Ode To Billy Joe

It was the third of June
Another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out chopping cotton
And my brother was baling 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 five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow

And Mama said it was 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 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

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 something 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