Paula Cole - Ode To Billy Joe lyrics

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 biscuit's, 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-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 please, d 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