Bonita And Bill Butler-Alison Krauss & Union Station

[00:01.00]Alison Krauss & Union Station - Bonita and Bill Butler [00:02.00] [00:03.00]Album: Paper Airplane (2011) [00:04.00]Songwriter: Sidney Cox [00:05.00] [00:07.26]I grew up in the scantling yards of Wheeling West Virginia [00:13.92]A wheelhouse cub looking for an open door [00:19.00]In the packet ways a Sweeney wed the keel of my Bonita [00:25.65]Just two months from her timbers til she moored [00:31.08]I paid the fare in billet on her maiden voyage to Vicksburg [00:37.23]And talked my way to hand the tiller on the course [00:43.04]In her planks I carved a notch and sealed the vow "Be my Bonita" [00:49.19]And her dowry was my life between the shores [00:54.32] [00:54.85]I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman [01:01.68]From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray [01:06.52]The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running [01:13.39]And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains [01:18.28]The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping [01:24.98]And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved [01:30.04] [01:54.60]On the lake at Bistineau, she set the wharf at Dixie [02:01.15]With a thousand bales of cotton on her main [02:06.39]As the great raft disappeared, the watermark went sinking [02:12.74]And she was stuck right hard, a listing on the bank [02:18.47]With the furnace still a blaze, I stood my last upon her [02:24.98]Then climbed the prow and took a landsman's trade [02:30.59]"A derelict now Malady" said the watch log I've concorded [02:36.56]"Have the bosun sound us eight bells for the change" [02:41.55] [02:42.19]Cause I was born with rouging ways, and she steered me like a woman [02:48.86]From the port calls and the bawds that lead me stray [02:53.75]The calliope serenades, made the old towns come running [03:00.89]And the boys would gamble shards to pull her chains [03:05.89]And I would take to wider walks, so the gin I stopped a drinking [03:13.01]At three scores aloft this crooked frame [03:17.66]The striker's boast would fain me loss, about the wrecks the shoals were keeping [03:24.26]And how the old girl's got poor Billy's ransom saved [03:29.78]