"The Hot Asphalt" lyrics
Well, good evening all me jolly lads I'm glad to find you well
If you gather all around me now a story I will tell
For I have a situation and begorrah and begob
I can whisper I've me weekly wage of nineteen bob
It's twelve months come October since I've left me native home
After helping them Killarney boys to bring the harvest down
But now I wear a geansaí and around me waist a belt
I'm the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
The other night a copper comes and he says to me, "McGuire
Would you kindly let me light a duddy at your boiler fire?"
Well he planks himself straight down in front, with coattails up so neat
Says I'm a decent man, d'you ever go and mind your bait
He ups and yells, "I'm down on you, I'm up to all yer pranks
For don't I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks?"
Boys, I swung straight from the shoulder and I hit him such a belt
That I knocked him into the boiler full of hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
We quickly pulled him out again and we fired him into the tub
With soap and boilin' water we began to rub and scrub
Oh, but divil the taste of tar come off and it turned him hard as stone
With every other rub, sure you could hear that bobby groan
"I'm thinking", says O'Reilly, "now he's lookin' like old Nick
Sure burn me if I am not inclined to cleave him with me pick"
Oh, says I, "It would be easier to boil him till he melts
To stir him nice and easy in the hot asphalt"
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
You may talk about your sailor lads, ballad singers and the rest
Your shoemakers and your tailors but we please the ladies best
The only ones who know the way their flinty hearts to melt
Are the boys around the boiler stirring their hot asphalt
With rubbing and with scrubbing, sure I caught me death of cold
For scientific purposes, me body has been sold
In the Kelvingrove Museum, me boys, I'm hangin' in me pelt
As a monument to the Irish, making the hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
If you gather all around me now a story I will tell
For I have a situation and begorrah and begob
I can whisper I've me weekly wage of nineteen bob
It's twelve months come October since I've left me native home
After helping them Killarney boys to bring the harvest down
But now I wear a geansaí and around me waist a belt
I'm the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
The other night a copper comes and he says to me, "McGuire
Would you kindly let me light a duddy at your boiler fire?"
Well he planks himself straight down in front, with coattails up so neat
Says I'm a decent man, d'you ever go and mind your bait
He ups and yells, "I'm down on you, I'm up to all yer pranks
For don't I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks?"
Boys, I swung straight from the shoulder and I hit him such a belt
That I knocked him into the boiler full of hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
We quickly pulled him out again and we fired him into the tub
With soap and boilin' water we began to rub and scrub
Oh, but divil the taste of tar come off and it turned him hard as stone
With every other rub, sure you could hear that bobby groan
"I'm thinking", says O'Reilly, "now he's lookin' like old Nick
Sure burn me if I am not inclined to cleave him with me pick"
Oh, says I, "It would be easier to boil him till he melts
To stir him nice and easy in the hot asphalt"
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
You may talk about your sailor lads, ballad singers and the rest
Your shoemakers and your tailors but we please the ladies best
The only ones who know the way their flinty hearts to melt
Are the boys around the boiler stirring their hot asphalt
With rubbing and with scrubbing, sure I caught me death of cold
For scientific purposes, me body has been sold
In the Kelvingrove Museum, me boys, I'm hangin' in me pelt
As a monument to the Irish, making the hot asphalt
We laid it in the hollows and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn't last forever, well I swear I'll ate me hat
Well, I wandered up and down the road but sure I've never felt
Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
