What do you think Billy Joe and his female companion were throwing off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

Well, it was a baby, their baby, and Billie Joe felt so bad about it he threw himself off the bridge to his death not long after. Isn’t that what the song is about? That’s what I’ve always thought.

That’s always been my theory also @lillycoyote but the song is not explicit about that detail so I wonder if anyone has a different theory… I heard the song again the other night, sparked this question.

That question was much, much discussed when the song came out. Some said a flower. Some said a ring. And some said a baby. I certainly didn’t think anyone could carry a baby to term in a town like that one (pass the biscuits, please) without someone noticing. And even if someone could, it hardly seems likely that the observant sibling would have missed that detail.

I’ve always believed that Bobbie Gentry actually had nothing specific in mind and left it like that just to be mysterious.

@Jeruba I’ve never imagined the baby to be a full-term baby but rather a early-stage baby, miscarried… interesting that you mention a flower because that thought crossed my mind…

Something similar happened here, where I live, and sadly, it happens more often than you’d like to think but here it was a motel and a trash bag.

And a ring, I had not thought of a ring, but a broken engagement, albeit secret, might have induced the young Billy Joe to jump from the bridge, perhaps…

When I first heard this as a kid, I thought the narrator might have pushed Billy Joe off the bridge. Now I think it was probably a baby, but I agree with @Jeruba that it’s left as a question mark. Makes the song much more haunting.

Apparently Bobbie Gentry claimed to have something in mind, although she wouldn’t say what it was.

In college, English 101, the professor brought in a phonograph (yes he was old) and the record and we went over that song line by line, as an example of a song that tells a story.

No answer here, just chuckling remembering all the speculation at the time. Mostly we kids in the Notheast just loved saying “Tallahatchie” over and over again.

I was hoping that he’d throw himself off.

@Jude He did.

I always thought it was a baby, that was the general understanding around where I lived when it came out.

Nothin’ ever comes to to no good up on Choctaw ridge…