Ode To Billie Joe

(album: Take Me To Your World / I Don't Wanna Play House - 1968)

It was the third of June another sleepy dusty Delta day
I was out chopping cotton and my brother was bailing hay
And 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
And then she said I got the news this morning from Choctaw Wridge
Today Billie Joe Macallister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Papa said to mama as he passed around the black eyed peas
Well 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
Seems like nothing ever comes to no good upon Choctaw Wridge
And now Billie Joe Macallister'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 upon Choctaw Wridge
And now you tell me Billie Joe has jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
Mama said to me child what's happened to your apetite
Well I've been cooking 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
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 virus going 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