Nice to see another great reaction from you Harri!!! One day you should consider reacting to "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be" by Carly Simon live, "Why" live from Annie Lennox in the year 2000, "One Less Bell To Answer" from the Fifth Dimension, live from 1970, and "The Battle of Evermore" from Heart, live from 1995! Put them on your list to get to one day, Harri, along with the upcoming "Hi-De-Ho" from Blood Sweat and Tears!!! It is upcoming soon, right Harri? Harri? Harri!! *Sigh* oh well . . . . .
I agree...’Haunting “ is the only word I can find to describe her voice in this song, along with the lyrics of course. A perfect match for the story and the tune. ❤️🔥
@Wayne Brown you're exactly right. I'm old enough to remember when this song first came out. When it gets to the line about her mother asking her what happened to her appetite? It's like I can feel what she's going through just sitting there as people making small talk. I know she has a feeling of tightness in her throat and knots in her stomach. THAT'S the point in the song where I start to lose it and I begin to cry. I'm in my mid-50s now and this song gets to me exactly the same way as it did when I was younger. It's still one of my favorites of all time but there's just something very deep that's underlying there. She has such a beautiful and angelic voice. But it's true that this is a haunting song.
That pales in comparison to the poignant but haunting ballad by my fellow countryman, Gordon Lightfoot. Listen to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and read the thousands of people who can relate to the song.
Ms Gentry was a rare woman. From the beginning she had control of her musical business. When she decided she had had enough she quit, walked away into her private self. What a woman!
The song is about cruel indifference; her parents don’t even realize their daughter is seeing Billy Joe (probably because they’re hoping their daughter will end up with the preacher); the news of his suicide is treated as offhand, casual conversation; they don’t seem to care at all that this young man is dead. And the family doesn’t even realize the singer has gone silent during the meal because she’s upset about his death. Bobbie Gentry has said what they threw off the bridge is meaningless. It’s the family dynamic.
It's not meaningless. It was their baby that was thrown off the bridge. Bobbie Gentry is incorrect, even though she wrote it. Songwriters, inexplicably, often admit they don't know what their own songs are about.
@Uncle Phil Yes, exactly correct. Some girls don't "show", even to themselves. And it's sometimes a big surprise to them. They hope they're just gaining weight, rather than pregnant. It's totally clear what happened here. The only questions remaining being whether the baby was born alive or aborted or died shortly after birth due to ignorance and unintentional neglect. It is a story of tragedy no matter what happened. I knew what this story was about, as a VERY naive teenager. And, knowing how these stories were "laid between the lines" back then, in order to get on radio, I'm surprised that more people haven't figured it out. It is not a complicated story, and not hard to decipher the clues as to what happened. A lot of people, inexplicably, seem to love b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ambiguity. And will argue in favor of everyone else joining them in b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, the ambiguity. And they become angry at anyone who insists on NOT b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, "contemplating the infinite possible meanings of the song", right along with them. I've been argued with by a lot of c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, consterned people about this song on other TH-cam comment sections, lol. So I'm all gassed up and ready for them this time. Although I'm not looking forward to this argument again.
@Uncle PhilNo, I know what they've said and how they say it, and it's more about them not wanting others to be able to see things clearly when they cannot. Some things have objectively correct answers, or in this case inevitable and inescapable answers. It is not wrong to point out when things are clear-cut. And it is not relevant if some few others cannot see it, and actually get angry because they want others to not be able to see it either. If you knew that 2 plus 2 equalled 4, and someone else couldn't see it, would you be wrong to insist that there really, inevitably, was only one answer to that question. There is no ambiguity to that question to anyone who understands math. And I can see through what some others think is ambiguity in this song, at least with regard to the "mysterious something" thrown off the bridge, just as easily. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It is just as clear as the answer to 2 plus 2, that it was a baby. And equally clear that no one, including myself, knows precisely how the baby died, unless it would be Bobbie Gentry herself. I'm not insisting on "being right". I'm insisting that the song is not hard to understand, which it definitely is not. And none of these people have ever proposed anything that fits the lyrics anywhere near as well as a baby. Some people actually stated that they thought it could be a ring. So, they think there are rings big enough to be seen from a considerable distance, which is implied directly by the implied fact that the girl did not see the preacher. So they must have put the ring...in a BIG box or something, and then heaved it into the river with all four of their hands? Ridiculous! Besides, no young penniless man would ever throw a ring he had PAID for, and was likely making payments on...into a river. Let alone, in a big package, held by his girlfriend who had just rejected his wedding ring. Nor would she throw flowers into a river where a ring had been thrown into, and her jilted boyfriend had killed himself. In another video comment argument, some idiots actually argued that the above scenario was more likely than a baby. A ring. And that was one of the less absurd things that they argued for. The bottom line is, nothing, except for a baby, fits every single one of the song facts. Nothing. Period. It's absurd that I have to even say this. The song is a great song. And the, very obvious, story was laid between the lines to get it on radio. And also, to make it a much better song, rather than just telling it directly. But the story can be inferred quite easily. And if you substitute "baby" for anything and everything else on the planet, you will find that absolutely nothing else fits the lyrics...except for a baby.
Powerful performance by Bobbie Gentry. By the way Harri, what you are hearing coming out of Bobbie's mouth is an 'authentic' American deep south accent. No fake Hollywood style southern accents here. I grew up down around that area and am very familiar with it. In Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even far East Texas, that was the predominant accent especially in the rural areas. And the images she's depicting in the lyrics, sitting around the table, passing around the biscuits and black eyed peas, men working at the saw mill, the father talking about how he still has 5 more acres to plow and the young preacher offering to have dinner on Sunday. With all these kinds of images, Bobbie skillfully paints an authentic vivid picture of what rural small town southern culture used to be. It's still that way in some areas but not as prominent today I would say. For me, in some ways, this song preserves just a little of that simple life and culture which I personally feel is slowly disappearing.
100% correct coffee. It’s that authenticity in her voice that gets people. That and she doesn’t oversell it. She just leans into enough to emphasis on certain words and phrases.
