Harper Valley PTA

The focus of the song's narrative is Mrs. Johnson, whose teenage daughter attends Harper Valley Junior High. The girl comes home one day with a note for her mother from the local PTA, criticizing Mrs. Johnson for wearing short dresses and spending her nights drinking in the company of men. The note closes with a statement by the PTA that she should do a better job of raising her daughter.

During a PTA meeting that afternoon, Mrs. Johnson barges in unannounced, wearing a miniskirt, and reveals a long list of the members' private indiscretions:

• Bobby Taylor, who has repeatedly asked Mrs. Johnson out on a date and whose wife is hinted to be committing adultery while he is away^[5]
• Mr. Baker, whose secretary had to leave town for an undisclosed reason (probably due to an illegal abortion)
• Widow Jones, who leaves her window shades up and little to onlookers' imaginations
• Mr. Harper, absent from the meeting due to the aftereffects of a recent drinking binge
• Shirley Thompson, who also has a drinking problem, as evidenced by gin on her breath

Mrs. Johnson rebukes the PTA for having the nerve to call her an unfit mother, comparing the town to Peyton Place and labeling the members as hypocrites.^[6]

In the final lines, the narrator reveals that Mrs. Johnson is her mother.^[6]

In 2005, Hall noted that he had witnessed a similar scenario when he was a child in Olive Hill, Kentucky, in the mid-1940s; the mother of one of Hall's classmates had drawn the ire of local school board members for her modern ways, and the school was taking out their frustrations on her daughter. The mother gave a verbal tongue-lashing at the school, an iconoclastic move that was unheard of at the time.^[9]

Riley, who was working as a secretary in Nashville for Jerry Chesnut, got to hear the song and recorded it for Shelby Singleton's independent Plantation Records label. It became a massive hit for her. The single's jump from 81 to number seven in its second week on the Billboard Hot 100 in late August 1968 is the decade's highest climb into that chart's top ten.^[10] Riley's version won her a Grammy for the Best Country Vocal Performance, Female. Her recording was also nominated for "Record of the Year" and "Song of the Year" in the pop field. In 2019, the 1968 recording of the song by Riley on Plantation Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.^[11]

Shortly after "Harper Valley PTA" reached its peak in success, singer-comedian Sheb Wooley, using his alter-ego Ben Colder, recorded a parody version called "Harper Valley PTA (Later That Same Day)." In the parody version, Colder meets up with the PTA board members (each of whom Mrs. Johnson called out in the original) at Kelly's Place and attempts to explain their characters in a positive vein. He eventually finds the PTA members more interesting to be with. Colder's version reached No. 24 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in late 1968, and No. 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song later inspired an eponymous 1978 motion picture and short-lived 1981 television series, both starring Barbara Eden as the heroine of the story, Mrs. Johnson, who now has a first name: Stella.

In the 1970s, Riley became a born-again Christian, and though she briefly distanced herself from the song when she began singing gospel music, she never excluded it from her concerts, and it was always her most requested and popular number. She titled her 1980 autobiography From Harper Valley to the Mountain Top, and released a gospel album in 1981 with the same title.

In 1984, Riley recorded a sequel song, "Return to Harper Valley", which was also written by Tom T. Hall, but failed to chart. In the sequel, Riley sings as Mrs. Johnson, who is now a grandmother. While attending the local high-school dance, she observes that some townsfolk conquered their vices while others did not. She also notices both students and adults engaging in risky behavior (smoking, drug use, nudity), but instead of becoming angry, she says a prayer (consistent with Riley's real-life conversion to Christianity), and plans to address the PTA the next day, but in a less confrontational manner than before.

Country music singer Billy Ray Cyrus was one of the few men to have recorded a cover version. The song from his 1996 album Trail of Tears tells the story from a man's point of view.^[12]

In 2024, Rolling Stone ranked the song at #78 on its 200 Greatest Country Songs of All Time ranking.^[13]

"Harper Valley PTA" was translated by Terje Mosnes [no] into Norwegian as "Fru Johnsen" (lit. 'Mrs. Johnsen'). A recording by Inger Lise Rypdal was released in 1968.^[14] It charted for 16 weeks, peaking at first place, which it held for nine weeks in a row.^[15] However, the song faced controversy over its lyrics as they discussed double standards in the Christian milieu, leading to serious debate over the song in the Storting (Norwegian Parliament).^[16]

• Harper Valley PTA
• Harper Valley PTA (TV series)
• Ode to Billie Joe