Musical accompaniment: Ode to Billie Joe by Bobbie Gentry

I love today’s song! Ode to Billie Joe lets us listen in on a conversation around a Mississippi family’s dinner table as they discuss some news about young Billie Joe McAllister. It’s a peculiar song and people have been arguing about what it means for nearly 50 years! I’d love to hear your thoughts. I read somewhere that Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer of Green Day, was named after this song. When the singer/songwriter Bobbie Gentry was asked about the meaning, she would only say, “I don’t know.” Wise woman!

This picture is by Frank Eugene and titled Dolly Varden. I have to assume that was the subject’s name, but when I looked her up I found Dolly Varden can also refer to a particular trout (salvelinus malma), native to cold-water regions of the Pacific Ocean and to a type of women’s fashion from the 1870s, inspired by a Charles Dickens character in Barnaby Rudge. Reminiscent of today’s song, Dolly Varden looks like a girl with a secret.

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