Simple in superficial ways, but the complexity of the family dynamic, the event they're discussing, and the casual mentions that indicate a connection to it through the daughter indicate that life is anything but simple there.
That's the same accent my family in Alabama speaks! My daddy was one of those kids chopping cotton in the sweltering hot fields of Alabama back in the 1940's. This song always gets to me on so many levels. Thanks for reviewing it!
@@RLucas3000 it had to be chopped manually first. Then taken through a machine to separate the cotton out. My poor Dad had to pick cotton manually as a child. Pulled out of school in the 1st grade to work in the Alabama summer heat. He picked cotton side by side with his siblings and other children from both black and white families. All working together just to survive. My Dad told me how his little fingers got tore up and bloody from working the fields. He told me how there were poisonous snakes all in the fields and how he feared for his life while he worked. My heart goes out to him and all the poor children around the world who had to work and still have to work in terrible and dangerous conditions. So sad. Thank you.
This song got an enormous amount of airplay when it came out. It was a summer song and l remember well how that summer felt when l hear it. Ode to Billy Joe and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald are two of the most haunting songs. They are beautifully done and l love them both.
When she pitched this song she walked into the producers office with her ukulele and played just as she did here. The producer (can't remember his name) set up recording studio time that day!
I was raised in the SE in America. I’m 66, and spent most of my life in bigger cities in the South where I taught in public schools for 35 years. But I have many relatives who are older who grew up in the country away from larger cities during The Great Depression in the South. Life was hard; many people worked in the fields from dawn till dusk…this “life” persisted even into the 1960s and 70s. At “dinner time” at mid day, the men would come back to the house to eat. They often ate first, and the women and children ate their meal after them because the men had to get back to the field work and they needed the calories. There was a lot of death and injuries, and young children and babies died of common diseases that we can easily cure today. My mother’s baby brother died of pneumonia at only two months old. The singer here wrote this song herself…she’s telling a story…like a ballad/ode. The people at the table are not really too phased by BillieJo’s death, since death was common. Life for them goes on. It’s sad, but…what the singer is really focused on in this song is that the girl’s family never catches on that she’s really suffering due to this boy’s death and that they shared something special. In a better time and place, where people have more money, leisure time, education, introspection, and empathy, perhaps this young girl could have talked about her feelings about the event/what led up to it and could have been heard and comforted, but this is not the time or place for such things. “Pass the biscuits please.”
The Delta blues so wonderfully incapsulated in this song. Man but the American South has given us soooo many genres of music. From country to jazz to blues to Dixieland. All originated in the southern USA.
Not a true story. It's Southern Gothic. The events are open to interpretation, but, as another person commented, it's about the callous reaction of the family. (I think they didn't realize the girl and Billy Joe were in a relationship.)
A movie by the same title was released nine years after the song. It explained the missing pieces of the song even though it's probably not a true story. Bobbie Gentry never said what the song was really about but the movie was very good.
@@SueProst I was 18 when I watched the movie and I barely knew of those issues. It impacted me in a way that is different than if I were to watch it today.
I saw her show in Las Vegas in 1978, I was eighteen.My parents had this record from ten years before. This record topped nearly every chart that existed at the time. Rock, country, R&B, easy listening. I knew I was seeing something special.
Agreed. The strings really stand out in this performance in a way I've never noticed before so I looked up the composer. Jimmie Haskell, who also composed/arranged Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge over troubled Water' as well as many, many movie soundtracks. He's brilliant.
This is one of those live performances that far surpassed the audio (and the audio was great!). The way Bobbie phrased the lines in this performance were so much more thoughtful and expressive. She's more seasoned as a singer and the song had obviously lived and grown within her since she first recorded it. Plus, I really like the drier sound it has as opposed to the audio version which had much more reverb in the production. It just comes off more personal, and intimate. Even the way she's strumming the guitar seems more connected with the mood of the lyrics. In my humble opinion, this performance in one word is...perfect!
Her family were a poor farming family. Their minds were on the chores, bringing in the cotton. No they didn't realize their daughter/sister was this affected by the news of Billy Joe. Day to day life can be hard and cause people not to see what's right in front of them.
This song is fiction and was written by Bobbie Gentry. She already explained the point of it: cruel indifference or unconscious cruelty. She wrote it so she should know.
@@kathlelanI think that the characters' fictionality is immaterial. The comments made were that they were busy, preoccupied, tired people, which makes it understandable if they would fail to notice every aspect of a secretive daughter's life.
Bobbie Gentry, so haunting in her quiet but compelling delivery, I always was fascinated by this song with such a mysterious storyline, a movie actually came out in the early 70s based on the song baring the same title, "Ode to Billy Joe", although this is merely a contrived cinematic depiction that used extreme poetic license in my opinion of Ms Gentry's eerie tale. In fact, I don't think Hollywood was accurate at all, but I could be biased, my family is from Greenwood, near the Mississippi Delta, in fact, I found out I am a distant relative, lol! I don't think really that any revelations are ever meant to come from this mysterious beauty!✌
Thank you for this comment! I am so glad you mentioned about the movie's depiction. So many people think the Hollywood movie script is some kind of accurate reflection of the story that Bobbie had in mind.
During the 1960s I spent a lot of time in rural Mississippi. Near the town where we went to spend time in the summer with my grandmother is a river similar to the Tallahatchie. There was always an undercurrent of tension during those days. Bobbie Gentry hit the nail on the head with this song, which is not an actual event; but a lot of strange, almost gothic things go on in the Deep South. There are a lot of ghosts down there that many people pretend not to see.
Been listening to and loving this song for 58 years. The chill you felt was due to Bobbie Gentry’s talent. The violins added so mightily to the poignant sound. It’s worth reading up on what Gentry says about the story.
I always assumed that she had miscarried and they threw their baby into the water off the bridge, and I also assumed that was why Billie Joe committed suicide, he couldn't handle the thought that they threw their baby away instead of giving it a proper burial. I don't know if that's what it was about, it was just always my assumption! Thanks once again for your reaction and for allowing me to sit in with you!
