This week the award goes to Bobbie Gentry. I had a hard time choosing which of her songs to feature, but eventually settled on “Ode to Billy Joe”. Whilst she is a superb singer, her duets with Glen Campbell are absolutely brilliant.
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
Whilst Ishamael and I have settled our differences, the person who pretended to be Ishamel, namely Ismail, continues to pester me and write strange emails about how I should be running this blog, usually it involves him telling me why I should ban someone.
As he is using a fake email address (Ismail@stickmyheadupaturkey.com), the only way I can reply is to post my reply on this blog, something I don’t really intend on doing very often. That being said, Ismail has solved the mystery of the votes for people aged 13 and under driving cars with his latest email.
Subject…: I think you should ban HoinK
………………………………………………….
After all, no-one else got a second chance, so why should he? And for the record, all six votes for 13-year-old drivers are mine – I think the highways would be far more interesting with younger drivers doing the wild thing … it would be like playing dodgem cars.
I also think Santa Claus should move aside for a teen, or be banned all together.
Now you’ll have to excuse me, I have to be at Glebe Park to jump about like a frog in a huddle with other loonies nefore we all put other calls in to John Stanley.
And John B1-B5 should be banned for his off topic post about you and rabbits.
END UPDATE
Well I suspected it was a Brown Noise Unit contributor who was responsible for the votes, and I’m glad they aren’t serious. Of course, if Ismail is being serious, then I can only suspect that he doesn’t have much respect for life, as his plan would ultimately result in a lot of deaths.
As for banning HoinK…nope, no reason to at this stage. John B1_B5’s post about me and rabbits was actually a very good on topic observation…and yes Ismail, you better join your friends at Glebe Park as they jump around like frogs.
With Ismail and various other things tonight, this has been a very funny and entertaining night.
Now that I’ve had a bit of “public beta” time to adjust a couple settings on the polling system and fix a few minor issues, it’s time to kick off the series of weekly polls.
I’ll try not to create polls with this many options in the future, but for some polls it is necessary. I have included the common ages and some that surround them, and left the less common ages with blanket options, just vote for the one that fits your opinion.
Feel free to discuss the poll subject in the comments below. You need to be a registered member of Samuel’s Blog to comment, but anyone can vote. The system will attempt to prevent you from voting more than once, and whilst it might not always be able to do that, I request that you only vote once.
You had a lady call up yesterday complaining about your theme music. Well I have to say that I like both your theme music (which is also used for Clive, Clinton and whoever else fills in), and the music Stuart uses…but I absolutely hate the new voice over. I know that the previous voice over man has left 2UE, but he sounded so much more natural. I'm sure the new voice over lady is very talented, and it sounds like 2UE really rushed to get all the old voice overs replaced (they missed Antiques and Collectables thankfully), but they really need to either write scripts which suit the new lady, or find someone else.
After a week of hearing the new voice overs, I would be used to them if I could stand them, but I can't, and instead I am using the volume control to get rid of them.
But back to what the lady was talking about yesterday…I love your theme music!