Any idea what they threw off the bridge, the narator and Billy Joe, that is?
"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"
I read up on it and Bobby Gentry, the songwriter, says it isn't defined, isn't important, and not the point she was trying to emphasize.
There have been a lot of theories what it was, and it seems inconceivable that this isn't somehow a hint to why Billy Joe killed himself.
I'm not buying it.
She raised a burning question and it has consumed listeners ever since.
Glad you brought that up, I had planned on doing some detective (Google) work trying to find that out, then simply forgot about it.
Now you fanned the flame, cool,
See what I can find.
Do think the tune was one of the best of the one hit wonders,
I only know that song of hers off the top of my head. Looking it up, the others don't ring a bell.
I always thought it was flowers or a ring or something terminating their relationship. An unborn fetus or baby crossed my mind, but it seemed somebody would have detected something , but possibly not.
Those sad ones just won't let go of me....
But most ingrained is definitely that he gave her flowers, trying to make up for a fight, and she blew him off as throwing the flowers off the bridge would connote. Then how fitting that he would be the one later jumping off the bridge. And finally, her lingering grief in tossing flowers off the bridge in grief.