Ode to Billie Joe

Ode to Billie Joe - Country Music/Country Rock Party

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 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 mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"

"Today Billy Joe

MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

'N' 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's five more acres

In the lower forty I've got to plow"

'N' Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe anyhow

Seems like nothin' ever

Comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge

And now Billy Joe MacAllister's

Jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

'N' 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-a apple pie

You know it don't seem right"

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

"And now ya tell me

Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

'N' 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

Somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since

We heard the news 'bout Billy Joe

'N' 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