00:21For the third of June, another sleepy dusty delta day
00:31I was out shopping cotton and my brother was veiling hay
00:40And at dinnertime we stopped and walked out to the house to eat
00:49And mama hollered out the back door, y'all remember to wipe your feet
00:58And then she said I got some news this morning from Choctaw Ridge
01:08Today Billy Joe, my callous sister, gone to Tallahassee, please
01:17Now papa said to mama as he passed around the black-eyed streets
01:26Billy Joe never had a liquor since past the big scary streets
01:36There's five more acres in the long 40 I got to fly
01:44And mama said it was a shame about Billy Joe anyhow
01:54Seems like nothing ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
02:03And now Billy Joe, my callous sister, jumped off the Tallahassee bridge
02:17Now brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billy Joe
02:26Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show
02:36Wasn't I talking to him after church last Sunday night
02:45I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it just don't seem right
02:54I saw him after salt mill yesterday, up on Choctaw Ridge
03:03And now you tell me Billy Joe's jumped off the Tallahassee bridge
03:17Now mama said to me child, what's happened to your appetite?
03:26Well I've been cooking all morning and you haven't touched a single bite
03:36That nice young creature, brother Taylor stopped by today
03:44Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday and over by the way
03:54He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like a U.M. on Choctaw Ridge
04:03And she and Billy Joe was throwing something off the Tallahassee bridge
04:12Yeah
04:17I hear it's coming long since you heard the news about Billy Joe
04:26Brother Mary Pecky Thompson
04:29Brother Mary Pecky Thompson, they bought a store right to blow
04:35There was a virus going round, Papa caught it and he died last spring
04:44And now mama doesn't seem to want to do much of anything
04:54And me I spent a lot of time making flowers up on Choctaw Ridge
05:02And dropped them into the muddy water on the Tallahassee bridge
05:09Yeah
05:11Yeah
05:12Yeah
05:12Yeah
05:13Yeah
06:44Ooh, yeah.
