Where’s Paul Harvey when you need him?

So. Those who know me know that I am a stickler for backstory. I gotta know WHY to be satisfied. Which is WHY the song “Ode to Billie Joe” makes me so crazy. It’s a cool song, voice and music are beautiful, kinda bluesy and sultry and secretive. The lyrics are compelling because you never find out what was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge AND you never knew why Billy Joe jumped. I could live with that IF I hadn’t been told that the woman who wrote the song admitted that she had made it all up and she had no idea what was thrown or why he jumped. What?? That bugs me. She created it, she wrote it, she sang it, and never once gave any thought to what the story behind it was?? How- how does she sleep?

Or DOES she know and she’s just not telling? Hmmm. That seems more likely to me, though it does leave us with more questions. And there are those who may think it’s a disservice to a fine song to pick apart the lyrics this way, but it’s not just me! See?? There’s things there I never thought of, but the theory I like best is that ‘that nice Brother Taylor’ has more to do with all of this than previously suspected. He’s the one that shows up spilling the beans about Billie Joe. Why would he even mention that BJ was out on the bridge with ‘a girl that looked a lot like you’ and that they were ‘throwing something off‘? Was he stalking them? Was he stalking them for the narrator or for Billie Joe? Does it matter?

And that last one, I can answer. It does NOT. It’s a great song, a story song, which I love, it just isn’t the WHOLE story, which frustrates me no end. See what you think.