Actually, there was a movie made of it, which Bobbi Jo Gentry helped make. She states the point is not what was thrown off the bridge, but rather the unknowing family not realizing Billie Lee was in love with Billy Joe. Her mom expressed sadness at Billy Joe's death, and knew her daughter was struggling, but not why. Billy Joe was plied with alcohol by a man and assaulted. He committed suicide because of this.
A haunting song , amazing song writing , mysterious and so well delivered , graet story telling too . We had some amazing female singer / song writers back then.
“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge-flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.” - Bobbie Gentry
She made up the song while she was in college in Southern California. She probably had some psychology classes and wrote a song about peoples in difference There should be some more accurate information online
A classic Southern Gothic tale told in a song! Genius! Bobbie said this song was "a study in unconscious cruelty". (Bobbie studied as a philosophy major in college) After this song came out, people would go there and try to jump off the bridge. The county started fining people $100 to try and keep them off the bridge. Sometime after the movie came out, the bridge was set on fire by vandals and collapsed in 1972. It was rebuilt later. I had read online somewhere that it was originally built back in the early 1900's.
That is exactly how I felt and reacted when I first heard it in 1967 - hauntingly beautiful, beautiful chords mostly played in the minor notes and her story telling and beautiful guitar playing was just a masterpiece. She stepped out into the limelight with a masterpiece.
It not about what happened to Billy Joe. It’s about the callous and disinterested reaction that the people around the girl exhibited. How often do we do the same sort of thing when we hear about a tragedy... pass judgement like they somehow “had it coming.” In a time where death was a pretty frequent occurrence, perhaps people were more cavalier about it , pausing for a second and then moving on.
Speaking of frequent occurrences, I've heard a rumor that every single person who listens to this song will die one day. Pass the biscuits, please ....
i dont feel the girl's family are passing judgement on Billy-Joe for taking his life. In my mind they just swept it away as though it was nothing. They are indifferent and also totally unaware that she is heartbroken. That seems much more cruel.
The story of this song is not something that really happened. It is in fact a tragic love story. I first heard it on the radio, when it first came out, when I was eight tor nine years old. I think it was the first song that ever really made me cry. The emotions are powerful, and make you think. I'm sixty three years old, and this is still one of my all time favorite sings.
There's a movie based on this song that came out in the early 70's that offers some background into the story. It's actually not too bad. Great intriguing song. Thanks for checking it out.
Coming from an artist that didn't have that many hits this song has definitely stood the test of time. The mysterious content, the matter of fact way she relays the story, definitely beautiful yet chilling.
I grew up with my Momma always playing this song. Never understood it until I was older and it is beautiful yet haunting. What a wonderful story teller and singer!❤
I loved this song when it came out and hadn’t heard it again in decades! I remembered every single word of the song and now, I can’t stop listening to this! ❤️
Harry another great female singer with that 'smokey voice' similar to Bobbie's is the late Sammi Smith - "Help Me Make It Through The Night". A classic song written by the great Kris Kristofferson.
Harri, this is one of the great live performances. So glad you reacted to this! This song was actually recorded as a guitar demo by Bobbie with no backing instruments behind her guitar. ( You've been hearing a lot of guitar demos lately, lol ;-) This song came out in 1967 and it went number one in the US within 3 weeks. Billboard rated it as number 3 song of the year! Believe it or not, there was originally 11 verses to this song and lasted almost 8 minutes. The producers "cut the length by almost half and added background music: two cellos and four violins, according to Gentry" "The only surviving draft of the seven-minute version of "Ode to Billie Joe", which consists of two handwritten pages, is located in the archive of the University of Mississippi. The first page has been published and includes these words not in the final recording. "People don't see Sally Jane in town anymore ... There's a lot of speculatin, she's not actin like she did before ... Some say she knows more than she's willin to tell ... But she stays quiet and a few think its just as well ... No one really knows what went on up at Choctaw Ridge ... The day that Billy Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Wow that's pretty cool! So did Sally Ann have a thing for Billy Joe, got rejected and pushed him?!? I'd love to know the rest of the lyrics , thanks for sharing!
@@rolanddeschain965 It's definitely fascinating!. Full of unknown mysteries! But that's part of the magic. It leaves everyone wondering! And the fact that there's more to the song hidden away at "Ole Miss" in an archive somewhere that no one has ever seen makes it that much more intriguing.
Ghosts from the way life was in the old south. Teenage pregnancy was incredibly high and small rural towns across the USA were in poverty. The "muddy" waters held the secrets that are still being talked about today.
cello, base, beautiful. My generation (we're now in late 60s, early 70s yrs old) was so fortunate to have grown up with thee very best music on the planet from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It's interesting to see/hear folks listening to it for the first time, not only listening but enjoying and respecting it. Google can answer any questions you've got.
A great piece. An audio tour of the deep south delta area. The humidity stifling your breathing, hanging like a vapor curtain that you just survive in for another day. Life goes on and death is always present.
smoky, sultry voice. this song takes me back to basic training in '67. at fort polk we weren't allowed to have transistor radios, but when we'd walk into the orderly room or supply or other places, this would be on the radio. i still love that mississippi gal.
In your intro you talk about remembering where and what you were doing when you heard a song Well this is one of those songs for me,I was in kindergarten and my dad was driving me to school and this song was playing on his radio, remember it like it was yesterday and that was more than 50 years ago...♡
yes that is a violin you are hearing, giving you those haunting sounds reminiscent of the movie Deliverance, it gives you that skittering feeling up your spine almost like a horror movie. this is my all-time favorite song. she is such a master of her craft. thank you for this reaction
Welcome to the music of my generation.😁 That era of story telling , stories with substance is gone and nothing, absolutely nothing has had come close to its power.
