Hot Asphalt Lyrics - Dubliners

Good evening, all my jolly lads, I'm glad to find you well 

If you'll gather all around me, now, the story I will tell 

For I've got a situation and begorrah and begob 

I can whisper all the weekly wage of nineteen bob 

'Tis twelve months come October since I left me native home 

After helping them Killarney boys to bring the harvest down 

But now I wear the gansey and around me waist a belt 

I'm the gaffer of the squad that makes the hot asphalt 

Well, we laid it in a 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 and 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 decent man, you'd better go and find your bait 

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 a 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 and 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 thinking, says O'Reilly, that he's lookin' like old Nick 

And burn me if I am 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 a 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 and sure I never felt 

Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt 

You may talk about yer 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 lads around the boiler making hot asphalt 

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

For scientific purposes, me body it was sold 

In the Kelvin grove museum, me boys, I'm hangin' in me pelt 

As a monument to the Irish, making hot asphalt 

Well, we laid it in a 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 and sure I never felt 

Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt