Summary Of The Song 'Harper Valley P. A.'

“Harper Valley P.T.A.”, released in 1968, was sung by Jeannie C. Riley and written by Tom Hall. Hall told The Boot in an interview, “The story is a true story. I didn’t make the story up; I choose the story to make a statement, but I changed the names to protect the innocent” (qtd. in Dunham and Stefano). This was a time when second wave feminism was in full swing and hall wanted his message to be heard. His message was heard across the world as the song soared to the top of the charts. Riley was the first female to be No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot Country Singles and Hot 100 charts with the same song. “Harper Valley P.T.A.” makes a convincing argument that people shouldn’t tell others how to live their lives. In the 1960s women were expected …show more content…
You can hear the anger in the first two verses as the people of the PTA didn’t have the dignity to send the letter to her house or come to her directly. They rather sent the letter home with her daughter who is just an innocent bystander. The sassiness really starts to come out in the last four verses starting with her walking in the meeting in her mini dress. Mrs. Johnson struts her stuff in the mini dress because she wants to make sure that everyone notices her. She doesn’t care what they will think because she can wear what she wants. The third, fourth and fifth verses all start out with the word well. I think Riley wants well to mean that even though she is out drinking and runnin’ wild that should excuse the fact that all these people are doing the same things. Riley is saying well, why are we not looking in to these people because they are not raising their kids the right way either then. Riley makes it seem as if Mrs. Johnson is right up in the faces of the people she is calling out as if she is snapping and pointing her fingers at them. There are short pauses between each person she calls out because Riley wants the crowd to soak in and comprehend what they had just heard. Riley wants them to understand that they can’t single just her out when she can easily list off 6 names when there are probably multiple others doing similar things. The song ends with the line repeated twice, “The day my Mama socked it to the Harper Valley P.T.A.” (Hall). The song ends here with the daughter feeling proud and happy because her mom stood up to the people of the PTA trying to tell her how her life needs to go when they are all hypocrites because they do the same things in their