To me, the saddest part of the story is that not only was the daughter pretty much invisible to the rest of her family...none of them had a clue that she was devastated by Billie Joe's death...but they were equally invisible to her: she couldn't understand why "Mama" didn't want "to do much of anything" after her father died, and yet she, herself, "doesn't want to do much of anything" either...picking flowers and dropping them off the bridge. It's the story of a family that has no emotional connections with each other at all. Back when it came out, everybody I knew spent a lot of time talking about the song, and what it might have been that "she and Billie Joe" were dropping off the bridge. Eventually they settled on three possibilities: flowers, an engagement ring...and a baby.
Even before she starts to sing and tell the story, the moment she begins to play the guitar, it has a mysterious sound to it and immediately conjures up the image of a hot muggy day in the south with red dirt roads, swampy bayous, fields of of cotton and old rusty farm houses tucked away in the shade of the tall pines. With nothing but the peaceful sounds of the whip-poor-wills and Bobwhites, and a soft breeze blowing in the tree tops... Mysterious and beautiful, just like Bobbie herself. Sets the mood perfectly!
This song came out two days after I turned 18. First time I heard it, I was sitting in a Karmann Ghia with driver’s girlfriend planted on my lap. (The Ghia was not made for 7 people.) The song distracted me, from my embarrassing …umm…reaction to her sitting on me ( think of “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.) So I always remembered that. But yes, the picture Gentry paints of life there is detailed, lyrical, and puts one right the middle of it. I always felt like I was sitting there listening to their talk. Now you thala, writing about the image you got is great writing to my mind. - BG
There was a lot of speculation about what they threw into the river ....some say it was a baby and Bobby Jo would not tell what they actually disposed of.......... it was left that way .... a question without answer and knowing this it gives the song an even more eerie vibe!
She was a great storyteller with her music and the fact that you were trying to analyze the meaning speaks to her genius. She's showing the listener that people are more absorbed with their own daily lives than a tragedy that effects someone else. Her original version of "Fancy" is another great story set to music. Your reaction was perfect.
I came from your pink floyd reactions but I really like how calm and comforting your videos are and how uplifting you try to be. I wish you the best in your TH-cam career. I think you could develop quite a kind and close knit community based of the general vibe you give off if you keep making videos.
I was 9 years old in the Summer of 1967, & it seemed that whenever you turned on a radio, you heard this song or Light My Fire. All Summer, everyone was talking about this song & its meaning. Everyone had a different theory. What a haunting & powerful song & lyrics. What a great Summer & great memory!
I remember hearing this from her years ago and always wonder what happened to her. She was smiling and more animated. It is a striking, haunting song. I thought she was amazing and still do.
Nice to see another great reaction from you Harri!!! One day you should consider reacting to "That's The Way I Always Heard It Should Be" by Carly Simon live, "Why" live from Annie Lennox in the year 2000, "One Less Bell To Answer" from the Fifth Dimension, live from 1970, and "The Battle of Evermore" from Heart, live from 1995! Put them on your list to get to one day, Harri, along with the upcoming "Hi-De-Ho" from Blood Sweat and Tears!!! It is upcoming soon, right Harri? Harri? Harri!! *Sigh* oh well . . . . .
OMG, the Carly Simon song! It's like a time capsule of what was expected of ladies back then.
Great song.
Powerful
"My father sits at night with no lights on. His cigarette glows in the dark."
Annie Lennox live “Why” is one of my favorite performances!☮️❤️
@@sassymessmess9110 Awesome song
That has got to be just about the most haunting melody and song there has ever been. Gets to me every time.
I agree...’Haunting “ is the only word I can find to describe her voice in this song, along with the lyrics of course. A perfect match for the story and the tune. ❤️🔥
@Wayne Brown you're exactly right. I'm old enough to remember when this song first came out. When it gets to the line about her mother asking her what happened to her appetite? It's like I can feel what she's going through just sitting there as people making small talk. I know she has a feeling of tightness in her throat and knots in her stomach. THAT'S the point in the song where I start to lose it and I begin to cry. I'm in my mid-50s now and this song gets to me exactly the same way as it did when I was younger. It's still one of my favorites of all time but there's just something very deep that's underlying there. She has such a beautiful and angelic voice. But it's true that this is a haunting song.
Read my comment up above.
That pales in comparison to the poignant but haunting ballad by my fellow countryman, Gordon Lightfoot. Listen to The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and read the thousands of people who can relate to the song.
I’ve been hearing this for 50 years and it’s still chilling to me.
Ms Gentry was a rare woman. From the beginning she had control of her musical business. When she decided she had had enough she quit, walked away into her private self. What a woman!
Beauty meets talent meets stunning voice meets great song writing meets story telling.
Perfection.
The song is about cruel indifference; her parents don’t even realize their daughter is seeing Billy Joe (probably because they’re hoping their daughter will end up with the preacher); the news of his suicide is treated as offhand, casual conversation; they don’t seem to care at all that this young man is dead. And the family doesn’t even realize the singer has gone silent during the meal because she’s upset about his death. Bobbie Gentry has said what they threw off the bridge is meaningless. It’s the family dynamic.
That was what I heard She said it was really about.
Absolutely spot on!
It's not meaningless. It was their baby that was thrown off the bridge.
Bobbie Gentry is incorrect, even though she wrote it. Songwriters, inexplicably, often admit they don't know what their own songs are about.
@Uncle Phil Yes, exactly correct. Some girls don't "show", even to themselves. And it's sometimes a big surprise to them. They hope they're just gaining weight, rather than pregnant.
It's totally clear what happened here. The only questions remaining being whether the baby was born alive or aborted or died shortly after birth due to ignorance and unintentional neglect. It is a story of tragedy no matter what happened.
I knew what this story was about, as a VERY naive teenager. And, knowing how these stories were "laid between the lines" back then, in order to get on radio, I'm surprised that more people haven't figured it out. It is not a complicated story, and not hard to decipher the clues as to what happened.
A lot of people, inexplicably, seem to love b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ambiguity. And will argue in favor of everyone else joining them in b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, the ambiguity. And they become angry at anyone who insists on NOT b̶e̶i̶n̶g̶ c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, "contemplating the infinite possible meanings of the song", right along with them.
