(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Jeannie C. Riley - "Harper Valley P.T.A."
Hit Number 1: September 21, 1968
Stay at Number 1: 1 Week
I seem to keep seeing one particular thing with "Harper Valley P.T.A." There seems to be a good amount of people who will often compare this song to Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe", which we saw in this blog not too long ago. There might be some truth to that. Margie Singleton, a country singer, had asked songwriter, Tom T. Jones, to write a song for her that was similar to "Ode to Billie Joe". Singleton had covered the Gentry hit, and wanted her own song that could be similar to it. Unfortunately for her, neither of her songs were destined to be hits. It wasn't until country singer Jerry Chestnut's secretary, Jeannie C. Riley, recorded the song that it became a massive hit in 1968. Even though the song follows the same rhythm as "Ode to Billie Joe", Gentry, wrongfully, never received any credit for "Harper Valley P.T.A.". These days, if someone knew that their song was being used to inspire another one, you know that there would be some kind of a court hearing.
Besides the rhythm and feel, the two songs also share the fact that they both tell a story, and one that draws your attention. I'm not one to seriously compare the two though, and I see some major differences. While "Ode to Billie Joe" is drawn-back and mysterious, "Harper Valley P.T.A." is more "in your face" and silly. While Gentry sings in a smooth contralto voice, Riley sings in a commanding southern drawl. Also, "Ode to Billie Joe" is just a better song.
The story of "Harper Valley P.T.A." is so ridiculously silly, that it's hard for me to even take it seriously. It's about a widowed wife living in the fictional Harper Valley whose daughter comes back home from her junior high school with a note. The note just calls out the mother, scolding her for things like "wearing her dresses too high" and hearing reports about her "drinking and running around with different men". They finally tell her that they don't think she should be raising her daughter that way. Well that of course outrages the mother, and she goes down to the P.T.A. meeting that just so happened to be meeting that afternoon. She begins to scold the different P.T.A. members, and we learn they all pretty much do the same things. The mother calls them a bunch of "Harper Valley hypocrites". I don't see this as being some powerful, kick-ass story. I think it's more funny than anything else. At the end of the day, the mother is still just like the P.T.A. members.
Musically, the song is structured like your ordinary country song. There's some bluegrass guitars, that along with Riley's southern drawl of a voice, become the heartbeat of the song. It moves in a steady, swift pace, and it's honestly an extremely catchy song. I like the pitch changes while the story gets flipped around, and I like the final line "The day my mother socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.!" That's the line where we learn that the narrator was the daughter all along. It's a good song, but not one that should be heavily compared to a masterpiece like "Ode to Billie Joe".
Unlike Gentry, Riley didn't vanish from the music industry after her lone #1 hit, but she did change a lot. She became a born-again Christian in the 1970's, and instead of country, she got more into gospel music. She even tried to distance herself from "Harper Valley P.T.A.", likely viewing it as not being an appropriate song among a Christian repertoire. Naturally though, she could never fully abandon the song, as it was often her most requested song to play. She made a sequel to the song in 1984 called "Return to Harper Valley", which described how lots had changed since the initial song. The mother now wears her dresses "appropriately", and that the different P.T.A. members, though some now deceased, had changed their lives for the better. That song went nowhere though. Riley is still around today, and seems to still be active in the music business. But today, she's still best known as the one who "socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A."
GRADE: 7/10
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