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Alison Krauss & Union Station - Bonita and Bill Butler |
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Album: Paper Airplane (2011) |
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Songwriter: Sidney Cox |
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I grew up in the scantling yards of Wheeling West Virginia |
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A wheelhouse cub looking for an open door |
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In the packet ways a Sweeney wed the keel of my Bonita |
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Just two months from her timbers til she moored |
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I paid the fare in billet on her maiden voyage to Vicksburg |
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And talked my way to hand the tiller on the course |
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In her planks I carved a notch and sealed the vow "Be my Bonita" |
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And her dowry was my life between the shores |
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I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman |
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From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray |
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The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running |
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And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains |
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The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping |
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And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved |
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On the lake at Bistineau, she set the wharf at Dixie |
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With a thousand bales of cotton on her main |
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As the great raft disappeared, the watermark went sinking |
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And she was stuck right hard, a listing on the bank |
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With the furnace still a blaze, I stood my last upon her |
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Then climbed the prow and took a landsman's trade |
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"A derelict now Malady" said the watch log I've concorded |
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"Have the bosun sound us eight bells for the change" |
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Cause I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman |
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From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray |
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The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running |
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And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains |
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And I would take to wider walks, so the gin I stopped a drinking |
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At three scores aloft this crooked frame |
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The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping |
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And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved |
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