Ode To Billie Joe - Various Artists/Bobbie Gentry

Written by：Bobbie Gentry

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

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's 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 nothin' ever comes to no good up on

Choctaw ridge

And now billy joe macallister's 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 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

And 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 and gone since we heard the

News 'bout 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 want to 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