--- In
newmellotrongroup@yahoogroups.com, "Bernie" <kornowicz@...> wrote:
>
> It was Billie Joe what did the jumpin'. They was throwin' flowers
> off the Tallahachie Bridge together. They was datin', but her folks
> didn't know it. Maybe sump'n happened twixt 'em and he couldn't
> handle it.
From Wikipedia: "In 1975, [Bobbie] 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."
So there! I always felt this song's nuvo-existential lyrics in a somewhat Dali-esque fashion
showed a certain vapidity on the part of the song's lyricist. This proves it beyond a doubt.
Rick