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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Joe Offer 2007 Obit: Bob Dyer of Boonville, Missouri + songs (11) ADD: Huckleberry Finn (Bob Dyer) 31 Aug 18


Here's a Bob Dyer favorite that's been recorded by a variety of people:

HUCKLEBERRY FINN
(Bob Dyer)

There's a moon on the Mississippi River tonight,
A side-wheel steamboat making up time.
A raft drifting by with a bunch of drunk men,
I'm catfishing with my old friend, Jim.
They call me Huckleberry Finn, Finn, Huckleberry Finn,
Finn, Huckleberry Finn.

Well, I lived for a while up in Hannibal town,
But daddy was a drunkard, and he beat me around.
I left my friends, Joe, Tom Sawyer and Ben,
And went off a-rafting with Jim.
They call me…

Well, we run by nights, and we tied up days.
Dawn turned the river to a smoky haze.
Lazin' in the shallows doing just as we please,
Me and Jim layin' there a-dreaming.
They call me…

Well, life slides by when you're living on a raft.
You never rightly know just what's gonna pass:
Sometimes danger, sometimes fun,
Sometimes, it's just a piece of driftwood.
They call me…

Well, I never much cared for the civilized life.
I'd rather be out on the river at night,
Laying on my back and looking up at the stars,
Smoking on my pipe and just drifting.
They call me...

Steamboat chimbley's a'spewin' out sparks,
Fiddle music drifting by in the dark,
There's a hoot owl calling from a cottonwood tree.
This lonesome old river keeps a' rollin'.
They call me…

[repeat first verse]

Transcribed from the Bob Dyer Songteller album

On the Bok-Muir-Trickett album Language of the Heart

and the Cathy Barton & Dave Para album Living on the River (click for sound sample)


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