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