What Was Thrown Off the Tallahatchie Bridge?

I never imagined there was a political agenda in the question or the possible answers. Now if I had asked a question about:

Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men who jump and die
Men who mean just what they say
The brave men of the Green Beret

I could understand the politics, but that was 1966 and I only went back to '67.

The reason I started this post is because two weekends ago I saw Lucinda Williams. She was great. Did primarily older material, but also did 4 or 5 new songs. Says she has enough recorded material for two new albums. Anyway, her final encore was "Ode to Billie Joe". It just got me thinking about how conroversial the song was when it first came out. A song about suicide with a mystery element. I'm not sure it really matters what was thrown off the bridge. It's kind of like all suicides, even if there is a note, you never really understand why.