The Hot Asphalt

Lyrics

[Verse 1] 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 [Chorus] We laid it in thе hollows and we laid it in the flat And if it doesn't last forеver, 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 [Verse 2] 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 [Chorus] 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 [Verse 3] 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" [Chorus] 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 [Instrumental Break] [Verse 4] 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 [Chorus] 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