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Unread 07-29-2018, 07:04 AM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2016
Location: Boston, MA
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John, Thanks for posting this.

It's a brilliantly told story. Unconscious cruelty. The most insidious of all cruelties. After all these years I'm still uncertain what happened up there on Choctaw Ridge. Here’s what she had to say about the song and the questions about what happened up there at the bridge:

Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of people's reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown, when both women experience a common loss (first, Billie Joe and, later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief.

If there is a more probing, deep pop/country lyric than this I’d like to hear it.

The sound of the sliding, descending strings in the video at the end of the last verse is chilling. This song has been described as “Southern Gothic”. The staging of the song with the life-sized wooden/clay figures of the family at the dinner table is macabre.

Btw, she is a beautiful woman. (Can someone still say that in today's world? Ahh, unconscious cruelty : )
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