Ode to Billie Joe - Kathy Mattea

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 we walked back to the house to eat

And mama hollered at the back door

«Y'all remember to wipe your feet»

And then she said she got some news

This mornin' from Choctaw Ridge

Today Billie Joe MacAllister

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’ve got to plow»

Mama said it was shame

About Billie Joe, anyhow

Seems like nothin' ever comes

To no good up on Choctaw Ridge

And now Billie Joe MacAllister

Jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And 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 of apple pie

You know it just don’t seem right»

«I saw him at the sawmill

Yesterday on Choctaw Ridge»

«And now you tell me Billie Joe’s

Jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge»

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 Billie Joe

Was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge»

A year has come 'n gone

Since we heard the news 'bout Billie Joe

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