Ode To Billie Joe

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

I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay

And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house toeat

And Mama hollered out the back door "Y'all remember to wipe yourfeet"

And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from ChoctawRidge"

"Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the TallahatchieBridge"

And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed 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 shame about Billie Joe, anyhow

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

And now Billie Joe MacAllister's jumped off the TallahatchieBridge

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 talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?

"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seemright"

"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"

"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the TallahatchieBridge"

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

"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a singlebite"

"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 ChoctawRidge"

"And she and Billie Joe was throwing somethin' off theTallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout BillieJoe

And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store inTupelo

There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died lastSpring

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

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

And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge