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"

´n´ 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"
´n´ 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

´n´ 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"

´n´ 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
´n´ 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