Ode to Billie Joe is a 1967 country song written and performed by Bobbie Gentry.
On Married... with Children, it is heard in the Season 2 episode, "Poppy's by the Tree (Part 1)".
Background[]
The lyrics depict the death of a young boy named Billie Joe MacAllister who committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. The story is told from the first person perspective of a young woman from the Mississippi Delta, noting how her family is rather indifferent to the boy's death. The narrator's mother notes that the daughter is not eating of the food like the rest of the family and then mentions that a preacher had saw Billie Joe and someone who looked a lot like the narrator hanging out together and throw something from the bridge. The song concludes without explaining why Billie Joe jumped or what he and the narrator had thrown from the bridge. Instead, it concludes by stating in the following year, the narrator's brother got married and moved, while her father caught a virus and died, with her mother still distraught over it and the narrator spends her time picking flowers and throwing them off the bridge into the muddy water below.
Usage on Married... with Children[]
It is heard at the beginning of the episode as the couple, Dottie & Harold, who are staying at Poppy's by the Tree, argue about the quality of the motel in 1967.
Part of the 1st and 2nd verses of the song are heard, before Dottie turns off the radio and is eventually killed by the Poppy's Killer.
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"
And Papa said to Mama, as he passed around the blackeyed 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"
And Mama said it was shame about Billie Joe, anyhow
Seems like nothin' ever comes to no good up on Choctaw Ridge
And now Billie 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 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 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 throwin' somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge"
A year has come and gone since we heard the news 'bout Billie 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