It would be impossible for me to make a Top Ten List of the Greatest Songs Ever, but maybe, just maybe, “Ode to Billy Joe” would make it if I were to ever be so foolish.
It starts off “It was the 3rd of June, another sleepy, dusty, Delta day” and ends a year later with remorse, mystery and a couple of deaths. Bobbie Gentry said she never had a backstory of why Billy Joe committed suicide.
I don’t believe her.
I saw the pretty awful movie that was made based on the song and I doubt it was the homosexual angle. But I don’t buy the abortion thing either. I’m not really sure what I think. But I do think that being that today is the anniversary of Billy Joe’s death, we should commemorate it by at least one listen to this amazing song.
By the way, the original Talllahatchie Bridge collapsed in 1972. Let’s give a little moment of silence for that fact too.
margauxville 
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