I've been argued with by a lot of c̶o̶n̶f̶u̶s̶e̶d̶, consterned people about this song on other TH-cam comment sections, lol. So I'm all gassed up and ready for them this time. Although I'm not looking forward to this argument again.
@Uncle PhilNo, I know what they've said and how they say it, and it's more about them not wanting others to be able to see things clearly when they cannot.
Some things have objectively correct answers, or in this case inevitable and inescapable answers.
It is not wrong to point out when things are clear-cut. And it is not relevant if some few others cannot see it, and actually get angry because they want others to not be able to see it either.
If you knew that 2 plus 2 equalled 4, and someone else couldn't see it, would you be wrong to insist that there really, inevitably, was only one answer to that question. There is no ambiguity to that question to anyone who understands math. And I can see through what some others think is ambiguity in this song, at least with regard to the "mysterious something" thrown off the bridge, just as easily.
I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It is just as clear as the answer to 2 plus 2, that it was a baby. And equally clear that no one, including myself, knows precisely how the baby died, unless it would be Bobbie Gentry herself.
I'm not insisting on "being right". I'm insisting that the song is not hard to understand, which it definitely is not.
And none of these people have ever proposed anything that fits the lyrics anywhere near as well as a baby. Some people actually stated that they thought it could be a ring. So, they think there are rings big enough to be seen from a considerable distance, which is implied directly by the implied fact that the girl did not see the preacher. So they must have put the ring...in a BIG box or something, and then heaved it into the river with all four of their hands? Ridiculous! Besides, no young penniless man would ever throw a ring he had PAID for, and was likely making payments on...into a river. Let alone, in a big package, held by his girlfriend who had just rejected his wedding ring. Nor would she throw flowers into a river where a ring had been thrown into, and her jilted boyfriend had killed himself.
In another video comment argument, some idiots actually argued that the above scenario was more likely than a baby. A ring. And that was one of the less absurd things that they argued for.
The bottom line is, nothing, except for a baby, fits every single one of the song facts. Nothing. Period.
It's absurd that I have to even say this. The song is a great song. And the, very obvious, story was laid between the lines to get it on radio. And also, to make it a much better song, rather than just telling it directly. But the story can be inferred quite easily. And if you substitute "baby" for anything and everything else on the planet, you will find that absolutely nothing else fits the lyrics...except for a baby.
Powerful performance by Bobbie Gentry. By the way Harri, what you are hearing coming out of Bobbie's mouth is an 'authentic' American deep south accent. No fake Hollywood style southern accents here. I grew up down around that area and am very familiar with it. In Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and even far East Texas, that was the predominant accent especially in the rural areas. And the images she's depicting in the lyrics, sitting around the table, passing around the biscuits and black eyed peas, men working at the saw mill, the father talking about how he still has 5 more acres to plow and the young preacher offering to have dinner on Sunday. With all these kinds of images, Bobbie skillfully paints an authentic vivid picture of what rural small town southern culture used to be. It's still that way in some areas but not as prominent today I would say. For me, in some ways, this song preserves just a little of that simple life and culture which I personally feel is slowly disappearing.
100% correct coffee. It’s that authenticity in her voice that gets people. That and she doesn’t oversell it. She just leans into enough to emphasis on certain words and phrases.
Simple in superficial ways, but the complexity of the family dynamic, the event they're discussing, and the casual mentions that indicate a connection to it through the daughter indicate that life is anything but simple there.
That's the same accent my family in Alabama speaks! My daddy was one of those kids chopping cotton in the sweltering hot fields of Alabama back in the 1940's. This song always gets to me on so many levels. Thanks for reviewing it!
@@maryreilly5092 when i hear this, i think, were cotton gins super expensive? or did it have to be chopped before it was ginned.
@@RLucas3000 it had to be chopped manually first. Then taken through a machine to separate the cotton out. My poor Dad had to pick cotton manually as a child. Pulled out of school in the 1st grade to work in the Alabama summer heat. He picked cotton side by side with his siblings and other children from both black and white families. All working together just to survive. My Dad told me how his little fingers got tore up and bloody from working the fields. He told me how there were poisonous snakes all in the fields and how he feared for his life while he worked. My heart goes out to him and all the poor children around the world who had to work and still have to work in terrible and dangerous conditions. So sad. Thank you.
This song got an enormous amount of airplay when it came out. It was a summer song and l remember well how that summer felt when l hear it. Ode to Billy Joe and The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald are two of the most haunting songs. They are beautifully done and l love them both.
When she pitched this song she walked into the producers office with her ukulele and played just as she did here. The producer (can't remember his name) set up recording studio time that day!
Clever guy 😅
It’s unexpected…eerie…and I have loved it for over 60 years ❤
"Ode To Billy Joe" has an ominous quality to it. It's hard not to be affected when I was listening to it.
The Best can mesmerize you with one instrument and one microphone.
He really needs to react to Jim Croce and Harry Chapin.
Shivers down your spine is about right....for me, it happens almost every time I hear it.
This song is so full of imagery, I can see everything in my mind.
I was raised in the SE in America. I’m 66, and spent most of my life in bigger cities in the South where I taught in public schools for 35 years. But I have many relatives who are older who grew up in the country away from larger cities during The Great Depression in the South. Life was hard; many people worked in the fields from dawn till dusk…this “life” persisted even into the 1960s and 70s. At “dinner time” at mid day, the men would come back to the house to eat. They often ate first, and the women and children ate their meal after them because the men had to get back to the field work and they needed the calories. There was a lot of death and injuries, and young children and babies died of common diseases that we can easily cure today. My mother’s baby brother died of pneumonia at only two months old. The singer here wrote this song herself…she’s telling a story…like a ballad/ode. The people at the table are not really too phased by BillieJo’s death, since death was common. Life for them goes on. It’s sad, but…what the singer is really focused on in this song is that the girl’s family never catches on that she’s really suffering due to this boy’s death and that they shared something special. In a better time and place, where people have more money, leisure time, education, introspection, and empathy, perhaps this young girl could have talked about her feelings about the event/what led up to it and could have been heard and comforted, but this is not the time or place for such things. “Pass the biscuits please.”
