Here are the lyrics tidied up a bit:


JACKET RIVER
Ray Griff

I was passin' by the Winfield Hotel one Saturday night
Ringin' that ol' go-to-meetin' bell
When my ears picked up what sounded like the makin's of a fight
Comin' from the bar in the hotel.

Just about that time the door swung wide and soaked in beer and sweat
A dozen lumberjacks came out to play.
I was somewhere round the age of ten but I did not forget
Those words I heard big Sherman Becker say:

CHORUS: Hold my coat. Gimme a rock. I'm from Jacket River.
I can bring a grizzly to its knees.
Hold my coat. Gimme a rock. I'm from Jacket River.
That rough and rowdy life was made for me.

I was drivin' truck and haulin' gravel down to Pea Haul's place.
At seventeen I was some kind of sight,
But Raymond Fenwick never should have called me baby face.
I spoke these words, then I turned out his lights: CHORUS

I was twenty-one and Betty Hanson was my favorite queen.
I looked at her with eyes that did adore.
We were dancin' when some loudmouth started sayin' things obscene.
I warned him once, then laid him on the floor. CHORUS

Hold my coat. Gimme a rock. I'm from Jacket River.
That rough and rowdy life was made for me.


[Sung by Ray Griff on "Canada, My Native Land", Focus, 1991.

[At Ray Griff's web site, he uses the spelling "Jacket River" although I suspect he means Jacquet River, "a Canadian rural community in Restigouche County, New Brunswick."]