Ode to Billie Joe -- Halloween Hits to R.I.P. By

By Bennett Owen

Credit: Library of Congress

A few days ago I was musing about the maddening mind game of interpreting lyrics that just don't quite tell the whole story. Ode to Billie Joe is the absolute template for songs that leave out that critical piece of the puzzle. Paul McCartney may not be dead but Billie Joe sure as hell is. The question to this day remains, what happened?

Beautiful Bobbie Gentry has never revealed what the girl in the song “threw off the Tallahatchie Bridge,” though she hints it may have been an engagement ring...a careless act that led Billie Joe to commit suicide the next day, throwing himself off the same bridge. Gentry points out the real crux of the song is the girl's indifference...at once intoxicating and toxic ... and a prime ingredient for a gothic horror tale.