on her 1987 album Empty Sky (Beacon Records BEA-51562).
Henry Kaiser, avant-garde guitarist and marine biologist, recorded a sprawling 9:35 version for his album of eclectic pop-rock covers, "Those Who Know History Are Doomed to Repeat It" (SST Records, 1989). 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.

[edit] 1990s

Patricia Barber, jazz singer and pianist covered the song on her 1994 album Cafe Blue.
Sinéad O'Connor covered the song for the War Child charity benefit album The Help Album (1995).
Phranc, folk singer-songwriter, covered the song as "Ode to Billy Joe" on her 1995 EP Goofyfoot.
Farmer's Daughter recorded a version on the album Makin' Hay in 1996.
Satan and Adam, a blues duo, recorded their version on their 1996 album Living on the River.
John Butler recorded a version on the EMI records 2-disc release entitled "Come Again" in 1997.
Sheryl Crow recorded the song during her VH1 Storytellers session in 1998. Introducing the song, Sheryl Crow cited it as one of her major influences, stating that she was fascinated with the string arrangement and that she'd tried to carry that through on her own records.
Tom Scott, jazz saxophonist, covered the song on his 1999 album "Smokin' Section". The lead vocals were performed by Patty Smyth, former lead singer of Scandal.

[edit] 2000s

Blues musicians Paul Oscher and Steve Guyger recorded an instrumental version, which features the melody on harmonica, and was released on their Album "Living Legends: Deep in the Blues" in June, 2000.
Country artist Leslie Satcher covered the song on her 2002 album Love Letters.
Megan Mullally and Supreme Music Program covered the song on their 2002 album, "Big As A Berry".

[edit] Parody

Bob Dylan's 1967 "Clothesline Saga," sometimes referred to as "Clothes Line" (on The Basement Tapes), is a parody of the song. It mimics the conversational style of "Ode to Billie Joe" with lyrics concentrating on routine household chores. The shocking event buried in all the mundane details is the revelation that "The Vice-President's gone mad!"^[1]

The Austin Lounge Lizards' "Shallow End of the Gene Pool", from their 1995 album Small Minds, is melodically similar to "Ode to Billie Joe", and in fact ends with the line "and that's why Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge".

[edit] Chart positions

[edit] USA

Billboard Singles

Year	Single	Chart	Chart position
1967	"Ode to Billie Joe"	Adult Contemporary	#7
1967	"Ode to Billie Joe"	Black Singles	#8
1967	"Ode to Billie Joe"	Country Singles	#17
1967	"Ode to Billie Joe"	Pop Singles	#1

Billboard albums

Year	Album	Chart	Chart position
1967	Ode to Billie Joe	Pop Albums	#1
1967	Ode to Billie Joe	Black Albums	#5
1967	Ode to Billie Joe	Country Albums	#1

Preceded by "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles	Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry August 26, 1967 (4 weeks)	Succeeded by "The Letter" by Box Tops