Ode to Billy Joe Lyrics

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

day

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

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"

Then she said "I got some news this morning from

Chocktow Ridge Today

Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahachee

Bridge"

Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackCeyed

peas

"Well Billy 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 shame about Billy Joe, anyhow Seems like

nothing ever

comes to no good on Chocktow Ridge And now Billy Joe

MacAllister's

jumped off the Tallahachee 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 looked a lot like you on Chocktow Ridge And

she and Billy

Joe was throwing something off the Tallahachee Bridge"

A year has come and gone since we heard the news about

Billy Joe

Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in

Tupelow

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 picking flowers up on Chocktow Ridge And

drop them into

the muddy water off the Tallahachee Bridge