Ode To Billy Joe - The Mick Lloyd Connection

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 back walked 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 Tallahatchie the Bridge

And Papa said to Mama as

He passed around the blackeyed peas

"Well Billy Joe never had lick a 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