Oh good evening, all my jolly lads, I'm glad to find 

you well

And when you'll gather round me a 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



Oh we quickly pulled 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 moan



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



[Missing verse]



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