Artist: Bobbie Gentry
Title: Ode to Billie Joe
Written by Bobbie Gentry
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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 blackeyed peas
Well, Billy Joe never had a lick
of sense, pass the biscuits, please
There is five more acres in the
lower forty I've got to plow
And Mama said it was a 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

Then Brother said he recollected
when he and Tom and Billie Joe
They 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 piecea apple pie,
You know it don't seem right
I saw him at the saw mill
yesterday on Choctaw Ridge
And now ya tell me Billie Joe's
jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And Mama said to me Child,
what's happened to your appetite
Well, 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 up on Choctaw Ridge
And she and Billy Joe was throwing
something off the Tallahatchie Bridge

A year has come and gone since
we heard the news about 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
picking flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
And drop them into the muddy water
off the Tallahatchie Bridge