Good evenin' all me jolly lads I'm glad to find you well If you gather all around me Now the story I will tell For I've got a situation and begorrah and begob I can whisper I've the weekly wage of nineteen bob 'tIs twelve months come October Since I left me native home After helping in Killarney, boys To bring the harvest down But now I wear the 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 Andi f it doesn't last forever Sure I'll swear I'll eat me hat Well, I've wandered up and down the world 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 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 mind your pate' 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 Andi f it doesn't last forever Sure I'll swear I'll eat me hat Well, I've wandered up and down the world But sure I've 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 Andi f it doesn't last forever Sure I'll swear I'll eat me hat Well, I've wandered up and down the world But sure I've 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 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, mixing hot Asphalt Well we laid it in the hollows And we laid it in the flat Andi f it doesn't last forever Sure I'll swear I'll eat me hat Well, I've wandered up and down the world But sure I've never felt Any surface that was equal to the hot Asphalt Well we laid it in the hollows And we laid it in the flat Andi f it doesn't last forever Sure I'll swear I'll eat me hat Well, I've wandered up and down the world But sure I've never felt Any surface that was equal to the hot asphalt