Conversation so far:
what was the story about?
The song is a first-person narrative to "sparse"  musical accompaniment.
It reveals a tale, mostly in the form of brief dialog extracts by the narrator's family at dinnertime.
was it a popular song?
CANNOTANSWER.

Question: what inspired the story?
Self-contained rewrite: what inspired the story of the song Ode to Billie Joe?