The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

1967 (a poem)

bridge. We don’t even know which bridge. It takes so little to get us speculating the worst. What have we got? Three little things: (1) the preacher’s hearsay evidence ,(2)ourwickedimaginations,and(3)somereported“recollections”bythe narrator’s brother about an event that occurred some time ago when Billie Joe andTomandBrother—thiswasattheCarrollCountypictureshow—triedtoput a frog down the narrator’s shirt. Come on, a frog! This is an innocent prank; kids doitallthetime.It’sbarelyflirting.Whohasn’ttriedtoputanamphibianinagirl’s clothing? And if there was any meaning to the little moment, maybe it had to do with Tom—who’s he, anyway? We know he likes movies. It’s too bad about Billie Joe. We all agree. He allegedly has jumped from the TallahatchieBridge,oneofthem,andperishedintheevent.It’stoobad.It’sbeen pointedoutthathedidn’thavealickofsense,butasMommanotes,“It’sashame aboutBillieJoe,anyhow.”Anyhow!Thisanyhow pointssoclearlytothefactthat hisallegedjumpingfromthebridgehasnothingtodowithanyoftheotherevents ofthistoughweekonChoctawRidge.Hemightsimplyhavebeenwipedoutfrom his work at the sawmill and slipped. Things and people fall accidentally from bridges all the time. Look in the paper. It isn’t proven that, suffering from shame andremorse,BillieJoeMcAllisterpurposelyendedhislife.Isthereanote?Aneyewitness ? I don’t see any. Allwe’vegotisthat something,themosteffectivesomething inallofAmerican poplyrics,asomething thatholdsthesongtoourimaginationslikearivetinanold metalbridge.Sure,we’vethoughttheworst.Itwastheirillegitimatechild.Again, I don’t think so. Listen to the evidence once more, please. Thisballadisaremarkablestory,fullofrealinventoryandwithanhonesttime frame. It’s four minutes and eleven seconds long, and a full two minutes and forty secondsaregiventothefamilydinnerconversation,anextendedsceneinwhichwe geteveryone’spositionregardingthemorning’sbadnewsaboutBillieJoe.Momma, pragmaticandmatter-of-fact,“bytheway”;Poppa,allbusiness,nononsense,“pass the biscuits”; Brother, incredulous, “another piece of apple pie”; and the narrator, whokeepshermouthshut.Justbecauseshe’ssilentdoesn’tnecessarilymeananything .She’sreportingthestoryandstayingoutoftheway.Isthereanyhintinanythinganybodysaysthatshe ’srecentlybeenpregnant?DoesBrothermakeanysnide allusions to her sudden weight loss? Does Momma, who would know about such matters,suggestanywherethatshe’llhelpherdaughtertakeinsomeofthedrapey muumuusshe’sbeenwearingforthepastfewmonths?No. I’m here to say this something was not a baby, though such a thing in such a world could have triggered such a tragedy. In the current world, we read weekly about newborns left here and there, and the abandonments have a common theme—the mother acts alone. There is no “meet me on the bridge so we can do thisbaddeedtogether.”BillieJoeandagirlwholookedalotlikeourgirldropped something off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Is this an effective way of disposing of a 294 THE OXFORD AMERICAN 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 294 secret, or is it a way of announcing the end of something? I submit that it is much morethelatterthantheformer.Ifyouwanttodisposeof something,yougotoany of the isolated spots on Choctaw Ridge, and you bury it out of the world’s eye. If, on the other hand, you want to tell the community that something huge has changed forever, you meet and march to the center of a bridge tall enough that if youjumpedfromitlaterintheweekitwouldkillyou,andtogetheryouwaituntil ayoungmanassociatedwiththechurch,whichisthecentralsocialorganinyour world,walksby,ashedoesbycustomeveryday,andwhenhecanseewhatyouare doingandwhoyouare,youdropsomething fromthebridge.It’sdoneindaylight, and it’s done on purpose. “OdetoBillieJoe,”awonderfulshortstory,rosetoNumberOneonthecharts in August of 1967, a tricky year by any measure, and stayed there four weeks. The littletalewasoddandprescient.ThewarinVietnamwasapproachingitsfiercest andmostconfusinghorror.InayearRobertKennedyandMartinLutherKing,Jr., wouldbedead,andsowouldPoppa.Mommawouldhavelapsedintodepression, and Brother would have sold out and bought a store in Tupelo. There is no evidence that he doesn’t now work for Bell South. BillieJoeMcAllisterandthenarratorwalkedoutonthatoldbridge,andwhat they ceremoniously dropped into the muddy water below was our innocence. It was a neat little package, but we were too young and too busy to notice. It still glowsinthesongasoneofthemostpowerfulsomethingsinallofAmericanmusic. BOOK OF GREAT MUSIC WRITING 295 1SMIRNOFF_pages.qxd 8/27/08 10:43 AM Page 295 Randy Newman (NOT) THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES by Anthony Walton Nineteen seventy-four was the midpoint of an era when songwriters had ambition : Joni Mitchell’s masterwork, Court and Spark; Paul Simon’s plangent Still CrazyAfterAllTheseYears;CaroleKing’sepochalTapestry;MarvinGaye’sweighinginwithWhat ’sGoingOnandLet’sGetItOn;StevieWonder’sunmatchedfouryear stretch of musical fecundity from Music of My Mind through Songs in the Key ofLife;JacksonBrowne’sRunningonEmpty(nottomentionThePretender);Bruce Springsteen’sBorntoRun;eventheEagles’sheddingoftheirfrat-boy,good-time image with Hotel California. There were other, almost-forgotten masters in this era as well, like Alex Chilton, Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, Nick Drake, and Gram Parsons. Alongside and above them all was, and is, Randy Newman. In1974,RandyNewmanwasathirty-one-year-oldLosAngeles–basedsinger andsongwriterofnear-unanimouscriticalpraisebutnegligiblecommercialsuccess .Inapatternthathascontinuedthroughthepresentday,Newmanisknown as a “staff” songwriter, a craftsman who has turned out such small pop masterpieces as “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” “Love Story (You and Me),” “Living WithoutYou,”and“MamaToldMeNottoCome”forotherartiststosing,includingJudyCollins ,ThreeDogNight,HarryNilsson,andPeggyLee.Thesetunesare well-balanced little jewel boxes pieced together with the delicate craft of Cole Porter and the traditional American harmonies of Stephen Foster, blended with the modernist...