Ode to Billy Joe

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day

I was out choppin' cotton, my brother 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, wipe your feet"

Then she said, "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge

Today, Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

Papa said to Mama, as he passed around the black-eyed peas

"Well, Billie 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 a shame about Billie Joe, anyhow

Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge

And now Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

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-a 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 jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

Mama said to me, "Child, what's happened to your appetite?

I've been cookin' all mornin', 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 Sunday—oh, by the way

He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge

She and Billie Joe was throwin' somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come and gone since we heard the news about Billie Joe, yeah

Brother married Becky Thompson—they bought a store in Tupelo

There was a virus goin' 'round, Papa caught it, he died last spring

And now Mama, Mama doesn't seem to want to do much of anything

And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge

I drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge