Comments on: Five Decades Later, “Ode to Billie Joe” Still Haunts https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/ Musings from an old pro (baseball; writer; longtime teacher). Fri, 10 Jul 2020 14:22:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: slkelly2015 https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-1484 Sat, 06 Jun 2020 12:24:03 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-1484 In reply to Matthew Stiles.

Thank you, Matthew!

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]]> By: Matthew Stiles https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-1478 Wed, 03 Jun 2020 22:04:50 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-1478 Great article for a great song

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]]> By: slkelly2015 https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-1370 Fri, 20 Mar 2020 12:07:15 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-1370 In reply to Dick Watson.

Dick – you should write a memoir of those times. San Francisco to Vietnam. My God. Thank you for your service, my good man.

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]]> By: Dick Watson https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-1369 Thu, 19 Mar 2020 17:28:41 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-1369 Great analysis of an anomalous and haunting song that blossomed during the summer of love. I was on my way to Vietnam, temporarily hanging out in San Francisco. Dick Watson (your classmate John’s brother.)

How apropos for today: “There was a virus going ’round, Papa caught it and he died last spring.”

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]]> By: David J. Mason https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-845 Wed, 20 Mar 2019 18:06:06 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-845 I was 14 when it came out. Our English teacher gave us an assignment to dissect the lyrics and try to figure out what had happened. After deep thinking and listening to it 100 times or more we decided the “something” they threw off the bridge was the ashes of Billy Joe’s older brother who was killed in Vietnam. Who was also the singers first love. The singer lost her love and his kid brother and is terribly, terribly heartbroken. The song represents a heartbroken America. Heartbroken from a senseless war that took away many loved ones. You had to live thru that war to experience the pain of losing a relative. May they all rest in peace.

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]]> By: Bobby Ruane https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-475 Mon, 18 Sep 2017 02:03:46 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-475 Like the other person, I was only age 6 when the song came out. I was haunted by the song as well and have always been curious about what caused the guy to take his own life. Since the song was fiction, there is no end to the mystery. This keeps the song’s mystique alive.

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]]> By: slkelly2015 https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-419 Tue, 04 Jul 2017 18:15:09 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-419 Thanks so much, Paul, for your sage comments. I concur completely!

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]]> By: Paul Stafford https://slkelly.org/2017/07/04/50-years-later-ode-to-billie-joe-still-haunts/comment-page-1/#comment-418 Tue, 04 Jul 2017 17:58:24 +0000 http://slkelly.org/?p=673#comment-418 Thanks for this wonderfully literate reading of maybe my favorite song ever. I was six the summer it came out and I’ll never forget the sound of it coming over the AM in our chevy barracuda… I remember an interview with Bobbi where she said it was a song about devastating indifference… I’ve always liked that. I’m sure it nothing new to speculate that this haunting set piece painting set to the blues destroyed her career. Too much, too soon, too obsessively interesting and evocative. The constant demand for clarity, to fill in the blanks, and the constant speculation in absence of her willingness to do so must’ve made that poor girl crazy. I know it would me.

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