Megan Mullally Ode to Billie Joe Lyrics

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 Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge."

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 that I gotta plow."
And Mama said, "Well, it's a shame about Billie Joe, anyhow."
It seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

Mama said to me "Child, what's happened to your appetite?"
"Why, I've 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 throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"

A year has come 'n' gone since we heard the news about Billie Joe
And Brother married Becky Thompson, they bought a store out in Tupelo
There was a virus going 'round, Papa caught it and he died last Spring
And now Mama, she don't seem to wanna do much, 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