What does Ode to Billie Joe mean?

Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billie Joe Meaning

Album cover for Ode to Billie Joe album cover

Song Released: 1967


Ode to Billie Joe Lyrics

Ode To Billie Joe lyrics

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door...

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  1. anonymous
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     Aug 29th 2020 !⃝

    Think about the title of the song “ode to Billie Joe”. I think it was a baby that was thrown off the bridge and it was a girl. The narrator was going to name the baby Billie Joe after the father whose name is Billy Joe. So the song is a tribute to the baby.

  2. anonymous
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     Jun 17th 2020 !⃝

    They were throwing Emmet Till off the bridge.Bilie Joe Couldn't live with that after it happened, so he killed himself.

  3. anonymous
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     Feb 20th 2017 !⃝

    It seems to me that there is only one correct meaning, oh by the way.. Bobby Gentry hasn't died yet so who's to say? There is a missing baby somewhere in Chawtach ridge,but no one there will ever find her anyhow..There was fire and bridge burnt to the ground...And now the DNA samples cant be found..There were flowers everywhere in tupelo, but no one ever seems to know just where they go...

  4. anonymous
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     Aug 15th 2016 !⃝

    I'm learning this song for karaoke. And I'm hearing it oh so clearly because now I'm really listening to the words, but now I can also hear all the creepy chords throughout the song. Creepy chords give the hint of "this is something very bad." But even when I first heard this song 30 years ago, I thought it was about an unwanted pregnancy, abortion, throwing a fetus off a bridge, and then Billy Joe's suicide due to the fact he had just aborted and then threw his own flesh and blood off a bridge and just couldn't live with that scenario in his head.

  5. pat.ch.564
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     Dec 31st 2014 !⃝

    As a contemperary to the song, at the time we all knew the meaning. It was a fetus, the only question whether a miscarriage or self abortion. Bobby Gentry quickly realized that such an explanation was becoming unpopular with certain elements of society and decided that, like the song itself, an explanation did nothing but detract from the real meaning of the song, which was the family indifference and ignorance of the tragedy to her. And in fact that is correct. An indifference she may have herself for her mother's subsequent loss. An indifference, ironically, because of the emotional trauma created by the suicide of Billie Joe.
    The format of this odd is a style called Southern Gothic. The song is perfect in execution. Unimprovable.
    This song was the B side of the single. Its screaming assent in the charts speaks to its perfection.
    In all likelihood, this may be the saddest song ever recorded just by its perfection of message.

  6. anonymous
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     Sep 6th 2014 !⃝

    You might be saddened or shocked to know that Bobbie Gentry admitted to Herman Raucher , when they met in preparation for Herman writing the novel and screenplay based on the song that she had no idea why Billie Joe killed himself. How's that feel? although Herman Raucher wrote the screenplay for the movie for Warner Bros. after hearing Bobbie Gentry say that she had no idea why Billie Joe killed himself, he treated the song as being based on actual events (which it wasn't) but he also explained the suicide as being caused by the guilt from a drunken homosexual experience and the object thrown from the bridge by the narrator and Billie Joe was the narrator's ragdoll. I think that the fetus being thrown over the bridge by narrator and Billie, either from abortion or miscarriage, and then Billie Joe committing suicide by jumping off of same bridge sounds more plausible than some of the explanations that I have read. Even the explanation saying the object Billie and the narrator threw over the bridge was the narrator's engagement ring after she broke it off with Billie Joe and then he feels horrible and can't live without her and kills himself makes more sense than the movie!!

  7. anonymous
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     Jul 19th 2013 !⃝

    From the first time I heard this song it was my impression that you got it rite where you wrote: Or maybe Billie Joe got the narrator pregnant and they aborted the fetus (perhaps by themselves), and then they threw the fetus off the Tallahatchie Bridge....and Billie Joe was so overwhelmed with guilt that he later jumped off that very bridge himself.

    Thanks...........

  8. anonymous
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     Dec 2nd 2012 !⃝

    im stuck on billie joe jumping off a 20 ft bridge and dieing (thats the height of bridge) muddy water tells me its deep also would break bones but besides that everyone misses that her father dies of a virus less then a yr later puzzles me ? My interpation is the father and bille joe did something and bille joe was killed by the father !no one ever seen him pushed,jump ect was found in the muddy river

  9. anonymous
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     Sep 16th 2012 !⃝

    we know by the song billy joe was found in the river... there are no witnesses to a jumping or suicide... what we know about billy joe is "had no sense" and like to joke around and was last seen giving no indication he was about to commit suicide..the description of preacher taylor intrigues me..why say "nice young", why not just preacher taylor which might mean not a member of their church but someone they want to know and have him for sunday dinner...after all, he could tell it was billy joe but not the nattator...the song doesnt tell us it was preacher taylor that gave the news, just that he stopped by...

  10. anonymous
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     Mar 28th 2012 !⃝

    Perhaps Billie Joe proposed to the song's narrator and she turned him down, and he felt so dejected that he committed suicide? Or maybe Billie Joe got the narrator pregnant and they aborted the fetus (perhaps by themselves), and then they threw the fetus off the Tallahatchie Bridge....and Billie Joe was so overwhelmed with guilt that he later jumped off that very bridge himself? What do you people out there think?

  11. anonymous
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     Feb 9th 2012 !⃝

    Its not my interpetation. I read it on another site and it makes sense to me although alot of people seemed nervous about saying anything about the meaning and it is this:

    Its about a guy thats afraid because he thinks he's gay and so he jumps off the bridge and commits suicide. Its a made up song but rings true of how some shutter because they think of the possibility of being attracted to the same sex, in a sexual way. They are rightly repulsed at what comes up in their heads just as a person who has a sense of what is right and wrong would be scared of the thought of stealing or killing someone, ect. Its our duty to repell wrong ideas that crop up into our imperfect minds from time to time. But a grand help would be to be educated in right principles and thats where the Bible comes in. Divine education is so lacking in society and thats why you see the acceptance and glorifing of such "alternate" unnatural lifestyles.


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