Ode To Billy Joe Lyrics

(by Bobbie Gentry)

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