Written by Bobbie Gentry

It was the third o’ June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton an’ my brother was balin’ hay
An’ at dinner time we stopped ‘n’ walked back to the house to eat
An’ 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 Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

And papa said to mama as he passed around the black-eyed peas
“Well, Billie Joe never had a lick o’ sense, pass the biscuits, please
There’s five more acres in the lower forty I got to plow”
And mama said it was a shame ’bout Billie Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin’ ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister’s jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

An’ brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe
Put a frog down m’ 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
An’ 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 been cookin’ all mornin’ 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 Billie Joe was throwin’ something off the Tallahatchie Bridge

A year has come and gone since we heard the news ’bout Billie Joe
An’ brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store in Tupelo
There was a virus goin’ round, papa caught it an’ he died last spring
And now mama doesn’t seem to wanna do much of anything
An’ me, I spend a lot of time pickin’ flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
An’ drop them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge