Posted on 04/21/2021 4:59:12 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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 at 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"
And 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"
And 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
And 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"
And 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 and gone since we heard the news 'bout Billy Joe
And 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 want to 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
This song was #1 the week I was born.
Never really cared for this song and it’s multiple theories.
That was a great song, great performance by Bobbie.
It had absolutely nothing to do with anything real, but I think that was part of the attraction. The story pulls you in. The ending is strongly implied, but has never become fully clear. Many cities have their own legacy of mysteries.
This came out the same summer when Sargent Pepper did. 1967
This came out in the year of the Detroit Riots, my hometown.
Great song.
They don’t make them like her anymore. That mold is broke.
Brilliantly written and performed.
Do you get off trying to make grown men weep?
Bobbie had ‘Big Hair’ just like Priscilla Pressley back then. Farm Living and the notion of being at War had a much tighter grip on America back then vs now.
Some of the most popular TV shows back then were Bonanza, Beverly Hillbillies and Hogans Heroes.
Well, you are a young pup, aren’t you?
Before the “Rural Purge”
Go figure. Its “multiple theories” were the reason I loved it.
I always thought it was about a baby that got tossed off a bridge. Billy Joe killed herself in despair and the girl that was with her has a sudden loss of appetite upon hearing the news. I didn't live back then when it came out. I was born in 1971 but I have listened to that song countless times.
C’mon the purge brought us to WAP today’s “classic”
I always thought the song was about Billie Joe getting the girl in the song pregnant and she somehow kept it secret from her family. After all, the father was busy plowing all those acres, the mother was busy cooking and the brother was occupied with getting married and buying that store.
Then when she had the baby, she and Billie Joe threw it off the Tallahatchie Bridge. After a sleepness night, Billie Joe realized the terrible sin they had committed and threw himself off the Tallahatchie Bridge to join his child in death. As for the girl in the story, she woke up, chopped some cotton, and lost her appetite at dinner, for she then realized the evil she had done. She might have been a psychopath.
Billie Joe was a male: “And wasn’t I talkin’ to him after church last Sunday night?”
That was when America was still America.
Did you see my post on Debbie Harry?
The song is eerily haunting, but not in a bad way.....tugs and tugs at you to figure out what happened.
What keeps it haunting you is you know you’ll never know.
And it so well communicates deep pain in the human heart.......
Love it.
That’s what people think. It doesn’t compute to me.
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