Good evening all me jolly lads
I`m glad to see you`re well
If you`ll gather all around me
now the story I will tell
For I`ve got a situation and begorah and begob
I can whisper
I`ve the weekly wage of nineteen bob
`Tis tvelwe months come October since
I left me native home
After helping in Killarney boys
to bring the harvest down
But now I wear a geansai
and around me waist a belt
I`m the gaffer of the squad
that makes the hot asphalt
Well we laid it in the hollows
and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn`t last forever sure
I swear I`ll eat me hat
Well I`ve wandered up and down
the world but sure I 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 me
pipe down at your boiler fire
And he planks himself right down
in front with hobnails up till late
And says I
Me dacent man you`d better go and find your bate
He ups and yells
I`m down on you I`m up to all yer pranks
Don`t I know you for a traitor
from the Tipperary ranks
Boys I hit straight from the shoulder
and I gave him such a belt
That I knocked him into the boiler
full of hot asphalt
Well we laid it in the hollows
and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn`t last forever sure
I swear I`ll eat me hat
Well I`ve wandered up and down
the world but sure I never felt
any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
We quickly dragged him out again
and we threw him in the tub
And with soap and warm water
we began to rub and scrub
But devil the thing it hardened
and it turned him hard as stone
And with every other rub sure
you could hear the copper groan
I`m thinkin` says O`Reilly
that he`s lookin` like Ould Nick
And burn me if I`m not inclined
to claim him with me pick
Now says I
it would be easier to boil him till he melts
And to stir him nice and easy in the hot asphalt
Well we laid it in the hollows
and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn`t last forever sure
I swear I`ll eat me hat
Well I`ve wandered up and down
the world but sure I never felt
any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt
You may talk about yer sailorlads
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 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 me boys
I`m hangin` in me pelt
As a monument to the Irish making hot asphalt
Well we laid it in the hollows
and we laid it in the flat
And if it doesn`t last forever sure
I swear I`ll eat me hat
Well I`ve wandered up and down
the world but sure I never felt
any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt