What do you think Billy Joe McAllister threw off the Tallahassee Bridge?

This is a serious question which has plagued me for years.What do you think Billy Joe McAllister threw off the Tallahassee Bridge?
He did not throw anything off the Tallahassee bridge. read the lyrics.



HE JUMPED OFF THE BRIDGE. HOWEVER, SHE THREW FLOWERS OFF THE BRIDGE ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF BILLY JOE'S DEATH.



It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day

I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay

And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat

And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet"

And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"

"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"



And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas

"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"

"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"

And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow

Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge

And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge



And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe

Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show

And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?

"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"

"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"

"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"



And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"

"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"

"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"

"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"

"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"

"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"



A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe

And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo

There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring

And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything

And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge



And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge
He did jump off the bridge. Because they had a baby that is what they threw off the bridge. Billy Joe was gay so he ended his life.

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What do you think Billy Joe McAllister threw off the Tallahassee Bridge?
i think it is implied that they had a baby together that they weren't courageous enough to keep, and billy joe killed himself because of his grief over what they had done.



the gay story is an interpretation added by a filmmaker, and i don't think it had anything to do with the original song

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obviously fladylady did not read the lyrics either - as they both did throw something off the bridge - the songwriter left that to your imagination

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"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"

"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"



I have not seen the movie, but thought it was a baby as well

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Long have I pondered, long have I mulled and mused in regard to this very same conundrum. Was it her mother-in-law's dentures? Was it a plate of allatsea's famous kidney and pancreas pie? And for the past eight years I have mused with rue and regret, "Why couldn't it have been George W. Bush?"
Memories
The doll that the girl had referred to earlier in the movie.
.....he threw Bobbie Lee Hartley's doll off the bridge.....
a lassie