💯 on this presentation of life in the "South"
Spot on!!
The Delta blues so wonderfully incapsulated in this song. Man but the American South has given us soooo many genres of music. From country to jazz to blues to Dixieland. All originated in the southern USA.
Yes indeed. True talk!
I believe it is in our bones.
Pure Poetry! Awesome! I have loved this song from my youth. Brings back such “feels.”
Not a true story. It's Southern Gothic. The events are open to interpretation, but, as another person commented, it's about the callous reaction of the family. (I think they didn't realize the girl and Billy Joe were in a relationship.)
I was gonna write something similar. You saved me extra writing. Good job.
A movie by the same title was released nine years after the song. It explained the missing pieces of the song even though it's probably not a true story. Bobbie Gentry never said what the song was really about but the movie was very good.
@@beckylawler2768 It's not a true story and I thought the movie was ok but not any better IMO
@@SueProst
I was 18 when I watched the movie and I barely knew of those issues. It impacted me in a way that is different than if I were to watch it today.
you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? you get yer house back, yer dog, back yer job back, yer gurl back...
Billie Joe is a side issue- the point of the story is that nobody in the family had ever listened to or understood her.
I saw her show in Las Vegas in 1978, I was eighteen.My parents had this record from ten years before. This record topped nearly every chart that existed at the time. Rock, country, R&B, easy listening. I knew I was seeing something special.
This song. It will haunt you forever. I don't think that we will ever know what they threw off that bridge. What a story teller. Thank you!
A Southern Gothic tale sung well. The strings really add to the atmosphere of this song. 👍👍👍
Agreed. The strings really stand out in this performance in a way I've never noticed before so I looked up the composer. Jimmie Haskell, who also composed/arranged Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge over troubled Water' as well as many, many movie soundtracks. He's brilliant.
This is one of those live performances that far surpassed the audio (and the audio was great!). The way Bobbie phrased the lines in this performance were so much more thoughtful and expressive. She's more seasoned as a singer and the song had obviously lived and grown within her since she first recorded it. Plus, I really like the drier sound it has as opposed to the audio version which had much more reverb in the production. It just comes off more personal, and intimate. Even the way she's strumming the guitar seems more connected with the mood of the lyrics. In my humble opinion, this performance in one word is...perfect!
Couldn't agree more. Much better than the original.
Her family were a poor farming family. Their minds were on the chores, bringing in the cotton. No they didn't realize their daughter/sister was this affected by the news of Billy Joe. Day to day life can be hard and cause people not to see what's right in front of them.
That's right: they were small farmers, scratching for survival.
This song is fiction and was written by Bobbie Gentry. She already explained the point of it: cruel indifference or unconscious cruelty. She wrote it so she should know.
@@kathlelanI think that the characters' fictionality is immaterial. The comments made were that they were busy, preoccupied, tired people, which makes it understandable if they would fail to notice every aspect of a secretive daughter's life.
Bobbie Gentry, so haunting in her quiet but compelling delivery, I always was fascinated by this song with such a mysterious storyline, a movie actually came out in the early 70s based on the song baring the same title, "Ode to Billy Joe", although this is merely a contrived cinematic depiction that used extreme poetic license in my opinion of Ms Gentry's eerie tale. In fact, I don't think Hollywood was accurate at all, but I could be biased, my family is from Greenwood, near the Mississippi Delta, in fact, I found out I am a distant relative, lol! I don't think really that any revelations are ever meant to come from this mysterious beauty!✌
Thank you for this comment! I am so glad you mentioned about the movie's depiction. So many people think the Hollywood movie script is some kind of accurate reflection of the story that Bobbie had in mind.
My father in law had one of the cast iron spheres from the top of the old Tallahatchie Bridge. I've fished that River many times. ✌️
I always loved this song and my friends made fun.
another super classic.
My Mom and her friends were obsessed with this story-- just what was going on up there on that bridge? They could not stop speculating. LOL
i always thought they thrown a baby from the bridge !
She has a haunting voice
I was thirteen when I first heard this song and it made me cry.
Quite a profound song. Create a mystery.
During the 1960s I spent a lot of time in rural Mississippi. Near the town where we went to spend time in the summer with my grandmother is a river similar to the Tallahatchie. There was always an undercurrent of tension during those days. Bobbie Gentry hit the nail on the head with this song, which is not an actual event; but a lot of strange, almost gothic things go on in the Deep South. There are a lot of ghosts down there that many people pretend not to see.
Pearl River maybe? Or the Tombigbee? Lived in the 'Sipp all my life. You aren't wrong about the ghosts. ✌️
Beautiful. She does a song called Fancy that's very good
Been listening to and loving this song for 58 years. The chill you felt was due to Bobbie Gentry’s talent. The violins added so mightily to the poignant sound. It’s worth reading up on what Gentry says about the story.
I always assumed that she had miscarried and they threw their baby into the water off the bridge, and I also assumed that was why Billie Joe committed suicide, he couldn't handle the thought that they threw their baby away instead of giving it a proper burial. I don't know if that's what it was about, it was just always my assumption! Thanks once again for your reaction and for allowing me to sit in with you!
That's what I always thought when I hear this song.
Actually, there was a movie made of it, which Bobbi Jo Gentry helped make. She states the point is not what was thrown off the bridge, but rather the unknowing family not realizing Billie Lee was in love with Billy Joe. Her mom expressed sadness at Billy Joe's death, and knew her daughter was struggling, but not why. Billy Joe was plied with alcohol by a man and assaulted. He committed suicide because of this.
That’s what I always thought too about throwing a baby into the river
That’s what I thought, too. ❤
The movie was awful. As much as I loved Robby Benson it was dumb.😊
A haunting song , amazing song writing , mysterious and so well delivered , graet story telling too . We had some amazing female singer / song writers back then.
