The First Showboat

Yeah a mile around the bend down the Ohio

Comin up the river for the Sunday show

There's a tuba and a banjo and a steam calliope

Sittin on the deck of the big paddlewheel

What a thrill it must have been play in Dixie for the folks

Up and down the river on the first showboat

What a thrill it must have been play in Dixie for the folks

Up and down the river on the first showboat

Yeah well poppa took the kids, momma took the lunch

The gents took the belles and the whiskey took the drunks

But the biggest thrill of all you know it had to be

Way up front playin steam calliope

What a thrill it must have been play in Dixie for the folks

Up and down the river on the first showboat

What a thrill it must have been playin Dixie for the folks

Up and down the river on the first showboat

Yeah there's magic in the air riddle in the rhymes

Slow and easy in the summertime

Yeah an who'd a ever thought it could come to be

That Jim Crows flyin where the eagle ought to be