Hot Ashpalt

Good evening all me jolly lads, I'm glad to see you well 

If you gather all around me boys, a story I will tell  

For I have a situation and begorra and begob 

I can whisper I've a weekly wage of nineteen bob

Tis twelve months come October since I left me native home  

After working in Killarney boys to bring the harvest down

But now I wear a ganzie and around me waist a belt  

I'm the gaffer o' the lads that lay the hot asphalt.

Chorus  

We laid it in the hollow and we laid in the flat 

And if it doesn't last forever, well I'll surety eat me hat

Ah but now I wear a ganzie and around me waist a belt  

I'm the gaffer o the lads that lay the hot asphalt.

The other night a copper comes and says to me "McGuire"  

"Would you kindly let me light me pipe down at your boiler fire?"  

And he planks himself right down in front, with hobnails up, till late 

Says I "Me decent man ye better go and find yer bate"

He up and yells "I'm down on you, I'm up to all your pranks, 

Do I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks?"

And I hit him from the shoulder and I gave him such a belt  

That he landed in the boiler full of hot asphalt.

Chorus

We quickly dragged him out again and put him in the tub  

And with soap and warm water we began to rub and scrub 

A but never the devil the tar came off, it turned as hard as stone  

And with every scrape we gave him you could hear the copper groan 

"I'm thinking" says O'Reilly "That he's lookin like Auld Nick  

And burn me if I'm not inclined to claim him wi me pick" Says I "it would be easier to burn him till he melts 

And to stir him nice and easy in the hot asphalt".

Chorus

You talk about your sailor lads your singers and the rest

Your shoemakers, your tailors but we please the ladies best  

The only ones who know the way their flinty hearts to melt 

Are the lads around the boiler making hot asphalt

With rubbing and with scrubbing sure I caught me death of cold  

And for scientific purposes me body it was sold 

In the Kelvingrove museum boys, I'm hanging in me pelt  

As a monument to the Irish laying hot asphalt.

Chorus