It Was the Third of June...

A few years ago on this date, a bunch of us were sitting around the campfire after a day on the river, and I asked, "What happened on the third of June?" Fred, who'd had a few too many Jack Daniels, replied, "Billie Joe MacAlliTHter jumped off the TallahatTHie Bridge!" Slurred speech aside, he was correct. The song "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry went to number one in the '60s, and people have been trying to interpret its meaning ever since. I wasn't even 10 years old when it was popular, and listening to it gave me the creeps--the haunting music and the mystery of the lyrics that were more than I could figure out. People are still speculating as to what exactly happened in the song, and Bobbie Gentry never gave an explanation. There are three big questions: What was the nature of the relationship of the narrator and Billie Joe? Why did he jump off the bridge? What did he and the narrator throw off the bridge prior to his suicide?
I have never come up with satisfactory answers to questions 2 and 3, and I won't hypothesize now. I'll just let you read the lyrics and see what you come up with. If you figure it out, let me know.

"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 "y'all remember to wipe your feet" And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge" "Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge" And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas, "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" And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow. Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge, And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge. And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie JoePut a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show. And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?" I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right" "I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge" "And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge" And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?" "I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite" "That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today" "Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way" "He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge" "And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge." A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe. And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo. There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring. And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything. And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge, And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

*Sorry the lyrics don't publish here in verse form!