5th Dimension - Ode To Billy Joe lyrics

rate me

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 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 of apple pie, you know it

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"

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 'n' 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 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