Bobbie Gentry shows us the importance of leaving a little somethign to the imagination...

I heard Ode to Billy Joe on the radio the other day and have not been able to get it out of my head.

This song really hits home for me in a way I have never been able to fully understand or explain- a feeling strengthened by the video with its emphasis on the nuclear family and the detachment created by living the 'modern' family life (not to mention its references to the work of one of my favourite sculptors, George Segal). Its the same way In which I strongly identify with The Man in The Grey Flannel Suit or The Great Gatsby. Maybe its having grown up in the suburbs, the child of two parents who also grew up in the suburbs. But then again, I've never really felt that I had a suburban upbringing, there was no meat-veggies-and-two-types-of-potatoes, no long summers spent wasting away in the backyard or making small talk with the nosy neighbors (though I have owned a series of ramshackle cars since the moment I could drive, and have a certain affinity for bicycling down the middle of the road). I'm not quite sure why it feels like a life I connect with, but connect with it I do.

There's something about how the story is told, something about the mix of hope and despair, matter of fact straight talk and fuzzy suggestion. Its a thing I've talked about before- the storytelling style of country music- something I feel myself drawn to time and time again, both inside and outside of the traditional country paradigm. There is something about it that approximates real life in a way that pop music doesn't- a way that addresses the honesty of life. That it is not all ups or all downs, not all an endless party or endless trial, not all of any one thing really, not any one thing at all. Its something found in the music of Jack White, Elliott Brood, Cuff the Duke, and most bands that count old school country as one of their references. Even bands marginally influenced by Johnny Cash or Bob Dylan, bands like Sam Roberts or The Decemberists, bring that sort of rounded story telling to their songs.


Perhaps ironically then it is the habit of not-painting-the-full-picture that most closely ties together the styles of these artists. The ability to give the pertinent details while leaving the rest up to the imagination. I heard they tried to make a movie out of An Ode To Billy Joe and it failed miserably, unexpectedly because the song is so full of opportunity, such an intriguing story full of complex mystery. Problem is when you take away the questions, the part left up to the imagination, you take away the magic. Too often we forget the importance of what we ourselves bring to the experience of artwork, of songs and paintings and novels. We bring ourselves. And what could be more important?