“Everybody has a different guess about what was thrown off the bridge-flowers, a ring, even a baby. Anyone who hears the song can think what they want, but the real message of the song, if there must be a message, revolves around the nonchalant way the family talks about the suicide. They sit there eating their peas and apple pie and talking, without even realizing that Billie Joe’s girlfriend is sitting at the table, a member of the family.” - Bobbie Gentry
Yes, this is the prettiest face that will ever punch you right in the gut. Angelic voice, absolutely unique.
This song has puzzled me for 50 years !! lol but her voice is hauntingly beautiful
She made up the song while she was in college in Southern California. She probably had some psychology classes and wrote a song about peoples in difference There should be some more accurate information online
Shirley Mongold read the comment directly above yours you'll find it interesting I believe
A classic Southern Gothic tale told in a song! Genius! Bobbie said this song was "a study in unconscious cruelty". (Bobbie studied as a philosophy major in college)
After this song came out, people would go there and try to jump off the bridge. The county started fining people $100 to try and keep them off the bridge. Sometime after the movie came out, the bridge was set on fire by vandals and collapsed in 1972. It was rebuilt later. I had read online somewhere that it was originally built back in the early 1900's.
I heard this song when it first came out in 1967, and it has never lost its power. It spooked me then and it just sent shivers down my spine again.
That is exactly how I felt and reacted when I first heard it in 1967 - hauntingly beautiful, beautiful chords mostly played in the minor notes and her story telling and beautiful guitar playing was just a masterpiece. She stepped out into the limelight with a masterpiece.
A song along these lines , John prine singing ' Sam stone' will just about break your heart.
It not about what happened to Billy Joe. It’s about the callous and disinterested reaction that the people around the girl exhibited. How often do we do the same sort of thing when we hear about a tragedy... pass judgement like they somehow “had it coming.”
In a time where death was a pretty frequent occurrence, perhaps people were more cavalier about it , pausing for a second and then moving on.
Well stated, Carol. Agree. Great song.
Speaking of frequent occurrences, I've heard a rumor that every single person who listens to this song will die one day. Pass the biscuits, please ....
Thats pretty much how society is now. Guess thats where the "Life goes on" saying comes in
Yes, “you can’t date anyone that low class, you’re better than that. Now where were we?”
i dont feel the girl's family are passing judgement on Billy-Joe for taking his life. In my mind they just swept it away as though it was nothing. They are indifferent and also totally unaware that she is heartbroken. That seems much more cruel.
You can't make up a story like this. Raw and real.
Brenda Lee "I'm Sorry" from the 60's is another song you won't forget
No Auto-tune. Perfect.
The facts written about her on the screen is interesting.
The story of this song is not something that really happened. It is in fact a tragic love story. I first heard it on the radio, when it first came out, when I was eight tor nine years old. I think it was the first song that ever really made me cry. The emotions are powerful, and make you think. I'm sixty three years old, and this is still one of my all time favorite sings.
Serious masterpiece by Bobby Gentry
That violin thing at the end is spectacular.
This is special. Haunting. You will never forget.
There's a movie based on this song that came out in the early 70's that offers some background into the story. It's actually not too bad. Great intriguing song. Thanks for checking it out.
The movie told one story, and the song tells a different story.
The movie was bullshit, a lame money grab to cash in on the popularity of the song.
I didn't think the movie captured the song at all. The movie had its own agenda separate from the song.
The movie is called Ode to Billy Joe . It’s free to watch here on TH-cam
Classic #1 song from 1967. One of the biggest songs of the year. ♥️🎼🎵🎶🎶🇨🇦🇨🇦
This record has been part of my life for 50+ years. You are lucky, being young, to experience it freshly for the first time.
The Great Unsolvable Mystery!
She was beautiful and had a beautiful voice! She was an excellent songwriter..... very talented lady!
Coming from an artist that didn't have that many hits this song has definitely stood the test of time. The mysterious content, the matter of fact way she relays the story, definitely beautiful yet chilling.
I grew up with my Momma always playing this song. Never understood it until I was older and it is beautiful yet haunting. What a wonderful story teller and singer!❤
It’s definitely a haunting song 😢
Never heard this song before. Great bluesy song. 🎶 Lovely
Was a huge, huge hit when it came out!!
I loved this song when it came out and hadn’t heard it again in decades! I remembered every single word of the song and now, I can’t stop listening to this! ❤️
You have good insight, very impressive, credit to you. You are right. She was a very striking woman!!!
Harry another great female singer with that 'smokey voice' similar to Bobbie's is the late Sammi Smith - "Help Me Make It Through The Night". A classic song written by the great Kris Kristofferson.
Harri, this is one of the great live performances. So glad you reacted to this!
This song was actually recorded as a guitar demo by Bobbie with no backing instruments behind her guitar. ( You've been hearing a lot of guitar demos lately, lol ;-) This song came out in 1967 and it went number one in the US within 3 weeks. Billboard rated it as number 3 song of the year! Believe it or not, there was originally 11 verses to this song and lasted almost 8 minutes. The producers "cut the length by almost half and added background music: two cellos and four violins, according to Gentry" "The only surviving draft of the seven-minute version of "Ode to Billie Joe", which consists of two handwritten pages, is located in the archive of the University of Mississippi. The first page has been published and includes these words not in the final recording.
"People don't see Sally Jane in town anymore ... There's a lot of speculatin, she's not actin like she did before ... Some say she knows more than she's willin to tell ... But she stays quiet and a few think its just as well ... No one really knows what went on up at Choctaw Ridge ... The day that Billy Jo McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."
Wow that's pretty cool! So did Sally Ann have a thing for Billy Joe, got rejected and pushed him?!? I'd love to know the rest of the lyrics , thanks for sharing!
@@rolanddeschain965 It's definitely fascinating!. Full of unknown mysteries! But that's part of the magic. It leaves everyone wondering! And the fact that there's more to the song hidden away at "Ole Miss" in an archive somewhere that no one has ever seen makes it that much more intriguing.
