Ode To Billie Joe

It was the third of June another sleepy dusty Delta day

I was out chopping cotton and my brother was a bailing hay

At dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat

And mama hollered at the backdoor y’all remember to wipe your feet

She said I got some news this morning from Choctaw Ridge

Today Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Papa said to mama as she passed around the black eyed peas

Billie Joe never had a lick of sense pass the biscuits please

There’s five more acres in the lower forty I got to plow

And mama said it was a shame about Billie Joe anyhow

It seems like nothing ever comes to no good upon Choctaw Ridge

And now Billie Joe McAllister´s 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 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 Billie Joe’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

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’s looked a lot like you upon Choctaw Ridge

And she and Billie Joe was throwing something off the Tallahatchie Bridge

One year has come and gone since we heard the news about Billie Joe

Brother married Becky Thompson and they bought a store in Tupelo

There was a virus going round and papa caught it and he died last spring

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

And me I spent a lot of time picking flowers upon Choctaw Ridge

And dropped them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge