It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day.Bobbie Gentry's Ode to Billie Joe is Faulkner set to music. Everybody who is Southern by heritage, remembers Gentry's evocation of rural life in the South. The heat, the humidity, and the church-cum-extended-family social milieu are all oppressively pervasive.
I don't know what she and Billie Joe threw off the Tallahatchie bridge, or why Billie Joe jumped. The song's magic is such that I'll always wonder, especially on the 3rd of June.
