IN: Corey Todd Taylor (born December 8, 1973) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, actor, and author, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the bands Slipknot and Stone Sour. Taylor formed Stone Sour in 1992, playing in the Des Moines area, and working on a demo. He joined Slipknot in 1997 to replace their original vocalist and has subsequently released five studio albums with them. After the first two Slipknot albums went Platinum, Taylor revived Stone Sour to record an album and tour in 2002.

Corey Todd Taylor was born on December 8, 1973 in Des Moines, Iowa. He was mostly raised by his single mother in Waterloo, Iowa, a place described by Taylor as a "hole in the ground with buildings around it". He is of Irish, German and Native American descent on his father's side, and Dutch and Irish on his mother's side. In 1979, Taylor and his mother saw the sci-fi series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Before the series, there was a trailer for the 1978 horror film Halloween. Taylor said this "developed some sense of Slipknot in [himself]". While Halloween introduced Taylor to masks and horror themes, Taylor's grandmother introduced him to rock music, showing him a collection of Elvis Presley records from the 1950s to 1970s. He especially found songs like "Teddy Bear", "In the Ghetto", and "Suspicious Minds" to appeal to his interests the most, describing them as "good times". Taylor also began listening to Black Sabbath at a young age, beginning with their early work. Taylor, along with his mother and sister, lived at one point in an "old dilapidated farmhouse" which on days in late autumn would "look like Black Sabbath album covers". By age 15, he had developed a drug addiction and had overdosed on cocaine twice. By this time, he was living in Waterloo, but later set out on his own and ended up at his grandmother's house in Des Moines. She took legal custody of him so that he could continue going to school, and she helped him buy musical equipment. When Taylor was 18, he left his grandmother's house and went to various places in Iowa, Des Moines being a place to which he frequently returned. In 2017, on an episode of Viceland's The Therapist, Taylor revealed that he was sexually assaulted at the age of 10 by a 16-year-old friend. Taylor stated that he never told anyone about the incident until he was "probably 18" because his abuser "threatened to hurt [him] and threatened to hurt [his] mom". At age 18, when Taylor was living with his grandmother, he attempted suicide by way of overdose. His ex-girlfriend's mother drove him to the hospital in Des Moines and doctors were able to resuscitate him. He describes this as the lowest point in his life. Taylor first met his father when he was 30 years old, and now has a relationship with him, although he said their paths do not cross that often.

where did he go to school?

OUT:

IN: "Ode to Billie Joe" is a 1967 song written and recorded by Bobbie Gentry, a singer-songwriter from Chickasaw County, Mississippi. The single, released in late July, was a number-one hit in the United States, and became a big international seller. Billboard ranked the record as the No. 3 song for 1967 (the other two were #2 "The Letter" by the Box Tops and #1 "To Sir With Love" by Lulu). The song is ranked #412 on Rolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" and at #144 in Pitchfork's 200 Best Songs of the 1960s.

Questions arose among listeners: what did Billie Joe and his girlfriend throw off the Tallahatchie Bridge, and why did Billie Joe commit suicide? Speculation ran rampant after the song hit the airwaves. Gentry said in a November 1967 interview that it was the question most asked of her by everyone she met. She named flowers, an engagement ring, a draft card, a bottle of LSD pills, and an aborted baby as the most often guessed items. Although she knew definitely what the item was, she would not reveal it, saying only "Suppose it was a wedding ring." "It's in there for two reasons," she said. "First, it locks up a definite relationship between Billie Joe and the girl telling the story, the girl at the table. Second, the fact that Billie Joe was seen throwing something off the bridge - no matter what it was - provides a possible motivation as to why he jumped off the bridge the next day." When Herman Raucher met Gentry in preparation for writing a novel and screenplay based on the song, she said that she had no idea why Billie Joe killed himself. Gentry has, however, commented elsewhere on the song, saying that its real theme was indifference: Those questions are of secondary importance in my mind. The story of Billie Joe has two more interesting underlying themes. First, the illustration of a group of people's reactions to the life and death of Billie Joe, and its subsequent effect on their lives, is made. Second, the obvious gap between the girl and her mother is shown when both women experience a common loss (first Billie Joe, and later, Papa), and yet Mama and the girl are unable to recognize their mutual loss or share their grief. The bridge mentioned in this song collapsed in June 1972. It crossed the Tallahatchie River at Money, about ten miles (16 km) north of Greenwood, Mississippi, and has since been replaced. The November 10, 1967, issue of Life Magazine contained a photo of Gentry crossing the original bridge.

were the questions ever answered?

OUT:
Although she knew definitely what the item was, she would not reveal it, saying only "Suppose it was a wedding ring.