It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta Day
I was out choppin' cotton and my brother was bailin' 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'
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 of sense, pass the biscuits, please
There's five more acres in the lower forty, I've got to plow'
Mama said, “It was a shame about Billie Joe, anyhow
“Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”

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 just 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

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, stopped 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 throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge'

Now a year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news 'bout Billie Joe
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 on Choctaw Ridge
I throw them into the muddy water off the Tallahatchie Bridge