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
Find more similar lyrics on http://mp3lyrics.com/wPSyesterday 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