Ode To Billie Joe

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

I was out chopping cotton and my brother was bailing 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 morning from Choctaw Ridge

Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

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

Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits please

There’s 5 more acres in the lower 40 I’ve to plow

And Mama said, it was a shame about Billy Joe, anyhow

Seems like nothing 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 Billy Joe

Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show

And wasn’t I talking 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 Billy Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Mama said to me, child what’s happened to your appetite?

I’ve been cooking 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 something off the Tallahatchie Bridge

A year has come and gone since we heard the news ‘bout Billy Joe

And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a house in Tupelo

There was a virus going ‘round, Papa caught it and he died last spring

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

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

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge