It’s the day Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahasee Bridge!
Nitpick. He jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
Oops. Further nit. Even if he had jumped off the bridge you named, it would have 2 s’s.
Just yankin’ your chain a little anyrose! 
Well Billy Joe never had a lick of sense. Pass the biscuits, please.
It’s also the day that Neil Diamond got busy with Desiree.
Just another sleepy, dusty, delta day.
Does that mean it’s not the day after today?
er, um, yah. :smack: 
I asked the Mods to fix it
I saw a girl who looked just like you up on Choktow Ridge
I’ll have another piece of apple pie, you know, it don’t seem right
I saw him at the sawmill today on Choctaw Ridge
And now you tell me Billy Joe will jump off the Tallahatchee Bridge?
It’s Billy Joe MacAllister day, as far as I’m concerned.
And in just three months, it’s Papa Rollingstone Day.
That day, I’ll always remember
It was never clearly stated (like most important facts of the story) that Billy Joe jumped on the same day they got the news. It was entirely possible, and I’d say probable, that he jumped on the 2nd and the news just made it down from Choctaw Ridge on the morning of the 3rd of June.
Just one of the less-important speculations raised by Bobby Gentry’s ambiguous storytelling style. Does anyone know a shopkeeper in Tupelo (with a wife neé Becky Tompson) whom they could ask?
Something I’ve always wondered about, and maybe there’s somebody from the Delta who can help me … would you really be chopping cotton, bailing hay and plowing, all the the 3rd of June? I grew up on a farm (in Ontario) and I wonder about these kinds of details.
Curious…seeing this thread made me want to download the song. But I can’t seem to find the original Bobbie Gentry version in iTunes. Lots of covers, but no Bobbie herself. 
I got mine from LimeWire (and if you go that route - look under Bobby as well)
the way I read the Wiki entry the song came from a novel. But it’s still not clear to me if the character is a complete fabrication or not
There’s another [url=http://www.filibustercartoons.com/billyjoe.htm] interesting read.
damn hamsters!!!
intersting read
This gripping publication seems to suggest the cotton harvest takes place in October. I assume when you’re chopping cotton, you’re picking it. I could be wrong about that. The only agricultural product I have any real familiarity with is tobacco.
Probably you could bale hay in June. I think that can be done anytime during the warm months. And I’d think plowing would already be over.
So if you believe me, Bobbie don’t know crap about farming. But then again, neither do I. 
I’m too cheap to pay for LimeWire, but I did find this on YoutTube: It’s Bobbie on “the Smothers Brothers Hour”, doing two numbers. In the first song, she’s accompanied by (apparently) the same dancers from that Mamas & Papas video that was on the board a month ago (Gee, mid-60s pop performers just LOVED interpretive dancers!).