Hot Asphalt
Sheet Music (and more information about this song)
Well, good evening all my jolly lads, I'm glad to see you well,
If you gather all around me a story I will tell,
I've got a situation and I've got a handy job,
I can tell you I've a weekly wage of nineteen bob.
'Tis twelve months come October since I left my native home,
After working in Killarney for to cut the harvest down,
And now I wear a Guernsey and around my waist a belt,
I'm the gaffer of the squad that lays the hot asphalt.
Chorus:
Oh! We laid it in the harbour and we laid it in the flat,
And if it doesn't last forever, well I'll surely eat my hat.
I've travelled up and down the world and never have I felt
Any surface that is equal to the hot asphalt.
The other day a policeman comes and says to me "McGuire,
Won't you kindly let me light me pipe down by your boiler fire?"
He stands there right in front of me with coat-tails up so neat,
"Ah", says I: "My decent man! You'd better go and mind your beat."
"Ah, well" says he: "I'm down on you! I'm up to all your pranks!
For I know you for a traitor from the Tipperary ranks!"
I hit him from the shoulder, and I gave him such a belt,
That he landed in the boiler full of hot asphalt.
Chorus
Well we quickly pulled him out again and threw him in a tub,
And with soap and boiling water we began to rub and scrub.
But devil a bit of tar came off and it turned as hard as stone,
And with every rub we gave him you could hear that copper groan.
With the rubbing and the scrubbing sure he caught his death of cold,
And for scientific purposes his body it was sold.
In the Kelvingrove Museum now he's hanging by the belt,
As a monument to the Irish laying hot asphalt.
Chorus
Discography: The Corries
The Dubliners
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