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, 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
This song, the third most popular song of 1967, fitting for it's lyrics about June 3rd, is considered an anti-war song that discusses the cruelty of war and the general apathy of the public towards it.
As Gentry told Fred Bronson, “The song is sort of a study in unconscious cruelty. But everybody seems more concerned with what was thrown off the bridge than they are with the thoughtlessness of the people expressed in the song. What was thrown off the bridge really isn’t that important.
Billy Joel Royal's song, written by Joe South, Down in the Boondocks popularized the term "boondocks" in 1960s. Prior to the release of the song, the term was relatively obscure, first introduced to English by soldiers fighting in the Philippine–American War (1899-1902).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boondocks
50 years this spring time, this was Number 8 on the radio charts and got a lot of air play ...
I hadn't heard this song written by Peter Yarrow until last weekend. It really is a pretty innovative song, released on the Late Again album which came out in August 1968, the same week that Peter, Paul and Mary were arrested during the Chicago demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention.
"John Stuart Robertson (14 June 1878 – 5 November 1964) was a Canadian born actor and later film director perhaps best known for his 1920 screen adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, starring John Barrymore."
"Robertson was born in London, Ontario. He broke into filmmaking in 1915 with Vitagraph, then with Famous Players-Lasky, making 57 features in his career. Robertson left film in 1935, amid the increasing prevalence of sound pictures."
More from Wikipedia: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/John_S._Robertson
"Too many mountains, and not enough stairs to climb
Too many churches and not enough truth
Too many people and not enough eyes to see
Too many lives to lead and not enough time"