Ode To Billy Joe chords by Bobby Gentry

Chords with lyrics

Ode to Billy Joe

D7D7                AM
It was the third of June, another sleepy,
       D7D7
dusty, Delta day

D7D7
I was out chopping cotton, and my

A minorAm         D7D7
brother was bailing hay,

    G7G7
And at dinner time we stopped and walked

back to the house to eat.

  D7D7
And Momma hollered out the back door

"Y'all re - member ...to wipe your feet!"

G7G7
And then she said, I got some news this

 mornin ...from Choctaw Ridge

    D7D7           C7C7
Today Billie Joe MacAllister jumped off

         D7D7
 the Tallahatchie Bridge.

D7D7              A minorAm
And Poppa said to Momma as he passed

           D7D7
around the blackeyed peas

 D7D7
 Well Billie Joe never had

      A minorAm
 a lick of sense pass the biscuits

 D7D7
 please

 G7G7
"There's five more acres in the lower forty

...I got to plow.

D7D7
And Momma said it was shame ...a ?" bout

Billie Joe any - how,

G7G7
Seems like nothing ever comes to no good up

on Choctaw Ridge.

    D7D7          C7C7
And now Billie Joe McAllister jumped off

         D7D7
The Tallahatchie Bridge.

D7D7                A minorAm
And Brother said he recollected...when he

          D7D7
and Tom, and Billie Joe

D7D7               A minorAm
Put a frog down my back at the Carroll

        D7D7
County Picture Show

G7G7
And, "Wasn't I talkin' to him


after church, last Sunday night.

D7D7
I'll have a-nother piece of apple pie


You know, it don't seem right.

 G7G7
I saw him at the sawmill yesterday up on

Choctaw Ridge.


      D7D7          C7C7
And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off

         D7D7
the Tallahatchie Bridge.

D7D7                 A minorAm
Momma said to me "Child? what's happened

        D7D7
To your appe - tite


Why, I've been cookin' all morning, and you

A minorAm            D7D7
haven't touched a single bite.

G7G7
That nice young preacher Brother Taylor

dropped by today.

D7D7
Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on

Sunday! Oh, by the way.

G7G7
He said he saw a girl that looked a lot

like you up on Choctaw Ridge.

      D7D7
And she and Billie Joe was throwing

C7C7               D7D7
Something off the Tallahatchie Bridge.

D7D7                A minorAm
A augmentedA year has come and gone since we heard the

         D7D7
News bout Billie Joe


D7D7
Brother married Becky Thompson they

A minorAm           D7D7
Bought a store in Tupe-lo,


G7G7
There was a virus going round Poppa caught

                  D7D7
it and he died last Spring. And now Momma

doesn't seem to wanna do much...of

any -thing

  G7G7
And me, I spend a lot of time pickin

flowers up on Choctaw Ridge.

       D7D7          C7C7
And drop them into the muddy water off the

       D7D7
Tallahatchie Bridge.


END