Alison Krauss, Union Station - Bonita and Bill Butler lyrics

I grew up in the scantling
Yards of Wheeling West Virginia
A wheelhouse cub looking for an open door
In the packet ways a Sweeney wed
The keel of my Bonita
Just two months from her
Timbers til she moored
I paid the fare in billet on
Her maiden voyage to Vicksburg
And talked my way to hand
The tiller on the course
In her planks I carved a notch and
Sealed the vow "Be my Bonita"
And her dowry was my life between the shores

I was born with rouging ways
And she steered me like a woman
From the port calls and the
Bawds that lead me stray
The calliope serenades
Made the old towns come running
And the boys would gamble shards
To pull her chains
The striker’s boast would fain me loss
About the wrecks the shoals were keeping
And how the old girl’s got
Poor Billy’s ransom saved

On the lake at Bistineau
She set the wharf at Dixie
With a thousand bales of cotton on her main
As the Great Raft disappeared
The watermark went sinking
And she was stuck right hard
A listing on the bank
With the furnace still a blaze
I stood my last upon her
Then climbed the prow and
Took a landsman’s trade
"A derelict now Milady" said the
Watch log I’ve concorded
"Have the bosun sound us eight
Bells for the change"

Cause I was born with rouging ways
And she steered me like a woman
From the port calls and the
Bawds that lead me stray
The calliope serenades
Made the old towns come running
And the boys would gamble shards
To pull her chains
And I would take to widder walks
So the gin I stopped a drinking
At three scores aloft this crooked frame
The striker’s boast would fain me loss
About the wrecks the shoals were keeping
And how the old girl’s got
Poor Billy’s ransom saved