[ti:Ode To Billie Joe]
[ar:Nancy Wilson]
[al:]
[00:10.03]It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
[00:19.84]I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was balin' hay
[00:30.75]And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
[00:40.87]And Mama hollered out the back door "y'all remember to wipe your feet"
[00:50.93]And then she said "I got some news this mornin' from Choctaw Ridge"
[01:01.77]"Today Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
[01:10.11]
[01:12.70]And Papa said to Mama as he passed around the blackeyed peas
[01:22.31]"Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense, pass the biscuits, please"
[01:31.25]"There's five more acres in the lower forty I've got to plow"
[01:40.93]And Mama said it was shame about Billy Joe, anyhow
[01:50.76]Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
[02:00.86]And now Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge
[02:10.06]
[02:11.38]And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
[02:20.39]Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
[02:30.39]And wasn't I talkin' to him after church last Sunday night?
[02:40.24]"I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right"
[02:50.84]"I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge"
[03:00.27]"And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
[03:09.39]
[03:10.28]And Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
[03:19.75]"I've been cookin' all morning and you haven't touched a single bite"
[03:29.69]"That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today"
[03:38.81]"Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way"
[03:49.13]"He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge"
[03:58.15]"And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
[04:07.94]A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
[04:08.33]
[04:17.37]And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
[04:26.79]There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
[04:36.68]And now Mama doesn't seem to wanna do much of anything
[04:46.57]And me, I spend a lot of time pickin' flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
[04:54.02]
[04:56.54]And drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge
[05:06.57]