Ode To Billie Joe

It was the third of June
Another sleepy dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton
And my brother was a bailin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped
And walked back to the house to eat

And Mama hollered out the backdoor
You all remember to wipe your feet
And then she said
I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Wridge
Today Billie Joe Macallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Papa said to mama as he 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 Wridge
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 Caroll 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
Why I just saw him at sawmill
Yesterday upon Choctaw Wridge
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 cookin' all morning
And you haven’t touched a single bite
That nice young preacher brother Tailor 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 upon Choctaw Wridge
And she and Billie Joe was throwing something
Off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Now one year's 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 goin’ 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 spent a lot of time picking flowers upon Chotaw Wridge
And dropped 'em into the muddy water
Off the Tallahatchie Bridge