Ode To Billy Joe

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house 
to eat
And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe
 your feet"
And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from 
Choctaw Ridge"
"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie 
Bridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed 
peas
"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the 
biscuits, please"
"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to 
plow"
And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw 
Ridge
And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie
 Bridge

And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie 
Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't 
seem right"
"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the 
Tallahatchie Bridge"

And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your 
appetite?"
"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a 

single bite"
"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by 
today"
"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the 
way"
"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on 
Choctaw Ridge"
"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the 
Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout 
Billy Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in 
Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died 
last Spring
And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw
 Ridge

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie 
Bridge