Posted on 06/03/2012 4:33:06 PM PDT by re_nortex
It being the third of June, Bobbie Gentry's 1967 song, Ode to Billie Joe comes to mind on this date:
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
She could hit those low notes without blinking. An interesting song all around. Clever post. :)
Great song. Great novel. And great movie....
Ode to Billy Joe is a 1976 film with a screenplay by Herman Raucher, inspired by the 1967 hit song by Bobbie Gentry, titled “Ode to Billie Joe” (note difference in spelling).
The film was directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr. (of The Beverly Hillbillies fame) and stars Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor. Made for $1.1 million, it grossed $27 million at the box office, plus earnings in excess of $2.65 million in the foreign market, $4.75 million from television, and $2.5 million from video.[citation needed]
Gentry’s song recounts the day when Billie Joe McAllister committed suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge on Choctaw Ridge, Mississippi. When Gentry and Raucher got together to work on the screenplay, she explained that while the song was based on an actual event, she had no idea why the real person who inspired the character of Billie Joe had killed himself[citation needed]. Raucher thus had a free hand to pick one.
more....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_to_Billy_Joe_(film)
Wow—heard this song alot back in the days of mostly AM Radio with poorer audio quality. I heard musical acoustics/tones just now never heard before with playing it back from You Tube and with my headphones on.
That beautiful southern accent as displayed by this woman is absolutely enchanting. I'm from the south, but I don't recall ever hearing anything quite like this.
Radio stations were running contests for people to figure out what Billy Joe threw off the bridge. The consensus was a dead baby.
I think Bobbie was married to Jim Stafford for a while. She was beautiful.
I'm glad you enjoyed this posting and, as you stated, the excellent audio quality from the YouTube link.
I was in my mid-20's when this song hit the top 40 airwaves. By then my tastes had gotten to the point where much of the rock and roll sounded like noise to me. Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe was like a breath of fresh air amid what I personally perceived as the din of The Animals, The Beatles and other popular groups of that era. Of course, nowadays The Animals do seem rather tame. :-)
In any event, what captivated me then as now is the richness of the lyrics, the sparse arrangement and the just-right, spot-on vocal delivery of Gentry.
It was the third of June,
On that summer's day
When I became a man
At the hands of a girl almost twice my age
And she came to me
Just like a morning sun
And it wasn't so much her words as such
As the way they were sung
It was the way they were sung
Desiree
Oh, Desiree
There I was found
By the sweet passion sound
Of your loving song
Time was right, the night was long
Remember, Desiree
Oh, Desiree
Somehow I knew
I could only have you 'til the morning light
If only for that single night
Sweet Desiree, you made it right
Then came the fourth of June,
On that sleepless night
Well I tossed and I turned
While the thought of her burned
Up and down my mind
For she was there and gone
Without one regret
But she continues on
Like the words of a song
I could not forget, I could not forget
Desiree
Oh, Desiree
There I was found
By the sweet passion sound
Of your loving song
Time was right, the night was long
Remember Desiree
Oh, Desiree
And though somehow I knew
I could only have you 'til the morning light
The night was long, the time was right
Do you remember, Desiree
Oh, Desiree
Do you remember,
Desiree
I was 11 years old in 1967. I remember this song well. “It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day/I was out choppin’ cotton and my brother was bailin’ hay...’’
..’’And the Southern girls with the way they talk/they knock me out when I’m down there...’’I’ve a sister-in-law from North Carolina. And I’m a Yankee.
It was those opening guitar chords before she started singin’........
Wish I could go back to that summer of 1967 and do things all over again except for the stupid ones. But when you’re eighteen.....
I heard one of the most “fetching” accents ever when I was stationed in Germany in the seventies. My wife and I were at a party and a couple we’d never met attended. The wife grew up in Germany but she and her husband had spent a number of years in Georgia. I was stunned when I heard her speak because she had acquired that Georgia accent while still retaining a whisper of the German brogue. She pronounced Georgia as “Gaw-ga.” Best spelling I can come up with but that one word is representative of her English vocabulary.
Charming and interesting fail to describe it.
My boy always disparaged southern accents as ignorant. My boy is a southerner born and bred same as me but he got that notion that stayed with him till he was 17. That year ghe rode with me on the state fair circuit in the Midwest. Returning in October to the Southland we needed food and coffee down in Mississppi after midnight. I spotted a Waffle House next to an empty shopping center parking lot where I could park the rig and we went in. There was a cook and a pretty black waitress. She put menus and coffee down in front of us and in the finest honeyed Mississippi voice asked, “Are yall ready for breakfast, sugar?” My son visibly slumped in the booth and got a silly smile on his face. I ordered for both of us. When she went back behind the counter, Son said,”Dad, we’re home.” He never said another unkind word about a southern accent.
MY PERSONAL TEA PARTY SONG.
I thought Gentry’s voice was sultry and also just perfect for that song. Much to my surprise, I learned her brother was in my company during basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC in early 1967. He was a nice guy. His last name was not Gentry so some in the unit didn’t believe him.
That accent, Irish, the Irish accent in English, and the whole Vietnamese language were designed by God for women's voices and men's ears.
Southern accents as ‘’ignorant’’? Jeez. Come up here where I live and listen to some New Yorker talk. “Water’’. “Watah’’ “You’’, ‘’YOUSE”” pronounced just as you would say ‘’use’’.
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