Happy 81st Birthday to Mysterious Bobbie Gentry

SInger/composer of one of the greatest - albeit one of the darkest - pop songs ever written, she disappeared from the public eye in the early 1980s and hasn't been heard from since.
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Gusman · 61-69, M

And we will never know why Billie Joe jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M

@Gusman Or what she and Billie Joe threw into that water... I know there are theories out there but the song sure doesn't say!

Gusman · 61-69, M

@ServantOfTheGoddess One of the most thought provoking mysteries of the music world.
Genius really.

graphite · 61-69, M

@Gusman It's not even clear she ever intended for there to be any answers to those questions, thus increasing the intrigue. There was a movie years later, "Ode to Billy Joe," with a fictionalized plot apparently thought up well after the song became famous.

Gusman · 61-69, M

@graphite Some have posited it is a narrative about societal attitudes.
A suicide has occurred, around the dinner table it gets but a passing mention,
"I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge, Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

And mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow.

And Papa said to mama "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits, please,. There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"

ServantOfTheGoddess · 61-69, M

@Gusman yes there is so much going on in those seemingly simple lyrics!!