Thank you. I never heard that before.
Ghosts from the way life was in the old south. Teenage pregnancy was incredibly high and small rural towns across the USA were in poverty. The "muddy" waters held the secrets that are still being talked about today.
Those strings. Her voice. It's a ghost story. Haunting.
cello, base, beautiful. My generation (we're now in late 60s, early 70s yrs old) was so fortunate to have grown up with thee very best music on the planet from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. It's interesting to see/hear folks listening to it for the first time, not only listening but enjoying and respecting it. Google can answer any questions you've got.
A great piece. An audio tour of the deep south delta area. The humidity stifling your breathing, hanging like a vapor curtain that you just survive in for another day. Life goes on and death is always present.
smoky, sultry voice. this song takes me back to basic training in '67. at fort polk we weren't allowed to have transistor radios, but when we'd walk into the orderly room or supply or other places, this would be on the radio. i still love that mississippi gal.
People have been trying to analyze this song for over 50 years. The scariest part of the song is how deadpan her face is throughout the song.
She was deadpan wasnt she? AMAZING stuff
In your intro you talk about remembering where and what you were doing when you heard a song
Well this is one of those songs for me,I was in kindergarten and my dad was driving me to school and this song was playing on his radio, remember it like it was yesterday and that was more than 50 years ago...♡
Isn't that one of the wonders of good songs? We go there to be with them as they tell their story. And then, it is a part of our souls forever after.
She has so many great songs.❤
yes that is a violin you are hearing, giving you those haunting sounds reminiscent of the movie Deliverance, it gives you that skittering feeling up your spine almost like a horror movie. this is my all-time favorite song. she is such a master of her craft. thank you for this reaction
Welcome to the music of my generation.😁
That era of story telling , stories with substance is gone and nothing, absolutely nothing has had come close to its power.
To me, the saddest part of the story is that not only was the daughter pretty much invisible to the rest of her family...none of them had a clue that she was devastated by Billie Joe's death...but they were equally invisible to her: she couldn't understand why "Mama" didn't want "to do much of anything" after her father died, and yet she, herself, "doesn't want to do much of anything" either...picking flowers and dropping them off the bridge. It's the story of a family that has no emotional connections with each other at all.
Back when it came out, everybody I knew spent a lot of time talking about the song, and what it might have been that "she and Billie Joe" were dropping off the bridge. Eventually they settled on three possibilities: flowers, an engagement ring...and a baby.
Even before she starts to sing and tell the story, the moment she begins to play the guitar, it has a mysterious sound to it and immediately conjures up the image of a hot muggy day in the south with red dirt roads, swampy bayous, fields of of cotton and old rusty farm houses tucked away in the shade of the tall pines. With nothing but the peaceful sounds of the whip-poor-wills and Bobwhites, and a soft breeze blowing in the tree tops... Mysterious and beautiful, just like Bobbie herself. Sets the mood perfectly!
This song came out two days after I turned 18. First time I heard it, I was sitting in a Karmann Ghia with driver’s girlfriend planted on my lap. (The Ghia was not made for 7 people.) The song distracted me, from my embarrassing …umm…reaction to her sitting on me ( think of “Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On.) So I always remembered that.
But yes, the picture Gentry paints of life there is detailed, lyrical, and puts one right the middle of it. I always felt like I was sitting there listening to their talk. Now you thala, writing about the image you got is great writing to my mind. - BG
How many of us, every year, think of this song when June 3rd comes along? I know my friends and I always do, and someone always posts the song on FB
Always! Since I was 12 years old! Another date I always think of is the 3rd of September, from Papa Was a Rolling Stone.
Evocative. A story. The "style" of this is what we call Southern Gothic...
She has another great song called “Fancy”…she tells a great story. (Not to be confused with the cover by Reba McIntyre).
And she also did a cover of "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (first done by Johnny Mathis) that was a big hit, especially in Europe where it went # 1.
Bobbie's "Fancy " is vastly superior to Reba's.
Bobbie Gentry can sure make a story seem real.
Love this song. Thanks Harri! Even though that was the edited version.
Love her and this song, makes me want to cry every time
I first heard this as a kid. It's haunting. Thank you Harri
It is indeed
There was a lot of speculation about what they threw into the river ....some say it was a baby and Bobby Jo would not tell what they actually disposed of.......... it was left that way .... a question without answer and knowing this it gives the song an even more eerie vibe!
She was a great storyteller with her music and the fact that you were trying to analyze the meaning speaks to her genius. She's showing the listener that people are more absorbed with their own daily lives than a tragedy that effects someone else. Her original version of "Fancy" is another great story set to music. Your reaction was perfect.
This was one my favorite songs back when it was on the radio, a long time ago.
I came from your pink floyd reactions but I really like how calm and comforting your videos are and how uplifting you try to be. I wish you the best in your TH-cam career. I think you could develop quite a kind and close knit community based of the general vibe you give off if you keep making videos.
Thank you very much Alex..i really appreciate this ✌🏾
Oh..and i aint going nowhere 😀
She is the most beautiful woman i have ever seen!
I was 9 years old in the Summer of 1967, & it seemed that whenever you turned on a radio, you heard this song or Light My Fire. All Summer, everyone was talking about this song & its meaning. Everyone had a different theory. What a haunting & powerful song & lyrics.
What a great Summer & great memory!
So haunting and dark but sooo damm good
She's got a lot of great songs;
*Big boss man
*Son of a preacher man
*Fancy.
And can she DANCE?
HELL YEAH! 💃
Great reaction you really got it. Love you
Sht dude , goosebumps every time
great reaction. great song. very haunting music accompaniment.
Every time I'm listening to this song, emotion hugs me.
I remember hearing this from her years ago and always wonder what happened to her. She was smiling and more animated. It is a striking, haunting song. I thought she was amazing and still do.
I think you would get a kick out of Jeannie C. Riley - 'Harper Valley P.T.A.'
Enjoying your take on these classic songs.
She's like so vivid and how she puts you in the room, good stuff.