Bobbie Gentry – Ode To Billy Joe lyrics

In the made for theater movie with robbie benson(billy joe) and glennis o'conner(bobbie lee), she had a small ragdoll she always kept with her, he teased her about it, said she was a baby for havin' a doll and it was time to grow up & get rid of it. He dropped her ragdoll off the bridge accidently, teasing her, acting like he was gonna drop it, then did. They were madly in love. (she was 15 he was 17 I think) they had s* once & were talkin' marriage, then he was raped by his boss at the sawmill the night before the suicide, her brother was leaving work & their boss asked billy joe to stay late. He told bobbie lee about it, she said it wasn't his fault blah, he couldn't handle the shame & felt he was no longer a man and he killed himself so she could find a "real man" to love. She was the only one at the table who knew any of this plot line, so she was devestated but couldn't show it. She was pregnant & went to live with relatives in tupelo til she had the baby/ which she gave up for adoption then moved back home. It was the same relatives her brother & his new wife becky bought the store from. Not said but I think it was payment for keeping bobbie lee & her secret. Seems like the whole movie timeline is just one summer or a few weeks of summer, so the dinnertime conversation was like a snapshot of the events of that coming of age first love tragedy. Its a great movie made from an even greater song. I love the way she makes a point of their activities & other conversation not matching the seriousness of the event in relation to her feelings about it. They're just like and in other news blah, while she is reeling from the blow. I didn't see the made for tv movie mentioned above with the boy in the tent.

No got her pregnant.they planned to run away.Needing money he robbed a business. She miscarried. Cops found the stash.No way out he jumped off the bridge for sympathy but drowned. She lost her love her baby and had a story she could only tell with this beautiful song Doc ent

It's about unrequited Love.

The Nov. 6 Poster hits the nail on the head.

The melancholy of the song is that it's something so trivial that others don't even consider it, yet it meant everything to Billy. Indeed, even more than his Life.

The girl just saw Billy as a friend, not as a romantic partner. Billy gives her something to show his true feelings but she rejects it, and by extension him.
In torment he commits suicide.

The girl is stunned by this, and feels guilty.

The last image sums this up- she liked him, sadly for Billy, not with the same intensity he felt.

So this from a 1970's movie y'all. Ode to Billy Joe. In the movie Billy Joe is dating the girl who is singing the song. He goes out with the guys one night and gets super drunk has relations with a man. The saw mill owner. He can't emotionally handle it so he commits suicide by jumping off the bridge. People gossip he killed himself because he got the girl pregnant but only the girl and the mill owner know the real truth.

Bobbi Gentry said that the song was simply about the complete lack of emotion over the suicide of Billy Joe. She said there was no other depth to the meaning. That being said, I would posit that Billy Joe took his daddy's car out one evening and accidentally struck and killed a little kid. He put the dying child into the car and went and found the narrator of the story who helped hide the death of the toddler/child by throwing the corpse into the river below the Tallahatchee Bridge. Billie Joe knew that a) his father would absolutely kill him for taking the car and b) he would be prosecuted for killing the child. After he lived with the guilt for the better part of a day, he couldn't get over it. He committed suicide, and the narrator throws flowers into the river, not only for the memory of Billie Joe, but also in memory of the little accident victim. This also explains why Preacher Taylor was up on Choctaw Ridge. He was either comforting the family of the dead child, or part of the search party.

I think they were secretly married by the preacher and then she got scared because of her parents, how they would dissaprove. He was from the wrong side of the tracks. So she decided to get the marriage annuled. They were throwing a package with their wedding rings in it. The preacher saw it and tried to hint arond so the truth would come out but the girl wanted to hide it and not own up to why billie joe killed himself. He killed himself because he became very depressed that she rejected him and felt he wasn't good enough for her. And never would be good enough.

“Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on choctaw ridge”. This line confuses me as it appears to be a double negative. Did I miss something? If nothin ever comes to no good then only good things happen on choctaw ridge. ????! Would appreciate anyone’s thoughts. This is a classic story song but is surprisingly left off many “best story song” lists.

I havent seen movie , put the song start out on the 3rd of June and it's some point a year has gone by .and the father died last spring . That would mean the father's dead dead and couldn't have been at the table on the 3rd of June and said pass the biscuits please

Brother was upset that Billie Joe was talking to sis (it don't seem right) because Billie Joe was promiscuous and had already been caught having sex with Becky, brother caught him at the saw mill and killed him in a rage he and Becky disposed of the body off the bridge, the new preacher obviously saw Billie Joe and sis chatting at the church as well and upon hearing Billie Joe jumped assumed it was him and sis on bridge throwing something off he then looking to get info or console sis invites himself for dinner and tells mom it looked like her daughter in order to get sis to open up if it was her. Brother admits he saw him last at the mill then has a second piece of pie to celebrate that he got away with it. Life goes on in the town but the killer and new wife Becky leave town. Sis having fallen in love with Billie Joe like Becky throws flowers into the water to symbolize her love. But the waters are muddy along with the truth. Everyone assumed he jumped. Brother just about admitted the murder when he states he saw him at the mill,(last person to see him alive) and then says and now you tell me he jumped. That's when he asks for a second piece of pie. Blackbadge can solve any case.