Ode To Billie Joe Liz Anderson

It was the third of June
Another sleepy dusty Delta day
I was out choppin' cotton
And my brother was a bailin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped
And walked back to the house to eat

And Mama hollered out the backdoor
You all remember to wipe your feet
And then she said
I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Wridge
Today Billie Joe Macallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Papa said to mama as he passed around the black eyed peas
Billie 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 a shame about Billie Joe anyhow
It seems like nothing ever comes to no good upon Choctaw Wridge
And now Billie Joe Macallister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Brother said he recollected
When he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down my back at the Caroll 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 don't seem right
Why I just saw him at sawmill
Yesterday upon Choctaw Wridge
And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge