OT: Happy Bobbie Gentry Day...
- Thread starter MtNittany
- Start date
Built an entire career on one song, but I did and still do like the song. Thinking Petula Clark also built a career on one big hit then some lesser numbers.
I was pretty young when that song came out. Too young for the adult theme of it, then somebody made a movie about it. Maybe it was a TV movie, I don't recall but then it all made sense.
The movie story line wasn't what BG wrote about, just Hollywood's take on it. She wrote about the justified callousness of the father. Most think if it was anything more than that, it was an aborted baby they threw off the bridge.
Well Billy Joe took the dive, we know from the song and at the end she throws flowers off the bridge. Earlier in the song the singer and Billy Joe were throwing "something" off the bridge. As a young kid I figured it could have been a gun, or almost anything. The movie did indicate it was the bastard child of BJ and the singer. An abortion would make sense as the parents in the song don't seem to be imbeciles who would not notice the singer's full term pregnancy but it's not disclosed in any case. The plot isn't as convoluted as Vicky Lawrence and "The Night the Lights Went Out" which I've stopped trying to solve.
The movie had him jumping because he was gay.Well Billy Joe took the dive, we know from the song and at the end she throws flowers off the bridge. Earlier in the song the singer and Billy Joe were throwing "something" off the bridge. As a young kid I figured it could have been a gun, or almost anything. The movie did indicate it was the bastard child of BJ and the singer. An abortion would make sense as the parents in the song don't seem to be imbeciles who would not notice the singer's full term pregnancy but it's not disclosed in any case. The plot isn't as convoluted as Vicky Lawrence and "The Night the Lights Went Out" which I've stopped trying to solve.
Oh yeah? Huh. Long time since I saw it. Who was the kid's father then? I thought the upshot of the movie was that they threw the dead baby or fetus in the river. Maybe I'm mixing up more than one movie.
What happened to her? This reporter tries to find out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...88aba2-28df-11e6-a3c4-0724e8e24f3f_story.html
Petula Clark had 3-4 hits in this country, though today most only remember one of them. But she had a bigger career in England. Not really the same thing.
The original song had more verses and ran over 7 minutes, which got whittled down to 4 minutes or so to fit on a 7" single. It's a case of another song that was supposed to be the B-side that became the hit.
Ms. Gentry has never stated for sure what they threw off the bridge. (I think a dead baby is out of the question- bridges are very visible locations, and besides the girl's been out chopping cotton.) She has said the song is more about the disfunctional response to the death of a boy the girl really loved, and they were all too oblivious to notice.
Ms. Gentry has never stated for sure what they threw off the bridge. (I think a dead baby is out of the question- bridges are very visible locations, and besides the girl's been out chopping cotton.) She has said the song is more about the disfunctional response to the death of a boy the girl really loved, and they were all too oblivious to notice.
