And "they" say the media doesn't influence people....

The most interesting thing I learned at the Yale Music Library today was unrelated to what I was researching.

HERE IT IS: did you know that, according to a 1969 Rolling Stone Magazine item, prior to the release of the classic 1967 Bobbi Gentry song "Ode to Billie Joe," few, if any, people had ever tried committing suicide by jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge (mostly because it's not that high and would be fairly difficult to hurt oneself by the leap). 

After the song became popular, however, so many folks started jumping that they had to institute a fine to leapers.  As Rolling Stone put it: "If you are unlucky enough not to die, you have to pay $100."