<P> "Ode to Billie Joe" was originally intended as the B - side of Gentry's first single recording, a blues number called "Mississippi Delta", on Capitol Records . The original recording, with no other musicians backing Gentry's guitar, had eleven verses lasting seven minutes, telling more of Billie Joe's story . The executives realized that this song was a better option for a single, so they cut the length by almost half and re-recorded it with a string orchestra . The shorter version left more of the story to the listener's imagination, and made the single more suitable for radio airplay . The song is noted for its long descending scale by the strings at the conclusion, suggesting the flowers falling after being dropped off the Tallahatchie Bridge and ending up in the river water below . </P> <P> The song's popularity proved so enduring that in 1976, nine years after its release, Warner Bros. commissioned author Herman Raucher to adapt it into a novel and screenplay, Ode to Billy Joe . The poster's tagline, which treats the film as being based on a true story and even gives a date of death for Billy (June 3, 1953), led many to believe that the song was based on actual events . In Raucher's novel and screenplay, Billy Joe kills himself after a drunken homosexual experience, and the object thrown from the bridge is the narrator's ragdoll . The film was released in 1976, directed and produced by Max Baer, Jr, and starring Robby Benson and Glynnis O'Connor . Only the first, second, and fifth verses were sung by Bobbie Gentry in the film, omitting the third and fourth verses . </P> <P> In the novel, the ragdoll is the central character's confidant and advisor . Tossing him off the bridge symbolizes throwing away her childhood, becoming a self - contained adult . </P> <P> Billy Joe's story is analyzed in Professor John Howard's history of gay Mississippi entitled Men Like That: A Queer Southern History as an archetype of what Howard calls the "gay suicide myth". </P>

What was thrown off the bridge in ode to billy joe